If you are visiting Israel on a budget, this article is for you. The food prices in Israel is insanely high! What is a tourist supposed to do? Cook your own food! Just like one of those days in college! (Or sort of!)
Maybe you’d rather spend money on staying a few more days in Israel than spending a big chunk of your budget on eating on. It can be worthwhile!
Is Israel Really That Expensive?
Well…
A proper meal would cost you $30-$40 per person. A regular meal would cost you $20. A bigmac in Israel would cost you $14. A falafel sandwich costs $3. A plate of hummus costs $5.
Dining costs in Israel are high. But it really depends on where you come from. But from where I come from… we get a nice business lunch for $3-6, and it’s very good for value and taste is amazing. (Yay visit Taiwan!) Any meal above $15 would be in a relatively fancy setting, where you go for once a week or two weeks. So for me… either I don’t compare, or I end up spending more money than I want.
And the other reason is the kosher rule, you cannot have cheese and meat together. Or you cannot have yogurt and meat in the same meal. So if you aren’t used to such rule, your stomach will feel something is missing.
Cook Your Own Meals
I usually have cereals for breakfast. So let’s take a took of our lunches and dinners! We brought our own lunch boxes to Israel. For that lunch, we had chicken rice, chicken, and fruit (loquats). For the 4 of us, we used 1 kg of chicken, 1 kg of rice, and about 1 kg of loquats. Including seasonings, the cost was about 60 shekels in total. It was satisfying.
To replace chicken rice, you can simply cook egg fried rice or fried noodles.
Making rice balls is fun and convenient too! You can get Sushi rice from any supermarket in Israel. If you eat with milk, that’s not kosher but my point is that it costs only 4 shekels!
If you aren’t big on rice…. making sandwiches isn’t a bad option. A box of ham (not really ham) is 35 shekels for 700 grams. Yogurt (for one) is for 4 shekels, bread is for 1 shekel. So for 4-6 people, the cost is around 60 shekels.
For dinner, we had noodles in Chinese style. This is around 30 shekels for 5 people.
You can get sushi sheets and pickles from Asian supermarkets in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. This was around 30 shekels too.
What are Grocery Prices like in Israel?
Taxes are pretty high in Israel, so prices are high in Israel. After visiting Israel, even Amsterdam and London seems to relatively cheap.
These are supermarket prices, check here for more prices:
- Milk 1 liter 5-7 shekels (cheap!!!)
- Hummus 10-15 shekels
- 1 kg Chicken. 20-25 shekels
- 1 dozen eggs 10-12 shekels
- Bread 7 shekels
- 1 kg rice 10 shekels
- 1L juice 6-8 shekels
