Cheap BBQ Sides: Feed the Table for Less Than the Meat

The sides at a Swiss BBQ often end up costing more than the meat — but only if you buy them ready-made. A full homemade spread for eight people — potato salad, coleslaw, tomato-mozzarella, garlic flatbread and two dips — comes to roughly CHF 14–16 in total, or under CHF 2 per person. Buy the same spread at the deli counter and you pay CHF 5–8 per person before anyone touches a bratwurst.

The recipes and prices below reflect what Migros, Coop, Lidl and Aldi are actually charging in June 2026, so the numbers hold up at the checkout, not just on paper.

Which BBQ sides are the cheapest per person?

The cheapest sides are built on staples — potatoes, pasta, cabbage, flour — that cost very little per portion even in Switzerland. Here is what each classic costs when you make it for eight people:

• Potato salad: 2 kg potatoes (CHF 1.99 at Lidl), dressing from yoghurt, mustard, pickles and a splash of vinegar — about CHF 4.00 total, or CHF 0.50 per person.
• Pasta salad: 500 g fusilli (CHF 0.89), cherry tomatoes, a red pepper and a simple oil-and-vinegar dressing — about CHF 3.40, or CHF 0.45 per person.
• Coleslaw: half a white cabbage, two carrots and a yoghurt-mayo dressing — about CHF 2.60, or CHF 0.35 per person.
• Tomato-mozzarella: 500 g tomatoes and two 150 g mozzarella balls with basil — about CHF 3.50, or CHF 0.45 per person.
• Garlic flatbread: flour, yeast, olive oil and garlic, baked in the oven or thrown straight on the grill — about CHF 1.20, or CHF 0.15 per person.
• Corn on the cob: four cobs, halved to serve eight — about CHF 4.80, or CHF 0.60 per person. The priciest of the classics, but still cheaper than any deli salad.

Nothing here requires more skill than boiling, chopping and stirring. The savings come almost entirely from replacing ready-made products with twenty minutes of your own time.

What does a full sides spread for eight actually cost?

Pick four sides and two dips and the whole table is covered. A well-balanced combination looks like this:

• Potato salad — CHF 4.00
• Coleslaw — CHF 2.60
• Tomato-mozzarella — CHF 3.50
• Garlic flatbread — CHF 1.20
• Hummus — CHF 1.80
• Quark-herb dip — CHF 2.10

Total: CHF 15.20 for eight people — CHF 1.90 per person. Swap in pasta salad or corn on the cob depending on your crowd; the total stays in the CHF 14–16 range either way.

Compare that to the ready-made route: deli salads run CHF 2.20–3.50 per 200 g portion, and dips CHF 3.50–4.50 per small tub. Covering eight people that way easily reaches CHF 45–60 — more than the meat itself. Together with a smart meat shop, the sides above fit comfortably inside a full BBQ for six under CHF 40.

Which store is cheapest for side ingredients?

For the staples that carry these recipes, Lidl and Aldi are consistently cheapest, while Migros and Coop close the gap on fresh produce when their weekly Aktionen line up.

The whole basket above costs roughly CHF 12–13 at Lidl or Aldi versus CHF 18–19 at Migros or Coop — a 30–35% gap on identical staples. Denner is worth a stop for drinks to go with the spread, and if you are catering for twenty guests or more, Aligro's bulk packs of potatoes, quark and drinks push the per-person cost down even further.

How do you make dips cheaper than store-bought?

Dips have the biggest homemade-versus-ready-made gap of anything on the BBQ table. Three that take ten minutes combined:

• Hummus: one 400 g can of chickpeas (CHF 0.79), a spoon of tahini or peanut butter, lemon juice, garlic and olive oil — about CHF 1.80 for a large bowl. A 200 g supermarket tub costs CHF 3.50–4.50 and serves half as many people.
• Quark-herb dip: 500 g quark (CHF 1.60), chives, garlic and lemon zest — about CHF 2.10, and it doubles as a topping for grilled potatoes.
• Tzatziki: 500 g nature yoghurt (CHF 0.89), half a grated cucumber, garlic and a little olive oil — about CHF 2.00.

All three keep for two to three days in the fridge, so leftovers are a feature, not a problem. The pattern repeats across the whole table: homemade nearly always beats ready-made on price, and rarely loses on taste.

How do you prep ahead and avoid waste?

Sides are the most forgiving part of a grill evening because almost everything improves with resting time. Potato salad and coleslaw genuinely taste better after a night in the fridge, so make them the evening before. Mix the flatbread dough in the morning; it needs one slow rise and two minutes of shaping. Only the tomato-mozzarella should be assembled last minute so the tomatoes stay firm.

Waste is easy to control if you plan the encore: leftover pasta salad is tomorrow's office lunch, hummus becomes a sandwich spread, and coleslaw sits happily next to any weekday dinner for two more days. If you want more warm-weather ideas at this price point, the summer salads under CHF 3 all follow the same staple-first logic.

The dressings for every recipe on this page come from pantry basics — oil, vinegar, mustard, salt, dried herbs — so the shopping list stays short. Eini's algorithm tracks the weekly Aktionen across Coop, Migros, Lidl, Aldi, Denner and Aligro and turns your BBQ plan into a sorted grocery list, so you see the cheapest store for each item before you leave the house.