Restaurant vs Home Cooking Statistics in 2026

Restaurant vs Home Cooking Statistics: what the numbers say

Restaurant and home cooking are often discussed as lifestyle choices, but the numbers show a much sharper tradeoff: spending, time, and diet quality all move in different directions depending on where food is prepared.

This article pulls together the strongest available figures on food-at-home spending, food-away-from-home spending, meal patterns, consumer habits, calorie trends, and time use so the comparison stays grounded in data.

Fast facts
Spending trends
What households buy and how often
Diet quality and calorie patterns
Time spent cooking at home
What the combined picture means

Fast facts

Big number: In 2023, total food expenditures averaged $9,985 per consumer unit (BLS Consumer expenditures in 2023).

Home-cooking benchmark: In 2023, food at home expenditures averaged $6,053 per consumer unit, while food away from home expenditures averaged $3,933 per consumer unit (BLS Consumer expenditures in 2023).

Share shift: In 2022, food away from home accounted for 39.0 percent of food spending (BLS Consumer expenditures in 2022).

Time reality: In 2024, U.S. adults spent 0.67 hours per day on food preparation and cleanup, and 63.1 percent of the population did any food preparation and cleanup on an average day (BLS American Time Use Survey 2024).

A few patterns appear immediately:

Home cooking remains the larger single spending category in the latest annual spending figures.
Restaurant and other away-from-home spending is still a major share of the food budget.
The share of food spending going to restaurants rose over time in the available series.
Cooking at home is common, but it is not a full-time daily activity for most adults.

Spending trends

Restaurant vs home cooking spending over time

The clearest comparison comes from the annual consumer expenditure series. The food-at-home line and the food-away-from-home line both rose over time, but they moved differently in the pandemic period and the recovery years that followed.

Year	Total food expenditures	Food at home	Food away from home
2019	$8,169	$4,643	$3,526
2020	$7,310	$4,935	$2,375
2021	$8,289	$5,259	$3,030
2022	$9,343	$5,703	$3,639
2023	$9,985	$6,053	$3,933

(BLS Consumer expenditures in 2023)

The table shows three important points:

Food at home stayed ahead of food away from home in every year shown (BLS Consumer expenditures in 2023).
Total food spending rebounded strongly after 2020, rising from $7,310 to $9,985 by 2023 (BLS Consumer expenditures in 2023).
Food away from home recovered quickly after its 2020 drop, climbing from $2,375 in 2020 to $3,933 in 2023 (BLS Consumer expenditures in 2023).

The pandemic dip and the rebound

The year-over-year movement in restaurant spending makes the shift easier to see.

Food away from home spending fell 32.6 percent in 2020 versus 2019 (BLS Consumer expenditures in 2023).
It then rose 27.6 percent in 2021 versus 2020 (BLS Consumer expenditures in 2023).
It rose 20.1 percent in 2022 versus 2021 (BLS Consumer expenditures in 2023).
It rose 8.1 percent in 2023 versus 2022 (BLS Consumer expenditures in 2023).

That pattern matters because it shows restaurant spending was not only resilient, it was volatile. Home food spending, by contrast, moved upward more steadily in the same series.

Food at home stayed the larger spend line

Food at home expenditures rose from $4,643 in 2019 to $6,053 in 2023 (BLS Consumer expenditures in 2023).

Food away from home expenditures rose from $3,526 in 2019 to $3,933 in 2023 (BLS Consumer expenditures in 2023).

That means the gap between the two categories widened in absolute dollars across the four-year window. If the question is whether households spend more on groceries or restaurants, the answer in this series is consistently groceries.

What inflation pressure looks like in each category

The CPI-U series adds another layer because it tracks price movement, not just spending totals.

Food at home CPI-U was 241.775 in 2019 and 302.929 in 2023 (BLS Consumer expenditures in 2023).
Food away from home CPI-U was 284.410 in 2019 and 354.256 in 2023 (BLS Consumer expenditures in 2023).
Food at home CPI-U rose 11.4 percent in 2022 (BLS Consumer expenditures in 2023).
Food away from home CPI-U rose 7.7 percent in 2022 (BLS Consumer expenditures in 2023).

Both categories became more expensive, but the restaurant side started from a higher index level in the series shown. That does not mean every restaurant meal cost more than every grocery basket, but it does show the away-from-home category carried a higher indexed price level in the published comparison.

What households buy and how often

Spending totals are one thing. Participation tells a different part of the story: who actually pays for each category during the year.

Purchase participation by category

Year	Reported food at home spending	Reported food away from home spending
2019	85.3%	74.4%
2020	81.1%	60.2%
2021	82.7%	64.8%
2022	81.9%	65.9%

(BLS Consumer expenditures in 2022)

The participation numbers are useful because they show restaurants are common, but still not as universal as grocery spending.

In every year shown, more consumer units reported food at home spending than food away from home spending (BLS Consumer expenditures in 2022).
Food at home participation stayed above 80 percent in all four years shown (BLS Consumer expenditures in 2022).
Food away from home participation fell sharply in 2020, when it dropped to 60.2 percent, then rose again in 2021 and 2022 (BLS Consumer expenditures in 2022).

Meal-by-meal restaurant behavior

The 2018 meal-appeal figures show which restaurant occasions matter most.

52.8 percent of respondents purchased lunch away from home (BLS Meal Appeal: Patterns of Expenditures on Food away from Home).
50.2 percent purchased dinner away from home (BLS Meal Appeal: Patterns of Expenditures on Food away from Home).
30.2 percent purchased breakfast and brunch away from home (BLS Meal Appeal: Patterns of Expenditures on Food away from Home).
35.1 percent purchased snacks and nonalcoholic beverages away from home (BLS Meal Appeal: Patterns of Expenditures on Food away from Home).

That spread suggests lunch and dinner are the strongest restaurant occasions, while breakfast and brunch remain much more home-based.

Weekly restaurant spending by meal

The same source breaks spending into weekly meal categories.

Dinner away from home averaged $28 per week (BLS Meal Appeal: Patterns of Expenditures on Food away from Home).
Lunch away from home averaged $18 per week (BLS Meal Appeal: Patterns of Expenditures on Food away from Home).
Breakfast and brunch away from home averaged $6 per week (BLS Meal Appeal: Patterns of Expenditures on Food away from Home).
Snacks and nonalcoholic beverages away from home averaged $5 per week (BLS Meal Appeal: Patterns of Expenditures on Food away from Home).
Total food away from home spending averaged $3,459 per consumer unit, or about $67 per week (BLS Meal Appeal: Patterns of Expenditures on Food away from Home).

This breakdown gives a practical picture of restaurant spending intensity:

Dinner is the largest single restaurant meal category.
Lunch is the second-largest restaurant meal category.
Breakfast and snack spending are much smaller by comparison.

Diet quality and calorie patterns

Restaurant vs home cooking statistics are not only about dollars. They also show up in diet composition and calorie intake.

Calories and food-energy sources changed over time

From 1977-1978 to 2017-2018, reported calorie intake rose 15 percent, from 1,807 calories to 2,093 calories per person per day (USDA ERS Food Consumption, Nutrient Intakes, and Diet Quality - Summary Findings).

The source also shows a major change in where dietary energy came from:

The share of food energy from fast food rose from 5.9 percent to 16.3 percent from 1977 to 2018 (USDA ERS Food Consumption, Nutrient Intakes, and Diet Quality - Summary Findings).
The share of food energy from restaurant food more than doubled from 3.3 percent to 7.8 percent over the same period (USDA ERS Food Consumption, Nutrient Intakes, and Diet Quality - Summary Findings).

These are large structural shifts. Even without assuming causation, the numbers make one thing plain: restaurant food became a much bigger part of the U.S. food-energy mix.

Restaurant foods and food-at-home foods differ in nutrient density

In 2017-2018, the USDA ERS summary found restaurant and fast-food foods were lower than food at home in:

Fiber
Calcium
Iron
Fruits
Dairy
Whole grains
Nuts
Seeds
Soy products

(USDA ERS Food Consumption, Nutrient Intakes, and Diet Quality - Summary Findings)

The same source found restaurant and fast-food foods were higher than food at home in:

Saturated fats
Sodium
Refined grains

(USDA ERS Food Consumption, Nutrient Intakes, and Diet Quality - Summary Findings)

That combination is important because it shows the restaurant-versus-home comparison is not just about cost. The food environment differs in composition too.

How to read the nutrition signal

The nutrition data do not mean every home-cooked meal is healthy or every restaurant meal is poor quality. They do show the aggregate pattern reported in the source:

Food at home is more likely to contribute nutrients associated with diet quality goals.
Restaurant and fast-food foods are more likely to contribute the opposite profile in the categories listed above.

For readers comparing meal strategies, that makes home cooking the more controllable option in the published nutrient comparison.

Time spent cooking at home

The time-use series helps explain why restaurant spending remains so persistent even when groceries are cheaper overall.

Food preparation is common, but it is not all-day work

In 2024, U.S. adults spent 0.67 hours per day on food preparation and cleanup, and 63.1 percent of the population did any food preparation and cleanup on an average day (BLS American Time Use Survey 2024).

In 2023, those figures were 0.65 hours per day and 61.2 percent respectively (BLS American Time Use Survey 2023).

The difference is small year to year, which suggests the daily time burden of cooking stayed fairly stable in the available data.

Men and women spent different amounts of time

The 2024 time-use data show a meaningful gender gap in food preparation and cleanup time:

Men spent 0.46 hours per day on food preparation and cleanup (BLS American Time Use Survey 2024).
Women spent 0.86 hours per day on food preparation and cleanup (BLS American Time Use Survey 2024).

The same general gap appears in the 2023 data:

Men spent 0.43 hours per day (BLS American Time Use Survey 2023).
Women spent 0.85 hours per day (BLS American Time Use Survey 2023).

That difference is one reason restaurant spending and home cooking should not be viewed only through price. Time availability is part of the equation too.

Household labor gives more context

The broader household activity figures show how food preparation fits into daily life.

In 2024, total household activities averaged 2.01 hours per day (BLS American Time Use Survey 2024).
In 2024, women averaged 2.34 hours per day on total household activities, versus 1.67 hours for men (BLS American Time Use Survey 2024).

Food preparation is one part of a larger household workload. That makes restaurant meals, takeout, and other away-from-home options understandable as a time-saving response, even when food at home is less expensive in the expenditure series.

What the combined picture means

The cost picture is not one-dimensional

If you only compare the 2023 annual spending totals, home cooking is the lower-cost category in the sense that households spent $6,053 on food at home and $3,933 on food away from home, but the home category is also the larger share of total food spending (BLS Consumer expenditures in 2023).

That means the real question is usually not whether households choose one or the other exclusively. It is how often they split spending across both.

The data show away-from-home spending is not a minor add-on:

It accounted for 44 percent of all food spending in 2018 (BLS Meal Appeal: Patterns of Expenditures on Food away from Home).
It accounted for 39.0 percent of food spending in 2022 (BLS Consumer expenditures in 2022).
It reached $3,933 per consumer unit in 2023 (BLS Consumer expenditures in 2023).

So even though groceries remain the larger line item, restaurants are still a major line in the family budget.

Home cooking remains the dominant everyday baseline

The strongest evidence for home cooking?s role is not one single number. It is the combination of participation, spending, and time use:

More consumer units report food at home spending than food away from home spending in every year shown (BLS Consumer expenditures in 2022).
Food at home spending was higher than food away from home spending in each annual expenditure series year shown (BLS Consumer expenditures in 2023).
Food preparation and cleanup remained a daily activity for a majority of adults in 2024, but it still averaged less than an hour per day (BLS American Time Use Survey 2024).

The strongest takeaway from the statistics

Restaurant and home cooking are best understood as two linked parts of the food system rather than as opposites.

Home cooking is the more frequent and more universal category.
Restaurant spending is the larger convenience-driven alternative and a substantial share of total food spending.
Nutrient density patterns tilt differently across the two categories.
Time use helps explain why households keep both options in play.

For readers comparing food budgets, meal planning, or health tradeoffs, those four ideas capture the core of the available data from the supplied sources.