03 · From the Fridge

Good Dinners from What You Have

Flexible meals using simple ingredients.

A dinner bowl of greens, sliced chicken, tomatoes and cucumber

There is a particular kind of optimism required to open the refrigerator at 5:47 p.m. and believe dinner is somewhere inside it.

  • Half a lemon.
  • Three eggs.
  • A handful of spinach.
  • Parmesan.
  • One suspiciously small piece of chicken.

Nothing appears to go together.

This is usually when dinner gets interesting.

Because a good weeknight meal doesn't always begin with a recipe. Sometimes it begins with looking at what you have and knowing what to do with it.

Don't look for a meal.
Look for the pieces of one.

The Five Things

Instead of asking what you can make, find these:

  1. 01

    Something to build on

    Pasta · rice · potatoes · bread · tortillas · grains

  2. 02

    Something with substance

    Eggs · beans · chicken · sausage · tuna · cheese

  3. 03

    Something fresh

    Greens · tomatoes · herbs · zucchini · frozen peas absolutely count

  4. 04

    Something with flavor

    Garlic · Parmesan · pesto · mustard · olives · salsa

  5. 05

    Something bright

    Lemon · lime · vinegar · pickles

You don't need all five.

Four is dinner.
Three is probably still dinner.

An open refrigerator with eggs, Parmesan, lemons, tomatoes, greens, herbs, olives and jars

If You Have Pasta

Boil the pasta.

Look around.

Garlic + greens + Parmesan? Dinner.

Tomatoes + olive oil + basil? Dinner.

Butter + lemon + frozen peas? Also dinner.

Pasta is very forgiving about your lack of planning.

If You Have Eggs

Eggs + almost anything = dinner.

Greens + Parmesan
Frittata.
Leftover potatoes + onion
Crispy skillet eggs.
Tortillas + cheese + salsa
Breakfast tacos at 7 p.m.
Rice + whatever vegetable is left
Fried rice.

Calling it breakfast for dinner makes it sound intentional.

Crispy golden potatoes, wilted greens and two fried eggs with Parmesan in a cream skillet

If You Have Bread

Good bread has rescued more dinners than we give it credit for.

Ricotta + tomatoes
Toast.
White beans + lemon + herbs
Toast.
Mushrooms + Parmesan
Toast.
Fried egg + whatever else
You know where this is going.

Put it on toast.

An extremely respectable dinner strategy.

Three open-faced sourdough toasts with ricotta and tomatoes, white beans and herbs, and mushrooms with Parmesan

The Little Things That Save Dinner

Keep a few things around that make unrelated ingredients start behaving like dinner.

In the pantry
Pasta · beans · good tuna · breadcrumbs · rice
In the fridge
Eggs · Parmesan · lemons · Dijon · something pickled
In the freezer
Peas · bread · broth · a few portions of something you made when you had your life together

Before You Decide There's Nothing to Eat

  • Cook something.
  • Toast something.
  • Put an egg on something.
  • Add Parmesan.
  • Squeeze a lemon over it.
  • Taste.

You may be considerably closer to dinner than you thought.

Dinner Doesn't Have to Start with a Plan

Some of the meals we make again and again were never really planned in the first place.

They came from what was left, what needed using, and what sounded good.

That's a useful kind of cooking to know.

Not how to follow every recipe.

How to look at what you already have and see possibility.

There's dinner in there.

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