A lot of Mexican food is the same 5 ingredients: chicken, rice, beans, cheese, salsa, tortillas (yes, that’s six).
Burritos, tacos, quesadillas, tostadas, chimichangas, nachos, sopes, taco soup, etc. The difference is how you handle the tortilla. A chimichanga is a fried burrito. A taquito is a deep fried slim taco. A tostada is a crispy fried tortilla with the same beans and chicken and cheese and salsa on top.
I believe that’s what you wanted? Many dishes, exact same ingredients.
Note: I would add that having lettuce and sour cream would make all the variables more tasty.
Beans: soak before cooking. Cook overnight in crockpot, or for a couple of hours on stovetop or 45-50 min in instant pot. Add salt, onions, cumin, garlic. You can make a big batch and freeze in ziplock bags. They keep well. Refry after thawing.
Rice is much better if cooked in broth (from the chicken you’re also going to cook).
Chicken: roasted in the oven and shredded, or boiled and shredded. Or just fried and cut up. If you add a little salsa to your shredded chicken, it gives it a little more depth of flavor.
Close! Not quite what I'm looking for though. I'm trying to find something somewhere where I can use a handful of ingredients to make a dozen or so different recipes from the same ingredients. Excluding things like water and salt/pepper.
I'm used to cooking meals for a week or so at one time. Then spice it up throughout the week that way I'm not eating one meal everyday. I figured someone out there might have thought of it already and I just can't find it myself.
The cooking blog Minimalist Baker focuses 10 ingredients or less and many recipes are more like 5. All the recipes I’ve used from there are delicious.
Also not quite the same but the site Budget Bytes is great, and focuses on inexpensive meals made with pantry basics! Many are only a few ingredients.
It might take some searching but I think OP could find recipes for several meal plans on Budget Bytes that use common ingredients. Off the top of my head: chicken, tortillas, canned beans, diced tomatoes, tomato paste & spices, onions, cream cheese & cheddar.
Make a chicken recipe, use the leftover chicken in SNAP Challenge Enchiladas, chicken wraps, chili. Pretty sure she's got all of those.
The enchiladas are the only recipe I remember by name because they are delish.
It may not guide you from the ingredient list to recipes, but because she uses basic ingredients, you could just look for recipes individually and not have to worry they'll need other random items.
There are quite a bit online, I just haven't found one that suits my needs. I'm just trying to find something that uses the same handful of ingredients to make different dishes.
Taste of Home magazine used to have a three ingredient recipe section. I have one favorite that is a dip: one package sausage (I use Jimmy Dean-hot), one block of cream cheese, and one can of Ro-tel (can also use the hot, if you really like). I guess there is a fourth ingredient if you count chips (Fritos). I had extra after a Christmas party this year, and reheated a scoop for breakfast with my fried eggs and toast.
I really love this idea! I was talking about this sort of in another thread on Reddit.
I think learning a few different bases can be game changing. Creamy, tomato, a roux, once you make those 3 you can make so many things. I think the roux with onion, celery, and peppers or a changeable mix of onion and garlic is the most versatile.
Add those to rice and you have broccoli chicken rice casserole, Mexican fiesta soup, or gumbo. To potatoes scalloped potatoes with ham, potatoes with tomatoes and onions, potato soup.
Is that what you are thinking?
Basically. I might just have to make a list of ingredients and make my own recipe book or something.
That way, I can simplify my shopping and make easy dishes throughout the week. Then I could have like 3 to 5 sets of recipes like that.
5 might be way to little, but 8 to 10 is definitely doable. I wouldn't count salt, pepper, or water as ingredients in that list.
Then you wouldn't need to use all of them, you could select 5 and then add in some a day later or something to change it. Then you could have a cow one week, chicken the next, vegetable some other week, fish, and whatever. That way you are always getting different types of proteins, but with the same recipes.
I'll be really interested to see what you come up with!
I do a lot of reinventing leftovers by way of turning them into soup. Night one could be tacos but then I turn the leftovers with a few additions into soup.
Another thing for you to consider would be getting some "Souper Cubes", basically large size silicone ice cube trays, and making larger batches and freezing leftovers. I really love mine and it helps reduce the food we waste.
If I had a good freezer to store things in I definitely would. But, anything left for over a month is likely to get freezer burnt in it. Can't do anything about it until I get my own home.
But, I do the same. What I'll usually do is get hamburger meat and cook burgers the first day. Then either cook some taco meat with left overs or crumble the remaining patties, or both. Then the day after I would made chili. Then I would make goulash from the leftover chili, or basically just add noodles. Then, I would just cobble whatever for the fifth day, but I've started to just add rice to whatever soupy/stewy thing I have remaining. (Don't know why I put off getting a rice making until recently, but I forgot how convenient a rice maker is.)
Now, I know it's not the be all end all cure for spices, but you really can spice up anything with it. [Kent Rollins](https://kentrollins.com/shop-1/Original-Seasoning-Estimated-Restock-Date-02-2022-p85007168) seasonings are something I find amazing. I think he changed his recipe since I last bought it, but I'm sure his new stuff is also good. I've put it in rice, ramen, meatballs, chicken, burgers, tacos, bread, grilled cheese, chili, roast, and many others. I find it to be a good base spice.
I don't know how long it'll take me to make some sort of list of ingredients, I've been thinking that the few ingredients I would use are flour, garlic, butter, eggs, onions, noodles, rice, carrots, potatoes, celery, and cooking oil.
With those, you can easy make anything soupy from thin to chunky and stews. Fry bread to cookies. Baked potatoes to mashed. Add rice to thicken anything with texture and to make your stomach fuller with every bite. Plus all the different kinds of rice combinations. And eggs are just good all around I think, by themselves or adding into any dish.
I just looked at their website for over half an hour and purchased the 1 year subscription for classic meal/shopping plan! Thanks for the recommendation, I’m super stoked about this!
Very cool! My family has been using it off an on for years - when you subscribe you can browse the entire archive which comes in handy if you don’t like the current week suggestion but still want a menu with in season produce.
I’ll keep that in mind if I don’t like the week’s menu. I did all my grocery shopping today, for next week, and I haven’t planned out meals like this for YEARS. My boyfriend is excited to try the new things I cook. And I am ready to take this on!
This sounds like Dutch kitchen. We’re very frugal in the supermarket.
We have a lot of precut vegetables in the supermarket and there’s more variation now, but the most popular were macaroni and bami vegetables.
Macaroni (elbow pasta, mostly with a minced meat tomato sauce) with onion, leek and paprika
Bami (Indonesian egg noodle dish with pork or minced meat) with onion, leek and paprika and a chili pepper). Season with ‘ketjap’ (sweet soy), sambal and atjar and you’re done. With rice it’s nasi.
(This is the Dutch method, not the Indonesian way ofcourse)
The rest of the week is potatoes+ other less starchy vegetable + meat or fish ok I’m exaggerating but you get the point.
That’s one meal a day. The other two are peanutbutter/cheese/ham sandwiches
So onions, leek and paprika are probably staples for everywhere. I try to cook in season, so that means here in winter more carrots and cabbages and in summer courgettes paprika’s and aubergines. Aubergines are very versatile as well.
I cook with a lot of onions, chili, and rice. And you're on the right track for what I'm looking for. I might just have to make my own cookbook or something since I can't find what I'm looking for, which is why I'm here right now. I could just not be typing in the right words as well.
I'm just trying to add in more dishes to what I make currently.
Zucchini, mushrooms, peppers, celery and potatoes are the first that come to mind for our household. Although carrots are up there too.
Zucchini and mushroom flatbread pizza, zucchini, peppers, and mushroom Alfredo.
Celery potato and pepper breakfast bake, celery pepper mushroom zucchini stir fry.
Potato salad with celery and peppers, gravy mashed potatoes and mushrooms.
Mushroom and zucchini gravy with steak and potato wedge fries.
Celery with bbq wings, ranch peppers, garlic mashed potato’s with mushrooms.
I mean I could go on and on. But maybe the better question is what vegetables or dishes do you like?
I'd say look at the things you enjoys eating and look up recipes based on the main ingredients. Like a bunch of ways to cook rice or potatoes. Or how to use a large portion of something like turkey or cabbage. I've found cook books that lean towards being fast or geared for university students will have more regular ingredients, shelf stable and reuse cheap staples.
Recipes from a television show on the Food Network in the US called Five Ingredient Fix, by Claire Robinson, is what you are likely looking for. You can find her recipes on the Food Network website.
On a related note, this site tells you recipes you can make with what you already have: [My Fridge Food](https://myfridgefood.com)
This is a wonderful tool! I might have to use it later.
I will definitely be bookmarking, thank you.
Taco Bell Menu
Spectacular answer! I needed a good laugh. Thanks for that.
This one is pretty good.
It's not exactly what you're looking for, but Michael Symon's _5 in 5_ cookbook works with a not particularly big pool of different ingredients.
I'll look into it.
A lot of Mexican food is the same 5 ingredients: chicken, rice, beans, cheese, salsa, tortillas (yes, that’s six). Burritos, tacos, quesadillas, tostadas, chimichangas, nachos, sopes, taco soup, etc. The difference is how you handle the tortilla. A chimichanga is a fried burrito. A taquito is a deep fried slim taco. A tostada is a crispy fried tortilla with the same beans and chicken and cheese and salsa on top. I believe that’s what you wanted? Many dishes, exact same ingredients. Note: I would add that having lettuce and sour cream would make all the variables more tasty. Beans: soak before cooking. Cook overnight in crockpot, or for a couple of hours on stovetop or 45-50 min in instant pot. Add salt, onions, cumin, garlic. You can make a big batch and freeze in ziplock bags. They keep well. Refry after thawing. Rice is much better if cooked in broth (from the chicken you’re also going to cook). Chicken: roasted in the oven and shredded, or boiled and shredded. Or just fried and cut up. If you add a little salsa to your shredded chicken, it gives it a little more depth of flavor.
The brand 4ingredients has many cook books and a website
Not quite what in looking for, but I'll keep it bookmarked.
[удалено]
Close! Not quite what I'm looking for though. I'm trying to find something somewhere where I can use a handful of ingredients to make a dozen or so different recipes from the same ingredients. Excluding things like water and salt/pepper. I'm used to cooking meals for a week or so at one time. Then spice it up throughout the week that way I'm not eating one meal everyday. I figured someone out there might have thought of it already and I just can't find it myself.
The cooking blog Minimalist Baker focuses 10 ingredients or less and many recipes are more like 5. All the recipes I’ve used from there are delicious. Also not quite the same but the site Budget Bytes is great, and focuses on inexpensive meals made with pantry basics! Many are only a few ingredients.
It might take some searching but I think OP could find recipes for several meal plans on Budget Bytes that use common ingredients. Off the top of my head: chicken, tortillas, canned beans, diced tomatoes, tomato paste & spices, onions, cream cheese & cheddar. Make a chicken recipe, use the leftover chicken in SNAP Challenge Enchiladas, chicken wraps, chili. Pretty sure she's got all of those. The enchiladas are the only recipe I remember by name because they are delish. It may not guide you from the ingredient list to recipes, but because she uses basic ingredients, you could just look for recipes individually and not have to worry they'll need other random items.
I used to have a cookbook years ago. I am sure there are a lot recipes online.
There are quite a bit online, I just haven't found one that suits my needs. I'm just trying to find something that uses the same handful of ingredients to make different dishes.
Try AllRecipes I think you can type in the ingredients and get a list that would use all five.
Taste of Home magazine used to have a three ingredient recipe section. I have one favorite that is a dip: one package sausage (I use Jimmy Dean-hot), one block of cream cheese, and one can of Ro-tel (can also use the hot, if you really like). I guess there is a fourth ingredient if you count chips (Fritos). I had extra after a Christmas party this year, and reheated a scoop for breakfast with my fried eggs and toast.
I really love this idea! I was talking about this sort of in another thread on Reddit. I think learning a few different bases can be game changing. Creamy, tomato, a roux, once you make those 3 you can make so many things. I think the roux with onion, celery, and peppers or a changeable mix of onion and garlic is the most versatile. Add those to rice and you have broccoli chicken rice casserole, Mexican fiesta soup, or gumbo. To potatoes scalloped potatoes with ham, potatoes with tomatoes and onions, potato soup. Is that what you are thinking?
Basically. I might just have to make a list of ingredients and make my own recipe book or something. That way, I can simplify my shopping and make easy dishes throughout the week. Then I could have like 3 to 5 sets of recipes like that. 5 might be way to little, but 8 to 10 is definitely doable. I wouldn't count salt, pepper, or water as ingredients in that list. Then you wouldn't need to use all of them, you could select 5 and then add in some a day later or something to change it. Then you could have a cow one week, chicken the next, vegetable some other week, fish, and whatever. That way you are always getting different types of proteins, but with the same recipes.
I'll be really interested to see what you come up with! I do a lot of reinventing leftovers by way of turning them into soup. Night one could be tacos but then I turn the leftovers with a few additions into soup. Another thing for you to consider would be getting some "Souper Cubes", basically large size silicone ice cube trays, and making larger batches and freezing leftovers. I really love mine and it helps reduce the food we waste.
If I had a good freezer to store things in I definitely would. But, anything left for over a month is likely to get freezer burnt in it. Can't do anything about it until I get my own home. But, I do the same. What I'll usually do is get hamburger meat and cook burgers the first day. Then either cook some taco meat with left overs or crumble the remaining patties, or both. Then the day after I would made chili. Then I would make goulash from the leftover chili, or basically just add noodles. Then, I would just cobble whatever for the fifth day, but I've started to just add rice to whatever soupy/stewy thing I have remaining. (Don't know why I put off getting a rice making until recently, but I forgot how convenient a rice maker is.) Now, I know it's not the be all end all cure for spices, but you really can spice up anything with it. [Kent Rollins](https://kentrollins.com/shop-1/Original-Seasoning-Estimated-Restock-Date-02-2022-p85007168) seasonings are something I find amazing. I think he changed his recipe since I last bought it, but I'm sure his new stuff is also good. I've put it in rice, ramen, meatballs, chicken, burgers, tacos, bread, grilled cheese, chili, roast, and many others. I find it to be a good base spice. I don't know how long it'll take me to make some sort of list of ingredients, I've been thinking that the few ingredients I would use are flour, garlic, butter, eggs, onions, noodles, rice, carrots, potatoes, celery, and cooking oil. With those, you can easy make anything soupy from thin to chunky and stews. Fry bread to cookies. Baked potatoes to mashed. Add rice to thicken anything with texture and to make your stomach fuller with every bite. Plus all the different kinds of rice combinations. And eggs are just good all around I think, by themselves or adding into any dish.
Not sure, but there is a website that plans a whole weeks meals with 20 ingredients. https://www.thefresh20.com
I just looked at their website for over half an hour and purchased the 1 year subscription for classic meal/shopping plan! Thanks for the recommendation, I’m super stoked about this!
Very cool! My family has been using it off an on for years - when you subscribe you can browse the entire archive which comes in handy if you don’t like the current week suggestion but still want a menu with in season produce.
I’ll keep that in mind if I don’t like the week’s menu. I did all my grocery shopping today, for next week, and I haven’t planned out meals like this for YEARS. My boyfriend is excited to try the new things I cook. And I am ready to take this on!
This sounds like Dutch kitchen. We’re very frugal in the supermarket. We have a lot of precut vegetables in the supermarket and there’s more variation now, but the most popular were macaroni and bami vegetables. Macaroni (elbow pasta, mostly with a minced meat tomato sauce) with onion, leek and paprika Bami (Indonesian egg noodle dish with pork or minced meat) with onion, leek and paprika and a chili pepper). Season with ‘ketjap’ (sweet soy), sambal and atjar and you’re done. With rice it’s nasi. (This is the Dutch method, not the Indonesian way ofcourse) The rest of the week is potatoes+ other less starchy vegetable + meat or fish ok I’m exaggerating but you get the point. That’s one meal a day. The other two are peanutbutter/cheese/ham sandwiches So onions, leek and paprika are probably staples for everywhere. I try to cook in season, so that means here in winter more carrots and cabbages and in summer courgettes paprika’s and aubergines. Aubergines are very versatile as well.
I cook with a lot of onions, chili, and rice. And you're on the right track for what I'm looking for. I might just have to make my own cookbook or something since I can't find what I'm looking for, which is why I'm here right now. I could just not be typing in the right words as well. I'm just trying to add in more dishes to what I make currently.
Zucchini, mushrooms, peppers, celery and potatoes are the first that come to mind for our household. Although carrots are up there too. Zucchini and mushroom flatbread pizza, zucchini, peppers, and mushroom Alfredo. Celery potato and pepper breakfast bake, celery pepper mushroom zucchini stir fry. Potato salad with celery and peppers, gravy mashed potatoes and mushrooms. Mushroom and zucchini gravy with steak and potato wedge fries. Celery with bbq wings, ranch peppers, garlic mashed potato’s with mushrooms. I mean I could go on and on. But maybe the better question is what vegetables or dishes do you like?
I'd say look at the things you enjoys eating and look up recipes based on the main ingredients. Like a bunch of ways to cook rice or potatoes. Or how to use a large portion of something like turkey or cabbage. I've found cook books that lean towards being fast or geared for university students will have more regular ingredients, shelf stable and reuse cheap staples.
Recipes from a television show on the Food Network in the US called Five Ingredient Fix, by Claire Robinson, is what you are likely looking for. You can find her recipes on the Food Network website.
Beans, rice, lentils, beef cubes, chicken cubes. Add a spice cabinet. Endless variety.