While I love meal planning and prepping, there gets to be a time when I just need to use what I have. When this happens or I just want to spend a little less planning time on a meal, I go with my basic “recipe” for a meal made out of anything I have on hand. This idea works really well for last-minute dinners, too! This is a way you can eat with the seasons or just eat what you’ve got left over. I’ll give you my step by step on how this works and how to do it well.
My “recipe” is base, protein, veggie, flavor/sauce. Basically, you’ll need to find one of each in your house. You can do this as “throw-it-together” as you’d like, or you can try to make purposeful pairings, especially with the vegetables and sauces you have. When I have no creativity or brain space, I’ll just put on some rice and fry carrots, onions, and chicken together, topped with salt. That’s how basic it can get. Or, if you have more time, energy, and food available, you could make a roast with lots of potatoes, onions, carrots, parsnips, and various spices. See, what I did was just break down what almost every meal is constructed from. With this “recipe”, you can make almost any meal, and the mindset opens up freedom to experiment. Below I’ll break down each “ingredient” and what it may consist of, to open more mental doors, when it comes to cooking from scratch.
Base
First is the base. This one seemed the most abstract to me when I first thought of the idea. This was the breakthrough, so to speak. A base is anything that the meal essentially “is”. Here are some I thought of:
- Pasta (including ravioli or tortellini)
- Rice
- Quinoa
- Potatoes (mashed, chopped, loaded)
- Cauliflower (seen cauliflower rice?)
- Bread (sliced, buns, toast)
- Peppers (stuffed)
- Pizza crust (fun idea, right?)
- Tortilla/taco shell/chips
- Pita
- Beans (for different kinds of chili)
…and add any others that you can think of! Basically, this is where your meal starts, and then you add the other ingredients to it. The base is usually a mild flavor that can absorb and support the flavors of the other ingredients. Whether it should be or not, the base is also usually the largest portion of the meal. It’s also probably the cheapest part. The base doesn’t necessarily need to be selected first if you have more options on hand and want to decide what will go well with the 2 vegetables you happen to have in your fridge or with the hamburger you cooked up last night.
Protein
And so, the protein! This one is pretty self-explanatory. This is basically your meat, however you want to prepare it, or if you have some already prepped. I’ve cooked a whole chicken in my instant pot, and then separated it into two breasts and thighs, pulling off the rest in smaller pieces. Then I essentially have a whole cooked boneless chicken to use for whatever meals I want, or to freeze. This kind of prep makes this “recipe” so easy. I recently used the prepped chicken for a chicken alfredo recipe, which is also a base (pasta), protein (chicken), vegetable (mushrooms), and sauce (cheesy white sauce).
Eggs can also be your protein if it works well with your base. I often make fried rice with leftover rice, assorted frozen vegetables, a couple eggs, and any Asian sauce or spices. Of course, you can add another protein, as well. I’ve also heard of people putting an egg on a burger or pizza! Here are some proteins I thought of:
- Beef (ground, strips, roast)
- Chicken (pieces, legs, breasts, thighs, whole)
- Pork (roast, chops, bacon, ham)
- Eggs
- Shrimp
- Other seafood (like octopus)
- Nuts or beans (peanuts, chickpeas, cashews, etc)
- Sausage or pepperoni
- Duck, rabbit, lamb, etc.
You can basically use any meat you have on hand. My husband and I found duck at a store once, and we were intrigued to try it. After frying it, to me it seemed between chicken and beef, and we really enjoyed it! Maybe we’ll get meat ducks someday…
Vegetables
Next are the vegetables. Again, this is pretty self-explanatory, but you can get creative with it. I’m not going to list every vegetable I can think of, but feel free to use whatever you have or whatever you want to grow in your garden. You can try eggplant in a few meals to see if you want to grow it, or you can add zucchini to everything if you have a surplus. Feel free to think up various vegetables and imagine how they’d go together, such as tomato and zucchini or peppers and mushrooms. I also like to choose vegetables that grow in the same regions, such as tomato, peppers, and spinach, or napa cabbage, snow peas, and sprouts. Of course, the most convenient way to pick vegetables is by looking at what’s in season in your area and/or what you have excess of from your garden.
Sauce/spices
Finally, the sauce. A lot of people have a third of their fridge taken up by sauce bottles, so why not use them up! Use up your soy sauce, sweet and sour, teriyaki sauce, and oyster sauce in anything with rice. Use BBQ, any chili sauce, or steak sauce on a potato meal. You get the idea! I generally choose the flavoring based on the base and/or vegetables. If I have potatoes on hand and extra tomato and peppers, I’ll toss in some chili sauce or powder.
If you’re not big on sauces or don’t have too many taking up room in your fridge, toss together some spices! An easy way to do this is just look up “What spices go well with…” and you’ll get several answers; then I just look at which ones I have on hand and add a few to the dish. Eventually you’ll get more familiar with which spices complement different foods to get the flavor you want.
You can also make your own sauce for a dish, with a recipe or experimenting. My husband and I love homemade alfredo sauce, and lots of homesteaders make spaghetti sauce with their homegrown tomatoes. I’ve also made creamy white wine and mushroom sauce, teriyaki sauce, and sweet and sour. Pinterest is a great place for inspiration or recipes if you’re struggling to figure out what to do for flavorings.
How to cook it
One of the main things to keep in mind when ad-libbing a meal is what order things should be cooked in. It’s so disheartening to finish making a wonderful meal, only to realize you forgot to start the rice or pasta. The order of things can vary, but I have some general rules of thumb for skillet meals like stir fry.
1. If the base is rice, store-bought pasta, or something with a similar cook time, start it first (especially getting the pasta pot to initial boiling)
2. Meat takes longer to fry than vegetables, so start it next (except pre-cooked shrimp or meat, then treat it like a vegetable)
3. Onions are flexible, depending on how cooked you like them. I like adding them to the pan shortly after the meat has started.
4. Harder vegetables take longer than soft vegetables, so add them to the pan in that order (ex. carrots, then peppers, then snow peas)
5. Add spices as everything cooks, and sauce can be added near the end (except wine, which should be earlier to cook off the alcohol)
If you have a large batch that will not fit in the skillet all at once, I cook the meat first and then add it to a large dish in the oven, on warm. Then as I add and cook things in the skillet, I transfer those to the dish in the oven, as well. This is a fun way to cook for a large party! You can use this skillet dish as a topping for rice, pasta, mashed potatoes, or pretty much any other base.
What I really enjoy about this method for cooking is that I can toss together what I have on hand, with little regard for finesse, or I can artistically craft a complementary meal, whichever I feel like that day! I enjoy the room for freedom while keeping some structure and not feeling like I’m totally winging it. If you’re new to cooking “by ear”, I encourage you to use this method to branch out and experiment. You may find new foods you really enjoy while your confidence in cooking grows. Try zucchini on your homemade pizza, tomato in your loaded potatoes, and pasta with spinach and mushrooms. The possibilities are endless!
