Don’t head to the grocery store just yet. It’s possible that you may still be able to make a meal out of the few ingredients left in your kitchen. Provided that you’ve got the essentials like eggs or rice, there are many meals that you can make. Below are just a few meal ideas for using up those basic ingredients.
Soups
You can make a soup out of practically anything. Patina Italian soup is a prime example of this. It’s a soup designed for making use of all of those odd ingredients sitting in your cupboards. There are lots of guides online on how to make pastina Italian soup – pasta, leftover chicken and carrots are some of the ingredients commonly added to this soup.
Omelettes/scrambled eggs
An omelette is always a good option if you have eggs. You can put practically anything in an omelette from a spare onion to frozen peas (just make sure to boil/steam the peas first). The same goes for scrambled egg – you can mix all kinds of ingredients into this. This tends to be a great breakfast/lunch meal, although there’s nothing to stop you cooking up an omelette for dinner. Omelettes and scrambled eggs could be served on top of some toast or you could add a side of chips or vegetables.
Rice dishes
Many of us have bags of rice in our cupboards. There are all kinds of foods that you can mix with rice to make a wholesome meal. If you’ve got some eggs, you could make your own egg-fried rice. If you’ve got some frozen vegetables, you could steam these and then mix them in with the rice. You can also mix in any spices you have to add extra flavor. Canned soups can also be mixed with rice to create a creamy risotto – if you’ve got a can of mushroom soup, this could be great for mixing with rice.
Pasta dishes
Another essential ingredient that many of us tend to have in our cupboards no matter what is pasta. There are all kinds of different ingredients that you can add to pasta to make a meal. Tuna pasta is a prime example – if you’ve got tins of tuna gathering dust in your cupboard, now could be the time to use them. If you’ve got cheese, you could consider making a pasta bake, while throwing in some extra ingredients. You can also mix some canned soups with pasta to make creamy dishes.
Chili
Whipping up a chili could be another option. If you’ve got corn, kidney beans and canned tomatoes, you already have the basis for a chili. This could be served up with any rice you have. You can put practically any meat into a chili from beef to chicken. You don’t even have to use meat – foods like potatoes can make a great vegetarian alternative and can be just as filling. You can find pantry dish chili recipes online.
