What to cook with what I have: a pantry-first guide.
Most recipe sites assume you start with the recipe. The reality is most home cooks start with a fridge full of food they forgot they bought — half a fennel bulb, a tin of anchovies, a sleeve of bucatini. This page is the field manual for cooking from that direction. The recipe matches what you have, not the other way.
The 8 dishes
1. Pasta with anchovies, garlic, and chili
Have pasta + olive oil + garlic + anchovies + chili flakes? You have dinner. Toast garlic in olive oil, melt anchovies, add chili. Toss with pasta and pasta water. Parsley if you have it. Uses: any long pasta, olive oil, garlic, anchovies, red pepper flakes, parsley.
2. Eggs in tomato sauce (shakshuka, basically)
A can of tomatoes + an onion + eggs is shakshuka. Cook onion soft, add tomatoes and whatever spices (cumin and paprika ideal but salt and pepper alone work), simmer 10 min, crack eggs in, cover till set. Uses: canned tomatoes, onion, eggs, optional cumin, paprika, herbs.
3. Beans on toast (the British way)
Toast bread. Heat canned white beans with garlic, olive oil, a splash of cream, parmigiano. Pile on the toast. Pepper hard. Uses: bread, canned cannellini beans, garlic, olive oil, cream, parmigiano, salt, pepper.
4. Soup from anything
Onion + garlic + olive oil + whatever vegetables are in the drawer + stock or water. Simmer until tender. Hand blender or chunky. Add a Parmigiano rind if you have one — it transforms the broth. Uses: onion, garlic, olive oil, any 2-4 vegetables, stock or water, salt, pepper.
5. Fried rice from leftover rice
Cold cooked rice + eggs + soy + sesame oil + scallions + whatever protein you have leftover. Hot wok, scramble eggs aside, fry rice hard, recombine, season. Uses: cold cooked rice, eggs, soy sauce, sesame oil, scallions, optional leftover meat or vegetables.
6. Quesadilla with whatever's in the fridge
Tortilla, cheese, plus anything: leftover rotisserie chicken, sliced bell pepper, beans, onion, mushroom, leftover roast vegetables. Pan-toast in butter until cheese melts and tortilla is golden. Uses: flour tortillas, shredded cheese, plus optional protein and vegetables.
7. One-pot lentil stew
Olive oil, onion, garlic, carrot, celery. Rinsed lentils, stock, bay, thyme. Simmer 30 min. Add a splash of vinegar at the end (red wine or sherry). Uses: lentils (green or brown), onion, garlic, carrot, celery, stock, bay, thyme, vinegar, olive oil.
8. Eggs and toast
When the fridge is bare, two eggs and a piece of toast is dinner. Soft scramble in butter, pile on buttered toast, salt, pepper, anything green you can chop. Uses: eggs, butter, bread, salt, pepper, optional herbs.
How to store what I have
Pantry-first cooking depends on knowing what's actually in your kitchen. Most people forget half their pantry. Speakeater is built for exactly this problem — photograph the shelves, let the app track what you own and what's about to expire, and the app ranks recipes by how much of your pantry each one uses.
What to substitute for what I have
The whole point of pantry-first cooking is substitution. Almost any recipe can survive missing 1-2 ingredients if you understand what each ingredient is doing. Lemon and vinegar both add acid. Butter, olive oil, and bacon fat are interchangeable as cooking fats. White wine and stock can sub for each other. Garlic powder works when fresh garlic is missing. The substitution engine in Speakeater Pro flags this automatically.
FAQ
- How do I cook from what I have without a recipe?
- Three rules. 1) Start with a fat (oil, butter, bacon fat). 2) Build flavor base (onion, garlic, ginger, or a combination). 3) Add protein, then vegetable, then liquid, then starch. Almost every world cuisine follows this template.
- What pantry staples do I actually need?
- Olive oil, butter, salt, pepper, garlic, onion, eggs, pasta, rice, canned tomatoes, canned beans, soy sauce, vinegar (red wine and rice), lemon, parmigiano. With those 15, you can make 80% of weeknight dinners without shopping.
- How does Speakeater help with pantry-first cooking?
- The app reads your pantry from a few photos. Then ranks 23,000 recipes by how much of your pantry each one uses. The dish using nine of your ingredients lands at the top. The dish that needs you to drive to three stores doesn't.
- What's a good pantry-meal week look like?
- Monday: pasta with anchovies. Tuesday: eggs and roasted vegetables. Wednesday: soup from leftovers. Thursday: fried rice with whatever protein. Friday: beans on toast. Two of those use leftover ingredients from earlier in the week — that's the whole point.
Cook with what you already own.
Speakeater is a free Android app — pantry-first cooking and a 4,000-bottle cocktail bar. Snap your fridge, get recipes ranked by what you have. Launches May 10, 2026.
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