There are days, just before your next trip to the grocery store is due, that you simply have nothing at home. Almost no fresh vegetables, next-to-nothing in the freezer, and even your spice rack seems to be empty! Making a filling and delicious meal for your family seems impossible on such days!
….. but not with these amazing recipes that require less than 5 ingredients! Here is a list of 15 recipes that you can make with very few ingredients that you can find in your home even when you are desperately need to go food shopping.
So, here you go. No more scratching your head when there’s nothing in the fridge for you to cook with!
1. Pantry Sweet Potato and Salmon Cakes
This amazingly delicious recipe from Confessions of a Grocery Addict uses only 3 basic ingredients: a can of salmon, sweet potato and a few eggs. Mix them together and make them into small cakes and fru in oil – an easy recipe that you can serve with some bread or salad, or both.
2. One Pan Mexican Quinoa
A traditional Mexican delicacy, this recipe uses four main ingredients and a whole lot of spices, but can feed an entire army! You just need a few cups of quinoa, a can of diced tomatoes and a can of black beans, some corn and spices for this easy recipe from Healthy-Liv. It does use a lot of spices but if you cook Mexican food regularly at home, you’ll definitely have some leftover spices left in your spice rack.
3. Air Fried Mac and Cheese Balls
If you have some leftover Mac and Cheese in the fridge or a pack of ready-to-cook Mac and cheese in your pantry, you can definitely try this recipe from Recipes From A Pantry. This amazingly simple recipe requires some cooked Mac and Cheese, a few eggs and some bread crumbs. If you have an Air Fryer at home, you can cook the healthiest version of this recipe; otherwise, you can simply deep fry the balls in oil.
4. Baked Salsa Chicken
When you neither have the ingredients at home nor the patience to cook something elaborate, this is a recipe that doesn’t require much. According to this recipe from Swirls of Flavor, you can cook this baked chicken dish with just some boneless and skinless chicken breasts, your favorite taco seasoning mix, some salsa and any kind of cheese you have at home. Perfect to serve with some rice or salad, you can also add your favorite toppings to this chicken.
5. Creamy Salsa Chicken
From a relatively dry, baked chicken recipe to its creamier version! This is a similar recipe from Little Sunny Kitchenthat uses cream cheese in the mix along with boneless and skinless chicken breast pieces, and salsa mix. You can easily cook this dish in an Instant Pot in under 20 minutes or in a slow cooker for 4 hours – the taste will be equally delicious.
6. Easy Summer Pasta
Pasta usually require at least an hour of cooking time, but not this one! This easy and quick summer pasta recipe can be ready in a few minutes and only requires cooked pasta, feta cheese, tomatoes and basil leaves. Find the recipe here at Healthy Green Savvy for a meal you can cook and prepare in a matter of minutes.
7. Lemon Baked Cod
When you come to think about it, this recipe only requires one main ingredient: skinless and boneless cod fillets. The other ingredients are simple ones that are easy to come by and already present in our homes. It takes a few minutes to prepare this meal and less than 15 minutes to bake it in the oven, according to this recipe from Little Sunny Kitchen, and you have a perfectly healthy recipe to serve the whole family.
8. Instant Pot BBQ Chicken
The recipe for this flavorful and juicy chicken can be found in Skinny Comfort! This recipe requires only some boneless and skinless chicken breast pieces, your favorite BBQ sauce and some minced onions. You can simply serve this chicken with rice, as a wrap, with salad, or inside a pair of buns as burger.
9. Vegan Clam Chowder
If you are in the mood for something filling and healthy for cold winter evenings, we all recommend this clam chowder recipe from Wow It’s Veggie. All you need for this recipe are a few mushrooms, some potatoes, one sheet of sushi nori, some milk and some flour. 15 minutes on the stove, and all the ingredients will turn into a healthy clam chowder for the whole family.
10. Simple Ravioli Marsala with Mushroom
Who doesn’t love a hot plate of ravioli for dinner? With this recipe from Erica’s Recipes, you get a filling Ravioli dish served with some delicious mushrooms. You’ll also need some Marsala wine and some frozen peas with this recipe, and some fresh oregano leaves if you have them lying around.
The best part? It doesn’t take more than 20 minutes to cook this meal from start to finish.
11. 3-ingredient Crockpot Pulled BBQ Chicken
Yes, you read that right! This recipe from Healthy-Liv uses only 3 ingredients and 5 minutes of preparation, and can be easily cooked in your crockpot. What are those ingredients, you ask? Nothing more than some boneless and skinless chicken breasts, a few cups of chicken broth and your favorite BBQ sauce. A few hours in the crockpot or the slow cooker, and your chicken will be perfectly ready to serve with rice or sautéed vegetables.
12. Slow Cooker Applesauce Chicken
If you have some chicken in the freezer and a jar of applesauce in the pantry, you can easily make this recipe in 7 to 8 hours in the slow cooker. Friends coming over for dinner on the weekdays? Nothing to worry about. Simply put all the ingredients in the slow cooker as you head off to work and you can come home to a ready-to-eat dish best served with rice. With this recipe from Strength and Sunshine, all you are going to need are some chicken breasts, homemade or store-bought applesauce, onion powder and garlic powder.
13. Baked Frittata
Not just for dinner, if you are looking for some recipes for breakfast or a light lunch, you’ve definitely come to the right place! This is a baked frittata recipe from The Clever Meal that only requires some eggs, some frozen or fresh spinach and some cheese of your choice. 5 minutes preparing and 30 minutes in the oven, and you can serve these delicious baked frittatas for breakfast or for lunch.
14. Air Fryer Chicken Fajitas
All you need for this recipe are a few chicken breasts, some bell peppers – yellow, green and red – onions and some fajita seasoning. Preparation is a simple process: mix all the ingredients together, drizzle some olive oil and cook in an Air Fryer for about 15 to 20 minutes. Get the full recipe here at Little Sunny Kitchen.
15. Easy Broccoli Cheese Soup
What can be more wholesome than a soup that has the goodness of cheese and the deliciousness of broccoli chunks? This recipe from Wholesome Yum only uses five ingredients in total: broccoli, chicken broth, heavy cream, cheddar cheese and minced garlic.
There you have it – 15 recipes that will fill up your heart and your stomach when you don’t have a lot of ingredients at your disposal. Most of them don’t even require a lot of herbs and spices for seasoning, just the basic ones everyone has at their homes. Whatever you have in the house before you head off to the grocery store again, you can use to make these delicious recipes.
