The recipes you read online often lie. They say they are “easy,” but then they require too many weird or hard-to-find ingredients. If a simple dinner makes you want to order pizza instead, there’s a problem. Cooking should be clever, not complicated. Welcome to the five-ingredient revolution. We believe you don’t need a full pantry to make food that tastes great. These recipes will show you how to create delicious, exciting meals with only five core ingredients. It’s time to cook with less effort, less cleanup, and zero wasted food.
The Blistered Cherry Tomato & Garlic Spaghetti
This is a speedy supper for those days when cooking feels like too much hassle. You don’t need many ingredients, just spaghetti, a couple of cloves of garlic, a handful of cherry tomatoes, some olive oil, and a fistful of Parmesan cheese. The best bit is that it all comes together at once as the pasta cooks. Start with the garlic, thinly slice it, and sauté it in a good amount of olive oil. Don’t let it brown, just heat it until it is a light golden color and smells wonderful. Then add the cherry tomatoes. When they warm up, some will split open and release their juices, and this forms a quick and tasty sauce. Once the spaghetti has cooked, drain it but keep a bit of the pasta water and put it into the pan with the tomatoes and the garlic. Add some of the reserved pasta water and top with some grated Parmesan cheese, which just melts right in and gives everything a creamy and delicious taste. This is great for when you want something good without much ado, even if you’re still in your PJs.
Roasted Chicken Thighs with Smashed Potatoes
With this dish, your oven does most of the hard work. Start by grabbing some bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs. You require both the skin and bone to keep the meat moist and get that great crispy top. You’ll also need baby potatoes, one lemon, and a full head of garlic. Yes, the whole thing. Peel the garlic and toss it with the potatoes in some olive oil and salt on a large baking sheet. Place the chicken thighs between the potatoes, skin side up. Brush a little more oil on the chicken and season everything well. Then just put the pan into a hot oven and let it cook. As it roasts, chicken drippings fall and baste the potatoes, making them golden and crunchy on the outside, flaky inside. When it’s done, squeeze some fresh lemon juice over everything to brighten it up. This meal is easy to make, hard to ruin, and your kitchen will smell amazing as it cooks.
Caramelized Onion & Cheddar Grilled Cheese
Take the grilled cheese out of the realm of the kiddie lunchbox. This is not that sandwich. This is its grown-up, full-flavored version. All you need is a good, sturdy bread. Sourdough is a champion here, a bit of sharp cheddar cheese, a yellow onion, butter, and a tablespoon of something sweet, like maple syrup or even brown sugar. The game-changer is taking ten extra minutes to slowly cook sliced onions in butter until they transform into sticky, sweet, deeply browned ribbons of joy. A last dash of sweetener speeds up caramelization, and you’ve got that rich flavor without an hour at the stove. Next up is assembly time. Butter the outside of your slices of bread and top the inside with a rich helping of cheddar, and pile high with your wonderful onions. Cook it low and slow in a pan until the bread is dark, toasty brown, and the cheese bubbles at the edges. The result is a sandwich full of enormous personality. It’s proof that all it takes is one extra step, one extra level of flavor to transform the most basic idea into something that really glows.
The Zingy Lime & Chili Salmon
We see gossamer fillets sticking to the pan or cooking for too long into limp, flaky desolation. But this technique is so easy, it’s almost idiot-proof. All you need is a salmon fillet, lime, chili powder, and olive oil. Dry the salmon; this is the trick to achieving a fantastic sear, and brush olive oil over the entire thing. Sprinkle it with salt and a pinch of chili powder. Heat oil in a non-stick pan on medium-high heat until hot and sizzling, and then add the salmon skin side up. Leave for a few minutes without turning it over until a good golden crust is established. Turn over, drizzle over half of a lime’s juice, and leave to cook a few minutes longer until it’s just cooked through. The lime juice does more than give a mere zesty burst; it poaches the top of the fish nearly, leaving it plain wet. Complete with one final squeeze of fresh lime juice. It is bright, brassy, and full-bodied, with a touch of class but an utter lack of pretence. Serve it over a bag of prewashed greens or with a microwave-baked potato for a surprisingly classy dinner.
The Creamy, Dreamy Chocolate Mousse
Who says a five-ingredient limit stops at dinner? Certainly not us. This dessert is the ultimate mic drop. The ingredient list is almost laughably short: good dark chocolate, heavy cream, and a tiny pinch of salt. That’s it. No eggs, no gelatin, no complicated steps. You’ll simply melt the chocolate and let it cool slightly. Then, you’ll whip the cream until it holds soft peaks. Here’s the only tricky part: you’ll fold a spoonful of the whipped cream into the melted chocolate to loosen it up, then gently fold the chocolate mixture back into the rest of the whipped cream until no white streaks remain. The salt is the secret ace, elevating the chocolate flavor to new heights. Pour into glasses and refrigerate for a minimum of an hour. The result is a mousse which is light but deliciously rich and chocolatey.
