12 dinners from pantry staples, and how to stop guessing
Most kitchens hold three weeks of dinners in cans, jars and bags. The problem is never the food; it's standing in front of the shelf with no idea what goes together. Here are twelve dinners that come almost entirely from staples, and the trick that makes the shelf suggest its own.
Updated October 2026 · 10 minute read · every recipe serves 4
The staple list these recipes assume
You don't need all of it. Each recipe below names what it uses, and most take one or two fresh items at most: an onion, an egg, a lemon.
Cans and jars: chickpeas, black beans, cannellini or kidney beans, diced or whole tomatoes, tomato paste, coconut milk, tuna, sardines or anchovies, olives, capers, peanut butter.
Dry goods: pasta, rice, red lentils, rolled oats, couscous or bulgur, flour, breadcrumbs or stale bread, stock cubes.
Flavour: olive oil, soy sauce, vinegar, garlic and onion (fresh or powdered), chilli flakes, cumin, smoked paprika, curry powder, dried oregano, honey or sugar.
Fridge and freezer basics: eggs, butter, parmesan or any hard cheese, frozen peas, frozen spinach, lemons.
2 × 400 g cans chickpeas, drained · 1 × 400 g can diced tomatoes
250 ml stock, salt, squeeze of lemon
Steps
Soften the chopped onion in oil over medium heat, 6 minutes. Add garlic, tomato paste and spices; stir 1 minute until it smells toasty.
Add chickpeas, tomatoes and stock. Simmer 15 minutes, crushing some chickpeas against the pan to thicken.
Season, finish with lemon. Serve over rice or couscous, or with bread.
2. Red lentil dal
30 min · all pantry · vegan · freezes well
Ingredients
300 g red lentils, rinsed · 1 litre water or stock
1 onion or 1 tsp onion powder, 3 cloves garlic, 1 tbsp curry powder, ½ tsp turmeric if you have it
1 × 400 g can coconut milk (or 2 tbsp butter instead)
Salt, lemon or a splash of vinegar
Steps
Put lentils and liquid in a pot. Bring to a boil, skim, simmer 20 minutes until collapsing.
Meanwhile fry onion and garlic with the spices in a little oil until golden.
Stir the onion mix and coconut milk into the lentils. Simmer 5 more minutes, season sharply with salt and lemon. Rice, flatbread or just a spoon.
3. Pasta e ceci (pasta with chickpeas)
25 min · all pantry · one pot
Ingredients
3 tbsp olive oil, 4 cloves garlic, sprig of rosemary or 1 tsp dried oregano, chilli flakes
2 tbsp tomato paste · 1 × 400 g can chickpeas with their liquid
250 g small pasta (ditalini, broken spaghetti) · 750 ml water · parmesan to finish
Steps
Fry garlic, herb and chilli in oil until the garlic is pale gold. Add tomato paste, cook 1 minute.
Add chickpeas with liquid and water, bring to a boil, add pasta. Cook, stirring often, until the pasta is done and the liquid is a loose sauce, about 12 minutes.
Salt generously, finish with cheese and more oil.
4. Black bean tacos with quick-pickled onion
20 min · pantry + 1 onion · vegetarian
Ingredients
1 red or white onion, 3 tbsp vinegar, 1 tsp sugar, pinch of salt
2 × 400 g cans black beans, drained · 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp smoked paprika, 2 cloves garlic
8 tortillas · cheese, hot sauce, anything green from the fridge
Steps
Slice the onion thin, toss with vinegar, sugar and salt. Leave it while you cook; it's pickled in 15 minutes.
Fry garlic and spices in oil for 30 seconds, add beans and a splash of water, mash about half. Season.
Warm the tortillas, fill, top with onion and cheese.
5. Tuna, white bean and olive salad
10 min · all pantry · no cooking
Ingredients
2 × 400 g cans cannellini beans, drained · 2 cans tuna in oil, drained
A handful of olives, 1 tbsp capers, ½ onion sliced thin
3 tbsp olive oil, 2 tbsp lemon juice or vinegar, pepper, dried oregano
Steps
Mix everything in a bowl. Press the tuna into big flakes rather than crumbs.
Let it sit 10 minutes so the beans take the dressing. Good with bread, better the next day for lunch.
6. Egg fried rice from leftover rice
15 min · pantry + eggs · uses up cold rice
Ingredients
4 cups cold cooked rice (yesterday's, or cook and spread to cool)
Soften onion, add garlic and spices, then tomatoes, paste and sugar. Simmer 10 minutes until thick enough to hold a spoon trail.
Make wells, crack in the eggs, cover and cook 6 to 8 minutes until the whites are set.
Eat from the pan with bread.
10. Peanut noodles
15 min · all pantry · vegan
Ingredients
350 g noodles or spaghetti
⅓ cup peanut butter, 3 tbsp soy sauce, 2 tbsp vinegar, 1 tbsp honey or sugar, 1 clove garlic grated, chilli, ⅓ cup hot pasta water
Frozen peas or edamame, anything crunchy on top
Steps
Cook the noodles, throwing frozen peas in for the last 2 minutes.
Whisk the sauce ingredients, thinning with pasta water until pourable.
Toss hot noodles with the sauce. Good cold tomorrow, too.
11. White bean and rosemary soup with crispy bread
30 min · all pantry · vegan without the cheese
Ingredients
2 tbsp olive oil, 1 onion, 2 carrots if you have them, 3 cloves garlic, rosemary or thyme
2 × 400 g cans white beans · 750 ml stock · parmesan rind if you keep them
Stale bread torn and fried in oil until crisp
Steps
Soften onion and carrot 8 minutes. Add garlic and herb for 1 minute.
Add beans and stock (and the rind). Simmer 15 minutes. Blend half for body, or leave it chunky.
Season well. Top with the fried bread and a thread of oil.
12. Savoury oat and cheese fritters
25 min · pantry + eggs · the one nobody expects
Ingredients
1½ cups rolled oats, 1 cup boiling stock
2 eggs, ¾ cup grated cheese, 2 spring onions or ½ onion chopped fine, 1 tsp smoked paprika, salt and pepper
Oil for frying; yoghurt or hot sauce to serve
Steps
Pour the stock over the oats, leave 10 minutes to swell.
Mix in eggs, cheese, onion and seasoning. It should hold a spoon shape; add a spoon of flour if loose.
Fry heaped spoonfuls in a little oil, 3 minutes a side, until deep gold.
How to stop guessing
Every one of those recipes started the same way: look at what's there, know which things go together. That second part is the hard part, and it's exactly what a meal-planning app should do for you. In Your Way Kitchen it works like this.
In the app · Pro
Photograph the shelf. Get dinners from what's on it.
Open the Planner and choose Pantry scan. Take one or two photos of the cupboard, fridge or freezer. The app reads what it can see, shows you the list to correct, then builds meals from those ingredients and your preferences: your diet, what you dislike, your budget, the equipment you own. Each idea is a full recipe with steps and nutrition, and you can add it to your calendar or save it.
The scan doesn't invent what it can't see, and it ignores packaging it can't identify, so it's worth correcting the list before you ask for ideas. Add the things in the back of the cupboard it missed.
Staples you always have can be marked as such in the app. They're left off shopping lists automatically, which is the difference between a list of twelve things and a list of three.
Three habits that make the pantry work harder
Buy the flavour, not the dish. Soy, vinegar, tomato paste, smoked paprika, cumin, a hard cheese and lemons turn the same can of beans into four different countries' dinners. Cheap, slow to spoil, and they're what separates "pantry food" from food.
Keep two kinds of starch and two kinds of protein. Rice and pasta; chickpeas and lentils, or beans and tuna. Nearly every recipe above is one starch plus one protein plus a can of tomatoes or coconut milk.
Cook rice for tomorrow on purpose. Cold rice makes the fried rice, and a pot of dal keeps for four days. Half the recipes here are better as leftovers, so double them.
If you want the week planned rather than one dinner at a time, the 7-day meal plan under $50 uses the same staples and costs every recipe.
