Throw Dinner Together With This Easy Formula That Works With Whatever You've Got On Hand

After a busy work day, the last thing we want to think about is coming up with a dinner menu. If you want to save money on takeout and prevent food waste, you're better off giving your fridge and pantry a second glance. You can easily throw dinner together with whatever you've got on hand if you follow an easy formula. Your dinner meal should contain three major elements: starch, protein, and vegetables. This formula covers the essential macronutrients of protein, carbohydrates, and fat, while also bringing vitamins, minerals, and freshness with the vegetables.

Starches include carb-heavy staples like pasta, bread, corn, rice, potatoes, and whole ancient grains like farro, quinoa, and barley. Proteins run the gamut from red meat, poultry, and fish to tofu, beans, and lentils. A typical starch-protein-veggie formula could look like rice, chicken, and broccoli or tortillas, ground beef and pico de gallo. If you're a vegetarian, the formula might look like pita, hummus, and a salad or a three bean chili and cornbread.

Once you've sussed out these three elements, you can then look for more ingredients to bring flavor to your meal. A sprinkle of feta or parmesan cheese, a drizzle of your favorite store-bought sauce, chopped herbs, and seasoning mixes are all great ways to tie the meal together while also bringing even more nutrition to the mix. All you need is a jar of alfredo sauce to turn pasta, chicken, and broccoli into a classic chicken alfredo. 

What you have on hand is a product of meal planning, which requires its own set of tips and tricks. In order for this formula to work, you need to have every element in your fridge or pantry. Luckily, this is not hard to do, considering grains, pasta, beans, and potatoes are staples with long shelf lives. Veggies and fruit may have finite lifespans, but you can buy bags of frozen vegetables to prevent food waste. Staples like canned beans, shelf-stable broths, premade sauces and spreads, and canned stewed tomatoes or vegetables will streamline meal cooking and assembly. If meal planning is a completely foreign concept, there are free meal planning apps to inform your next grocery shopping list.

While a formula covers the macro and micro bases of a well-rounded meal, you can still find creative ways to bring each element together. If the thought of cooking everything separately sounds too time consuming, check out our list of 18 easy recipes for 1-pot meals. We supply 10 chicken and rice recipes for easy weeknight dinners, so that even if you have to use the same pantry staples over and over, there are ways to eat a different meal every time. Whether you're meal prepping for the week or whipping up dinner with whatever's left in your fridge, you should always plan on making more than you need. Repurposing leftovers is a pro-move that will make future meals effortless.