A block of feta or a ball of fresh mozzarella makes a delicious pasta topping, but it's also all you need to whip up a super simple pasta sauce. Serious Eats founder Ed Levine says that if you pour some of the liquid from the cheese container into the pot you cooked your pasta in, you can make an impromptu pasta sauce right in there.

Adding little pieces of cheese and finishing off the sauce with cherry tomatoes or corn off the cob completes the meal. Feta brine is actually considered by some to be liquid gold in the culinary world, while the water that fresh mozzarella comes packed in isn't as widely used, both can add more flavor to a dish than water ever could.