Despite the ever-present urge to pick up my phone and order take-out, I’m committed to preparing delicious, home-cooked meals as often as I can. But cooking at home isn’t always as easy as it seems–especially when you need to buy loads of ingredients that you end up having to throw out. We can all admit we’ve brought home ingredients, used them for one specific recipe, and then forgotten they existed. Instead of buying tons of groceries to sit unused in my refrigerator until they go bad, I’m leaning on 5-ingredient recipes (or less!) to help eliminate waste.
Coming up with new meals to cook every day is a challenge (I can’t always just lean on my favorite air fryer recipes), but the options below make it so much easier to stick to my goal. Bonus: because they require so few ingredients, they’re quick and painless to put together on days when I really just don’t feel like cooking. Check out some of my favorite 5-ingredient recipes below: