40 Ingredients Forever

Welcome to Dinner Tetris, an advice column here at 40 Ingredients Foreverwhere a reader shares the ingredients they always have on hand and I dream up three dinners using those ingredients. If you’d like your pantries Tetris-ed into dinner, head here. Samin Nosrat’s Tetris is here. Ham El-Waylly’s Tetris is here. A high-protein, high-fiber Tetris for subscriber Shayna is here. Occupation:Nikkitha Bakshani is an Indian-American writer living in London.

I tried counting how many meatball recipes I’ve developed, and then I lost count. Or rather, I got so embarrassed I stopped counting. That’s because there are many ways to play ball: change how you cook them, what you eat them with, and what seems to be my preference, what you can put in them. Making a meatball with a panade (a combination of starch, like breadcrumbs, and liquid, like milk) is meant to retain moisture for tenderness. It works unless it doesn’t.

40 Ingredients Forever is devoted to recipes that are abundant in flavor and joy yet streamlined in process and shopping—because they’ll all be made using my 40 go-to ingredients. Anna Billingskog is a supremely talented food stylist and also this newsletter’s recipe tester.* There are many reasons I admire her but one is how much joy she finds in her work. It’s hard not to fall in love with food when you’re seeing it through her eyes.

For Hannah, a therapist in Baltimore City Welcome to Dinner Tetris, an advice column here at 40 Ingredients Forever where a reader shares the ingredients they always have on hand and I dream up three dinners using those ingredients. If you’d like your pantries Tetris-ed into dinner, head here. Samin Nosrat’s Tetris is here. Ham El-Waylly’s Tetris is here. A high-protein, high-fiber Tetris for subscriber Shayna is here.

40 Ingredients Forever is devoted to recipes that are abundant in flavor and joy yet streamlined in process and shopping—because they’ll all be made using my 40 go-to ingredients. My recipe development* for peak summer recipes started this week, with off-peak summer produce. Working with soft watermelon and greige peaches ensures the recipes work no matter the produce, but boy does it make me excited for summer’s juicy, drippy, colorful cooking. Here’s what I can’t wait to make first.

40 Ingredients Forever is devoted to recipes that are abundant in flavor and joy yet streamlined in process and shopping—because they’ll all be made using my 40 go-to ingredients. When I was making this recipe, I was thinking about Lily, a new subscriber who wrote to say that she’s a new college grad “with my first adult money and I want to put it towards making good meals for myself!” Huge heart emoji.

40 ingredients, infinite dinners. Eating salmon and avocado in one meal feels so luxurious to me. Silky, plush, I’m rich! What’s so wonderful about the pair is that they share a buttery-soft texture, but one tastes like the sea and the other the earth. Here, they meet up in a rice bowl along with a bracing, punchy vinaigrette loaded with raw ginger and scallions.

Welcome to Dinner Tetris, an advice column here at 40 Ingredients Foreverwhere a reader shares the ingredients they always have on hand and Caroline and I dream up three dinners using those ingredients. If you’d like your pantries Tetris-ed into dinner, head here. Samin Nosrat’s Tetris is here. Ham El-Waylly’s Tetris is here. A high-protein, high-fiber Tetris for subscriber Shayna is here.

Anyone who’s been around here for a little while knows I’ve been fiddling with my usual pasta formula so that pasta and I can have a long, loving relationship. What I’ve learned is that fewer noodles in the bowl can be a less-is-more situation: It can still satisfy carby pasta cravings while also making room for more stuff, which makes for a brighter, bolder, louder pasta. My first spin at this idea was a cozy, cold-weather combination of sausage, kale, pasta, and white beans.

40 Ingredients Forever is devoted to recipes that are abundant in flavor and joy yet streamlined in process and shopping—because they’ll all be made using my 40 go-to ingredients. For some, the first signs of spring are ramps, daffodils, or birds chirping. For me, it’s the avocados. Primavera is a special family farm in California that grows avocados like you’ve never had them before. They taste like so much more than the supermarket options.