3-Ingredient Dinner Recipes: 15 Real Meals From Pantry Staples

A lot of “3-ingredient” recipes quietly add a marinade, a spice packet and a can of something, and then stop counting. Every dinner on this list uses three ingredients. Salt, pepper, water and a splash of cooking oil come free, the way they do in almost every recipe you will ever read. Everything else gets counted.

They are grouped by the ingredient you are most likely to have already: a packet of pasta, a box of eggs, some chicken or sausages in the fridge, or a can of beans. Most take 20 to 30 minutes. A couple need the oven and a bit of patience.

Before you start: what to keep in the cupboard

You can cook at least ten of the fifteen dinners below if you keep dried pasta, canned tomatoes, eggs, a hard cheese like parmesan or cheddar, rice, potatoes and a can of chickpeas in the house. None of it goes off quickly. Add a jar of pesto and a jar of salsa and you cover nearly all of them.

Pasta dinners (1 to 5)

1. Cacio e pepe

Spaghetti, pecorino (parmesan works) and black pepper. Toast a good amount of coarsely ground pepper in a dry pan for thirty seconds, add a ladle of the pasta water, then take the pan off the heat. Tip in the drained pasta and the finely grated cheese and toss hard, adding splashes of water until it turns glossy. If the pan is too hot the cheese clumps into strings, so the whole trick is keeping the heat off while you mix.

2. Tomato butter pasta

Pasta, a can of tomatoes and butter. Simmer the tomatoes with a big knob of butter (about 5 tablespoons for a 400g can) for fifteen minutes, crushing the tomatoes against the side of the pan now and then. The butter softens the acidity, and the sauce ends up tasting like it cooked all afternoon. If you have half an onion lying around, drop it in whole and fish it out before serving. It won’t count against you.

3. Crispy pesto gnocchi

Shelf-stable gnocchi, jarred pesto and cherry tomatoes. Skip boiling. Put the gnocchi straight into a hot oiled pan in one layer and leave them alone for three or four minutes so they brown. Turn them, add the tomatoes and cook until they split. Stir in the pesto with the heat off so it stays green.

4. Broccoli and anchovy pasta

Pasta, broccoli and anchovies. Add the broccoli to the pasta pot for the last four minutes so it gets soft enough to crush. Meanwhile, warm three or four anchovy fillets in oil over low heat until they melt. They lose their fishiness and taste salty and savory. Drain the pasta and broccoli, toss them in the anchovy oil and crush the broccoli with a spoon until it coats the pasta. No anchovies? Crumbled sausage meat, browned first, works too.

5. Creamy tortellini with peas

Fresh tortellini, heavy cream and frozen peas. Boil the tortellini two minutes short of the packet time, drain, and finish it in a pan with the cream and peas for two minutes. The pasta soaks up some of the cream as it finishes cooking, which is why the sauce clings rather than pooling in the bowl.

Egg dinners (6 to 9)

6. Simple shakshuka

Eggs, canned tomatoes and an onion. The onion is the only aromatic here, so give it ten proper minutes in oil until it is soft and golden. Add the tomatoes and simmer until a spoon dragged through leaves a clear trail. Make four hollows, crack an egg into each, cover and cook for about five minutes. You want set whites and runny yolks. Eat it straight from the pan with bread if you have some.

7. Egg fried rice

Cold cooked rice, eggs and soy sauce. Day-old rice fries better because it has dried out in the fridge. Freshly cooked rice is still wet and steams into a clump. Heat the pan until the oil shimmers, scramble two eggs, lift them out, then fry the rice for a few minutes until some grains crisp. Season with soy, then return the eggs right at the end so they stay soft.

8. Potato and cheese frittata

Eggs, potatoes and cheese. Slice two medium potatoes very thin and fry them in an ovenproof pan until completely soft; half-cooked potato is what ruins most frittatas. Beat six eggs with a handful of grated cheese, pour them over and cook on low until the edges set. Finish under the broiler for two or three minutes until the top puffs and browns.

9. Egg and cheese quesadillas

Flour tortillas, eggs and cheese. Soft-scramble the eggs and take them off the heat while they still look a little wet. Spread them over half a tortilla, cover with grated cheese, fold and toast in a dry pan for about two minutes a side, pressing down with a spatula. The cheese holds it together. Cut into wedges. Two tortillas make a filling dinner for one.

Chicken and sausage dinners (10 to 13)

10. Honey mustard chicken thighs

Bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, honey and mustard. Mix two tablespoons each of honey and wholegrain or Dijon mustard, brush it over the thighs and roast them skin side up at 400°F (200°C) for 35 to 40 minutes, until the juices run clear. The fat from the skin mixes with the glaze in the tray, so spoon it back over before serving.

11. Salsa chicken

Chicken breasts, a jar of salsa and shredded cheese. Put the breasts in a baking dish, pour the salsa over and bake covered at 375°F (190°C) for about 25 minutes. Take the cover off, scatter the cheese on top and give it five more minutes. Serve it whole or pull it apart with two forks for tacos or rice bowls. It keeps well for lunches, too.

12. Sausage and potato traybake

Sausages, potatoes and onions. Cut the potatoes into rough 2cm (¾ inch) chunks so they finish at the same time as the sausages, and cut the onions into wedges. Toss everything in oil and spread it out on a big tray. If the tray is crowded, use two. Packed trays steam instead of browning, and that’s the usual reason a traybake comes out pale. Roast at 425°F (220°C) for 35 to 40 minutes, turning once.

13. Creamy mushroom chicken and rice

Chicken thighs, a can of condensed cream of mushroom soup and long grain rice. Spread a cup of uncooked rice in a baking dish, whisk the soup with a can’s worth of water and pour it over, then lay the thighs on top. Cover tightly with foil and bake at 375°F (190°C) for about an hour. It is an old-school casserole and it is very forgiving. There are more like it in our dump-and-bake collection.

Meat-free dinners (14 and 15)

14. Loaded baked potatoes with beans

Baking potatoes, a can of baked beans and cheddar. Prick the potatoes, microwave them for 8 to 10 minutes until they give when squeezed, then put them in a hot oven for 15 minutes to crisp the skins. Split, fill with hot beans and pile on the cheese. It’s a full meal with protein, fiber and carbs, and it costs very little.

15. Chickpea coconut curry

Canned chickpeas, a can of coconut milk and a Thai or Indian curry paste. Fry two or three tablespoons of paste in oil for a minute before anything else goes in. Cooking the paste first is what makes it taste like curry instead of raw spice. Add the coconut milk and drained chickpeas and simmer for fifteen minutes. It’s good over rice and even better the next day.

How to make three ingredients taste like more

Most of the flavor in these dinners comes from browning. Crisp gnocchi, the edges of fried rice and roasted chicken skin all taste of more than they are. The second habit is saving a mug of starchy pasta water before you drain, because that is what turns butter or cheese into a sauce. Salt as you go, too. Season the pasta water, the chicken and the finished plate separately, rather than all at the end.

The same ideas carry our 15-minute meals and busy weeknight dinners. If money is tight, most of these come in at a few dollars a serving; cheap dinners under $10 plans out a full week, and 2-hour meal prep shows how to batch the ones you like.

3 ingredient dinner recipes: questions people ask

What can I make for dinner with only 3 ingredients?

Cacio e pepe, salsa chicken, a sausage traybake, egg fried rice and chickpea coconut curry are all full dinners with three ingredients, and each takes about 30 minutes or less of hands-on time.

Do salt, pepper and oil count as ingredients?

Usually not. Almost every 3-ingredient recipe treats salt, pepper, water and cooking oil as free, and so does this list. Everything else is counted.

Are 3-ingredient dinners healthy?

Some are balanced as they are, like the shakshuka, the chickpea curry and the loaded potatoes. For the rest, a bag of frozen vegetables is an easy fourth ingredient when you have one.

Can I prep these ahead?

The salsa chicken, chickpea curry and mushroom chicken and rice all keep in the fridge for three to four days and reheat well. The pasta and egg dishes are best eaten straight away.

For more in this style, healthy 3-ingredient meals builds the idea around protein and vegetables, and Grandma’s 3-ingredient dinners collects the retro canned-soup classics.

{“@context”:”https://schema.org”,”@type”:”ItemList”,”name”:”15 Three-Ingredient Dinner Recipes”,”numberOfItems”:15,”itemListElement”:[{“@type”:”ListItem”,”position”:1,”name”:”Cacio e pepe”},{“@type”:”ListItem”,”position”:2,”name”:”Tomato butter pasta”},{“@type”:”ListItem”,”position”:3,”name”:”Crispy pesto gnocchi”},{“@type”:”ListItem”,”position”:4,”name”:”Broccoli and anchovy pasta”},{“@type”:”ListItem”,”position”:5,”name”:”Creamy tortellini with peas”},{“@type”:”ListItem”,”position”:6,”name”:”Simple shakshuka”},{“@type”:”ListItem”,”position”:7,”name”:”Egg fried rice”},{“@type”:”ListItem”,”position”:8,”name”:”Potato and cheese frittata”},{“@type”:”ListItem”,”position”:9,”name”:”Egg and cheese quesadillas”},{“@type”:”ListItem”,”position”:10,”name”:”Honey mustard chicken thighs”},{“@type”:”ListItem”,”position”:11,”name”:”Salsa chicken”},{“@type”:”ListItem”,”position”:12,”name”:”Sausage and potato traybake”},{“@type”:”ListItem”,”position”:13,”name”:”Creamy mushroom chicken and rice”},{“@type”:”ListItem”,”position”:14,”name”:”Loaded baked potatoes with beans”},{“@type”:”ListItem”,”position”:15,”name”:”Chickpea coconut curry”}]}