Go for it: 11 healthy and tasty dishes that you can make with what’s in the pantry

Autumn, with its yellow trees, its ocher tones and the cold – little, for now – awakens our appetite for spoon dishes, legumes, comfort foods and vegetable stews. But these months of leaf fall also tell us about the rush to be at work on time, full buses, children to take to school, traffic jams and rushes. Eating healthy and reaching for everything may seem like an oxymoron, but to reconcile ourselves with our routine we can resort to cans, jars and preserves. Comforting cuisine at the turn of your wrist.

The first thing is to have a good stock of food in the pantry, something like the stock of the closet but in the kitchen. The basics would be: jars of legumes, white beans, lentils and chickpeas. Other vegetables such as stew, leeks or borage. Bricks of vegetable broths, chicken, fish… Various cans of seafood such as mussels, cockles and tuna. Variety of spices, especially black pepper, ginger powder, garlic powder, paprika, curry… And, in addition, I would incorporate a can of coconut milk, useful for some more exotic preparations, and evaporated milk or vegetable milk for creams.

With this in the pantry and the ingredients of a basic stir-fry we can eat a healthy and varied dish that requires little work.

If you already have your pantry well stocked but are lacking ideas, here are some to prepare meals to take to work or to improvise a dinner in a few minutes.

What can we do with a jar of white beans?

Chop onion and garlic, sauté them with a splash of oil until they are soft, add a splash of white wine, let it evaporate and add the white beans once drained. Add some fish broth, boil for ten minutes and top off with the canned cockles with their own broth, one more minute and then eat.

This is simpler, if possible. With a jar of good quality white beans we can make a hummus different from chickpea hummus, even something finer. It consists of grinding the drained beans with sesame paste (tahini) to taste, garlic, salt and lemon juice. We can add some water until we get the creamy texture we want. We can serve it as is, with some paprika on top and sesame oil, or failing that, olive oil. But if we want a really tasty starter, take a jar of red peppers cut into strips, sauté them with garlic and some olive oil and put them in the middle of the hummus drizzled with their own juice. With this and some pita bread (if possible) we have a complete dish.

The secret is to have previously bought a jar of beans and another of canned collard greens. We put both in a pot and we can use the broth of both, just until it is slightly covered so that it is not too soupy. We let it cook gently so that they integrate. At the same time we sauté with olive oil, sliced ​​garlic and paprika and, being careful not to burn the paprika because it is bitter, we let everything cook together and adjust the salt.

You can also always fry some ham tacos or some slices of blood sausage in the pan and add them if you want to give it a touch reminiscent of your grandmother’s stews.

What can we do with a jar of chickpeas?

A jar of chickpeas in the pantry is almost a treasure, they go with everything.

We make a sauce with chives and garlic, and when it is well poached we add the chickpeas. Meanwhile, we put the fresh spinach in a pan and stir until it releases the water. Once this is done, we add the vegetables to the chickpeas and sauté the whole thing. We can accompany it with halves of hard-boiled eggs and we have a complete dish.

This is a stew that comforts on cold days. We need the chickpeas and a tray of cultivated mushrooms, it can be shiitake or oyster mushrooms.

First we make the traditional sautéed garlic and onion, if we like it. When it is ready, we add a couple of tablespoons of fried tomato, sweet paprika and a touch of spiciness that will give it character. And then the mushrooms, which are sautéed well with the whole thing, add some broth or water, and let it cook for five minutes. Meanwhile, we open the jar of chickpeas, wash them well and add them to the stew and let it cook for another 10 minutes so that the flavors integrate. And that’s it. A spoon and eat.

Packaged legumes are also very suitable for making more exotic dishes, such as a legume curry with little work. It is good with both chickpeas and lentils. In this case, for the chickpeas we will need a jar of cooked chickpeas, curry and a jar of coconut milk. It consists of sautéing garlic, chopped onion, some tomato and ginger that can be fresh or powdered, although fresh is more refreshing.

We then add a tablespoon of curry powder, and we can also add some cumin, cayenne powder – if we like it more spicy – but just with the curry it is already good. We stir it a few times so that the vegetables are infused with flavor, we add the drained chickpeas and coconut milk until barely covered, we let everything cook together for 10 minutes over low heat. To serve we can add herbs, such as cilantro, which gives it an exotic touch.

And with a jar of lentils?

Lentils are versatile and go well with almost everything. To a basic legume stew you can add poultry breast, squid, sautéed mushrooms, other vegetables or whatever comes to mind.

The basic stew for every day, the one that always feels good. Easy, you just have to make a sauce with onion, garlic and some tomato, we add paprika and a few slices of chorizo ​​if we like, then the jar of lentils, we let it cook for 10 minutes with a little chicken or vegetable broth or water and they are ready to eat or to put in the container and rush off to work.

Also simple and we have a first course even to invite, we need, in addition to the lentils, a can of natural squid. We start by making the traditional sautéed onion, garlic and tomato, once well cooked, we add the lentils and a fish broth until barely covered. We let it cook for a few minutes while we lightly grill the squid and serve the lentil dish with the squid on top.

This salad is even better if you make it in advance. We only need a jar of lentils, tomatoes, chives and some spices. Once the legumes are drained, we put them in a salad bowl and mix it with a diced tomato or cherry tomatoes cut in half, as well as a very fine spring onion, a chopped boiled egg and a handful of drained capers. We make a vinaigrette with oil, vinegar and a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, salt and freshly ground black pepper. We mix everything well and that’s it, a complete dish ready to eat.

And with a jar of beans?

With these legumes we can make one of the typical dishes of Costa Rica and Nicaragua, gallo pinto, also called in other areas “Moors and Christians”; a mixture of beans and rice that is used to accompany all meals. It’s very simple, we just have to sauté onion and green pepper cut into small cubes, add the drained black beans, fry them too and then add white rice – it can be one of those that are already pre-cooked and we only have to spend a minute in it. microwave. We fry everything and can season with salt, pepper and some herbs, cilantro is the most typical.

This salad is made with a mixture of legumes – two or three, for example chickpeas and white and red beans or chickpeas, white beans and lentils – and it also helps us use up some leftovers that we have.

We chop very fine onion and halved cherry tomatoes, red or yellow pepper and mix it with the legumes. In addition, we also chop pickles, piparras, capers, olives and add them. We season everything with salt, pepper, oil and adjust vinegar – carefully because the variants we have included already have it – and that’s it.