Making more with less: Recipes with 6 ingredients or fewer

Whipping up sensational dinners with limited ingredients

Not counting garnishes, these Lentil Soft Tacos are made with just five ingredients.
Not counting garnishes, these Lentil Soft Tacos are made with just five ingredients.

The challenge:

A week's worth of dinner recipes that are full of flavor, but don't require a laundry list of ingredients or rely heavily on processed foods.

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Food styling/KELLY BRANT

Sausage and Pepper Hoagies are filled with spicy Italian sausage, roasted peppers and onions and served on a buttery, toasted bun.

The rules:

Recipes can use no more than six ingredients and take no more than an hour to prepare.

Salt, pepper, cooking oil/butter and water are not included in the total.

The hardest part of limited-ingredient recipes, particularly if you don't want to rely on prepared and convenience products, is keeping the recipes simple without being bland.

For this task we turn to the bold flavors of aromatic vegetables, seasoning blends, vinegar and fruit preserves. We opted for flavorful meats -- sausages, pork and beef -- and for our vegetarian entree, quick-cooking, flavor-absorbing lentils.

America's Test Kitchen, in its book The Six-Ingredient Solution offers the following tips for getting the most flavor from fewer ingredients:

• Use high heat. High heat encourages browning and caramelization, which add flavor.

• If a recipe calls for an ingredient that contains a flavorful fat, such as sun-dried tomatoes or jarred pesto, use that oil for sauteing to boost the flavor. Also, consider cooking with aromatic or flavored fats such as unrefined coconut oil or seasoned stir-fry oil. In Asian-style dishes a light drizzle of toasted sesame oil can really amplify the flavors.

• Toasting or heating spices in a small amount of oil will bring out their flavors. For example, in the Lentil Soft Tacos recipe, after sauteing the onion in vegetable oil, the lentils and taco seasoning are cooked briefly before adding the broth.

• Don't skip the salt. Salting food while cooking rather than at the table, will allow you to use less salt, but coax more flavor from the food. Meats should be seasoned before cooking.

We enjoyed this flavorful pork with brown rice and green beans.

Balsamic Blackberry Pork

1/4 cup blackberry preserves

1 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1 pork tenderloin

Salt and ground black pepper

2 red onions, cut into wedges

Olive oil

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Line a rimmed baking sheet or shallow roasting pan with foil.

In a small bowl, whisk together the preserves and balsamic vinegar. Divide mixture in half. Set aside.

Season the pork tenderloin with salt and pepper and place it in the center of the prepared baking sheet. Arrange the onion wedges around the pork tenderloin. Drizzle the tenderloin and onions with olive oil.

Roast 25 minutes. Baste pork with half of the preserves mixture. Return pork to oven and continue roasting until internal temperature reaches 145 to 150 degrees, 15 to 20 minutes more depending on size of tenderloin. Let pork rest 5 minutes. Thinly slice pork. Serve with onions and remaining preserve mixture.

Makes 4 servings.

Roasting, rather than sauteing, the peppers and onions with the sausages not only means easy one-pan clean up, it gives the peppers and onions a toasty, caramelized flavor.

Sausage and Pepper Hoagies

Olive oil

2 onions, cut into 3/4-inch wedges

2 red or yellow bell peppers, cored and cut into 1/2- to 1-inch strips

Italian seasoning blend

Salt and ground black pepper

5 links hot or mild Italian sausage

5 hoagies or other sturdy buns

Butter, softened

Mustard, optional

Heat oven to 425 degrees.

Line a large baking sheet with foil. Arrange the onion wedges and peppers on the baking sheet. Lightly drizzle vegetables with oil and sprinkle with Italian seasoning, salt and pepper. Pierce each sausage in several places with the tines of fork. Arrange sausages on top of the vegetables. Bake 15 minutes, turn sausages over and bake 15 minutes more or until sausages are cooked through and vegetables are very tender.

Open hoagies and spread cut sides with butter or coat with a bit of olive oil. Toast in a hot skillet or griddle until browned. Serve toasted hoagies filled with onion, peppers and sausages and a smear or drizzle of mustard.

Makes 5 servings.

This recipe bends the rules a bit in that it uses two convenience products -- canned biscuits and condensed soup.

Beefy French Onion Pot Pie

1 pound lean ground beef

1 small onion, diced

1 (10 1/2-ounce) can condensed French onion soup

8 ounces shredded mozzarella or gruyere cheese, divided use

1 (12-ounce) tube refrigerated biscuit dough

Fresh chives or green onions

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large oven-safe skillet, cook beef and onion over medium heat until beef is no longer pink, breaking it into crumbles as it cooks. Drain well. Stir in soup and bring mixture to a boil. Sprinkle with all but 1/2 to 3/4 cup of the cheese. Bake 5 minutes or until cheese is melted. Top with biscuits, flattening biscuits as necessary to cover beef mixture. Bake 15 minutes or until biscuits are just golden. Top with the remaining cheese and bake 5 minutes more or until cheese is melted.

Serve garnished with chives or green onion.

Makes 4 servings.

Recipe adapted from Taste of Home Easy Weeknight Dinners

This is a recipe where the math gets tricky. Technically, if these tacos are piled high with diced avocado, cilantro, salsa and sour cream they're made with more than six ingredients. But because the diner, rather than the cook, does the topping we say the garnishes don't count in the total.

Lentil Soft Tacos

Vegetable oil, for stove-top method

1 onion, diced

2 cups dried green or brown lentils, sorted and rinsed

1 (1.25-ounce) packet OR 2 1/2 tablespoons taco seasoning

2 to 6 cups warm vegetable broth, depending on cooking method

Warmed corn or flour tortillas

Desired toppings such as cilantro, diced tomatoes, crumbled cheese, sliced avocado and/or salsa

Editor's note: We prepared this recipe using the stove-top method.

To prepare on the stove-top: Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook onion until it softens and begins to brown, about 6 minutes. Add lentils and taco seasoning. Cook until spices are fragrant and lentils are dry, about 1 minute. Add 4 cups of the vegetable broth; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer, adding more broth as necessary until lentils are tender, about 30 minutes. Uncover lentils and cook until mixture thickens, 6 to 8 minutes.

To prepare in a slow cooker: In a 4-quart slow cooker, combine the onion, lentils, taco seasoning and 2 cups vegetable broth. Stir well to combine. Cover and cook on low 5 to 6 hours or high for about 3 hours, or until lentils are tender, but not falling apart.

Serve stuffed into warmed corn tortillas with desired toppings.

Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Recipe adapted from 5 Ingredients or Less Slow Cooker Cookbook by Stephanie O'Dea (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Nov. 3)

Not only is this recipe made with just a handful of ingredients, it's practically a whole meal on one sheet pan. Just add something green like steamed broccoli or green beans, and dinner is done.

Pork With Sweet Potatoes and Peppers

2 red bell peppers, cut into chunks

1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces

1/2 pound gold or red potatoes, scrubbed and quartered

1 to 2 cloves garlic, minced

Olive oil

Salt and ground black pepper

1 pork tenderloin

Fiesta Citrus Seasoning

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Line a rimmed baking sheet or shallow roasting pan with foil.

In a medium bowl, combine the bell peppers, sweet potato, regular potatoes and garlic. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Arrange mixture on one half of the prepared baking sheet. Lay pork tenderloin on the other half. Drizzle pork with oil and sprinkle generously with Fiesta Citrus Seasoning.

Roast, stirring vegetables occasionally, until vegetables are golden brown and tender and pork reaches an internal temperature of 145 to 150 degrees, about 40 minutes. Let pork rest 5 minute before slicing.

Makes about 4 servings.

Food on 10/07/2015

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