i've been trying to get into pantry-led meal planning recently. basically the idea is that my meal ideation process has gone from:
- what genre of food do i want to make?
- what ingredients do i have that i can make a dish like that with?
- make a plan for a dish in that genre with those ingredients
to:
- what ingredients do i have that will go bad if i don't use them soon?
- what genre of food could i make with those that i'd enjoy?
- make a plan for a dish with those ingredients in that genre
and the results are really nice! it encourages me to stretch out my cooking expertise a bit more, since i can't just walk into the kitchen with a firm idea in mind, and it means i'll actually use the stuff that's in my pantry. some recent examples of this:
- pasta dish using zucchini that was looking a lil beat up
- stir fry made with tomatoes (about to go bad), zucchini (leftover ingredient from the pasta dish), leftover rice (from takeout a few days ago), and green beans (frozen so they could've been used elsewhere, but i wanted to do a stir fry and green beans are good for that)
- banana/strawberry/spinach smoothie bc the banana was about to go bad and i wanted to put it to a use other than banana bread (i make a lot of banana bread already)
it feels like such an obvious adjustment, but actually starting with my ingredients during meal ideation rather than finishing with them has completely changed the way i approach cooking. it's super cool!
