One pot
Skillet white beans with spinach and garlic toast
White beans simmer in tomato sauce until creamy, then finish with spinach and lemon. Crisp garlic toast is served alongside.
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9 recipes
Soups
Broccoli cheddar soup
A thick, cheesy soup that comes down to one skill: getting cheese to melt into hot soup smoothly instead of turning grainy or stringy. Along the way you build a roux-thickened base, the same method behind many cream soups and cheese sauces, so what you learn here carries over.
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Soups
Chicken noodle soup
This version gets a fuller, rounder pot in about an hour by simmering bone-in chicken thighs in store-bought broth, so the bones and skin add body while the meat cooks. It teaches you to sweat vegetables, keep a simmer gentle, skim, and save the seasoning for the end.
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Soups
Corn chowder
Make this when sweet corn is piled high at the market. It teaches you to get every bit of flavor out of the ear: the kernels, the milky pulp you scrape off the cob, and the bare cobs themselves, simmered right in the pot. Blending part of the chowder gives it body without a heavy hand of flour.
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Soups
Lentil soup
Lentils need no soaking, cost little, and turn a pot of broth into a meal in a little over an hour. This soup teaches you to bloom spices in fat, to cook dried lentils until creamy without bursting them, and to blend part of the pot so it has body without flour or cream. The lemon at the end is what makes it taste alive.
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Soups
Minestrone
Minestrone is a vegetable soup built on timing. The slow base goes in first, the hard vegetables next, and the soft vegetables, beans and pasta last, so everything is done at the same moment. Learn that order once and you can make it from whatever is in your crisper drawer.
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Soups
Potato leek soup
A few inexpensive ingredients, a little patience with the leeks, and a soup that tastes far richer than it is. It teaches you to clean leeks properly, sweat them to silky sweetness without color, and blend potatoes so they turn creamy instead of gluey.
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Breakfast
Stovetop Oatmeal
A pot of oatmeal is a few minutes of easy stirring, and it teaches three moves you'll use far beyond breakfast: toasting a grain in fat, cooking starch to a creamy set, and salting the liquid early. Made this way, it tastes like toasted oats and warm milk, not paste.
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Soups
Tomato soup
A pot of tomato soup made from canned tomatoes teaches three things you'll use for years: how to draw sweetness out of an onion, how to take the raw edge off tomato paste, and how to taste your way to a soup that is bright but round. You'll also learn to blend hot soup without redecorating the kitchen.
View recipe · 4 servings