Cured Meat

Crisp winter greens and tender slices of steak get the restaurant treatment with a punchy peppercorn dressing, crisp bacon bits, chives, and blue cheese.

Mayocobas, or canary beans, are the quick-cooking pantry ingredient you should know about.

Roasted cabbage wedges get cloaked in a salty-sweet glaze of maple syrup and Dijon mustard before getting topped with crunchy bacon.

Salty pancetta and briny marinated artichokes are a perfect match in this luscious pasta featuring pantry-friendly ingredients.

This towering salad—built with the components of a muffuletta sandwich like mortadella and an olive dressing—is ready for a party.

Made with just a few ingredients, this is the ideal fancy-but-easy dinner.

The best salad is really a deconstructed Italian sandwich, complete with an oregano and red wine vinegar dressing that tastes just like how your deli does it.

An elegant, satisfying dinner in under 30 minutes.

It doesn’t take a lot of ingredients (or a lot of money) to make a classic Bolognese recipe. What it does take, though, is patience!

Protein-heavy, easy to portion, and ideal for making ahead, this breakfast casserole made with boxed corn muffin mix will see you through busy mornings.

Rule number one: Assemble, don’t cook.

This seasonal chopped salad features roasted squash, bacon, walnuts, hard-boiled eggs, cheddar, apple, and kale tossed in a sweet maple vinaigrette.

Plain scalloped potatoes are good but loaded like a baked potato–with scallions, sour cream, cheddar, and bacon–they’re exponentially better.

A few hours transform hunks of brisket, smoky chiles, and zero beans into this stunning bowl of red.

With vibrant spice, this classic Italian tomato sauce gets richness from cured pork and Pecorino.

Impart the flavors of a smoker into this fully stovetop pasta sauce with a trio of ingredients: smoked bacon, smoked paprika, and spicy chipotles in adobo.

One jar of kimchi does a lot in this saucy, one-pan dinner. The chopped kimchi adds texture and tang while the brine from the jar bulks out the pan sauce.

Comprised of a custardy pantry-forward okonomiyaki batter studded with shredded cabbage and bacon, this Japanese pancake is a fast track to dinner.

These stuffed buns are everything frozen pizza pockets dream of being.

This luscious, impossibly tender brisket is the dinner party main you’ve been searching for—and you can make the whole thing in advance.

This crispy-but-tender fried tuna is reminiscent of its porky namesake—particularly when paired with rich refried beans and bright pickled onions.

Caviar sounds fancy, but it can also be a handy pantry ingredient in the form of cured salmon roe. You can start by topping smashed potatoes as shown here.

From maple-glazed to collard-braised, this list is full of champions.

Rich, smoky, and complexly sweet, these from-scratch baked beans are worth the long—mostly hands-off—cook time.