It’s 6 pm. The plan has gone out the window, nobody went to the shops, and you’re standing at the open fridge as though it might make a suggestion.
It won’t, but a simple formula will.
The fridge-raid formula
A lot of good “whatever’s in the fridge” dinners follow the same basic shape:
something filling + something with protein + some veg + something saucy
- Filling: rice, pasta, noodles, bread, wraps, potatoes
- Protein: eggs, leftover meat, tinned tuna or beans, tofu, cheese
- Veg: whatever you’ve got, including frozen
- Saucy: soy sauce, a jar of pasta sauce, pesto, sweet chilli, a squeeze of lemon, a spoon of yoghurt
Pick one from each, and you’ve got dinner.
Five meals that work with almost anything
- Fried rice: leftover rice, any veg, an egg, soy sauce. Better with day-old rice.
- Frittata: eggs, cheese, any veg or leftover meat. Oven, 20 minutes.
- Pasta with “the good jar”: pasta, a jar of sauce, whatever veg needs using up.
- Loaded wraps: wraps, any protein, salad bits, a sauce. Everyone builds their own.
- Toasties: bread, cheese, plus anything. A good toastie is always welcome.
Check your pantry heroes
A few pantry staples turn a sad fridge into a real dinner: tinned tomatoes, tinned beans or lentils, stock cubes, pasta, rice, noodles, soy sauce and frozen peas. Keep them stocked and there’s usually a decent dinner about 20 minutes away.
Or let the Now page do it
This is exactly the moment the Now page in My Tomte is for. It looks at what’s in your fridge, freezer and pantry and shows the meals you can make from your recipes right now, then the ones missing just one or two things. And if you’d rather not cook at all, it shows what’s ready to eat.
My Tomte also plans food that’s close to its use-by date into the week first, so there’s less “what on earth is this” in the fridge to begin with.
