Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and a Snack From an Almost-Empty Fridge

What to eat with no groceries? You almost certainly have more than you think. A few eggs, some bread, rice or pasta, one tin (beans or tomatoes), a bag of frozen veg and a bit of cheese is a full day of real food: breakfast, lunch, dinner and a snack. The trick is to stop thinking in separate recipes and start thinking in staples, then cook the same five or six things in different shapes across the day.

Here is the short version. Breakfast is eggs on toast, or a quick fried-rice bowl if you have leftover rice. Lunch is a tin of beans or tomatoes turned into a warm bowl over rice or pasta. Dinner is the biggest build: pasta or rice with frozen veg, the rest of the tin, and cheese melted through. The snack is whatever bread and cheese you have left, toasted. Five staples, four meals, almost nothing in the bin.

Breakfast: eggs are the most forgiving thing you own

Two eggs and two slices of bread is breakfast in about five minutes, and it works even when the fridge is nearly bare.

1. Heat a lightly oiled pan over medium.
2. Toast the bread (in the same dry pan if you have no toaster, about a minute a side).
3. Fry two eggs for 2 to 3 minutes for a runny yolk, or scramble them low and slow with a knob of butter so they stay soft.
4. Season with salt, pepper, and anything sharp you have: hot sauce, a scrape of cheese, the last of an onion.

If you cooked rice last night, do the bowl instead. Fry a cup of cold rice in a hot pan, stir one egg through it, add a handful of frozen peas straight from the bag, and it is done in three minutes. Cold day-old rice fries far better than fresh, which steams and clumps.

Lunch: one tin does the heavy lifting

Lunch is where a single tin earns its keep. A tin of beans or chopped tomatoes becomes a warm, savoury bowl over rice or pasta.

1. Rinse a tin of beans (white, kidney, chickpeas, whatever you have) in a sieve.
2. Soften half an onion in a little oil if you have one, or skip it.
3. Add the beans plus half a tin of chopped tomatoes, season, and simmer 5 to 8 minutes until it thickens.
4. Spoon over rice or pasta and finish with grated cheese and a lot of black pepper.

A 400g tin of beans is roughly two portions, so half goes to lunch and half waits for dinner. Same with the tomatoes. That deliberate split is the whole plan: one tin, two meals.

Dinner: the anchor meal, so give it the most

Dinner gets the biggest build. Pasta or rice, the rest of your tin, a fistful of frozen veg, and cheese stirred through is a proper plate that does not taste like a compromise.

1. Boil pasta in well-salted water for 9 to 11 minutes, or cook rice 1 part rice to 2 parts water, 12 minutes covered, then rested off the heat for 10 minutes (no peeking).
2. While that cooks, warm the rest of your tomatoes and beans in a pan with any seasoning you have.
3. Tip a big handful of frozen veg straight into the simmering sauce, no defrosting, and give it 4 to 5 minutes.
4. Drain the pasta or fold in the rice, combine with the sauce, grate cheese over the top and stir until it pulls into strings.

Snack: built from the bits left over

The snack is meant to be made of scraps, and that is the point. Bread plus cheese plus heat is the most reliable snack there is, and you can swing it sweet or savoury depending on what is open.

• Cheese toastie: butter the outsides of two bread slices, cheese in the middle, pan-fry until golden and melted on both sides.
• Cinnamon toast: toast, a smear of butter, a sprinkle of sugar and a pinch of cinnamon if you have it.
• Crispy rice cake: press leftover rice into a flat patty and fry until the bottom is crunchy, then top with anything sharp.
• Folded egg sandwich: a fried egg on the last slice of bread, folded over, salted, eaten standing up.

A real day from six things

Here is one honest day built from six staples: 4 eggs, 4 slices of bread, 1 cup of uncooked rice, one 400g tin of chopped tomatoes, one 400g tin of white beans, and a bag of frozen peas, plus a wedge of cheese and one onion if you have them.

1. Breakfast: 2 fried eggs on 2 slices of toast.
2. Lunch: half the beans simmered with half the tomatoes for 8 minutes, spooned over half the rice (cook the full cup and save the rest, cooled fast).
3. Dinner: the other half of the rice fried up, or pasta if you have it, with the rest of the tomatoes and beans, a big handful of peas, and cheese stirred through.
4. Snack: a cheese toastie on the last 2 slices of bread, plus the last 2 eggs if you are still hungry.

That is four meals, no shopping trip, and the only thing you fully run out of is the tin. Everything else has a little left for tomorrow.

More no-grocery ideas from the same staples

• Tomato eggs: crack eggs straight into the simmering tin of tomatoes and cover until set.
• Bean and cheese quesadilla if you have wraps instead of bread.
• Peas and pasta with butter, cheese and pepper when the tin is already gone.
• Fried-rice everything: cold rice, one egg, peas, a splash of any sauce.
• Soup from the last of the tomatoes thinned with water, bread torn in.
• Eggy bread (French toast) when the loaf is going stale: egg, a splash of milk if you have it, fry both sides.
• Cheesy rice baked or pan-melted when there is no tin and no pasta left.
• Bean mash on toast, seasoned hard, as a fast lunch.

The hard part of an empty fridge is not the cooking, it is the deciding. Staring at six odd things and working out how they add up to a whole day is the bit that makes people order takeaway instead. That is exactly the job Pann does: you tell it the few things you have, it maps out breakfast, lunch, dinner and a snack so the staples stretch, and it writes a short shopping list for only what is genuinely missing.