Serena Dai, the editorial director at food publication Bon Appetit, joined Cheddar News to talk about cooking hacks for people on a budget. “This is a huge guide with just a ton of recipes and techniques that we published throughout the years that really highlight how to make the most of what you have," she said. 

Cheddar's News Wrap

Bon Appetit Cooking Hack Uses What You Already Have in Your Pantry

All right, welcome back to cheddar news wrap in the face of inflation and rapidly rising grocery prices. It's not easy to get all the goods on the dinner table or find everything you're looking for at the store? So, to help bone appetite has revealed top money saving recipes techniques and guides to help people cook delicious and easy meals that don't break the bank. So joining me now is serena dai, editorial director at bone appetite and serena give us an overview of bone appetites, latest guide to cooking while spending less. What do people need and what does it include? Yes, So this is a huge guide with just looking at a ton of different recipes and techniques that we've published over the years, that really highlight how to make the most of what you have. I mean, be a obviously everything is really quite expensive now, but we love food, we really want delicious food, we don't want to sacrifice on the flavor, We still want to have a wonderful meal. And so it's all about making the most of what you already have and stretching your dollar a little bit. So their techniques, so things for example, to make your can of beans taste even better and make sure it lasts throughout the week, or recipes where once you do have that can of tomatoes. Okay, what are different, I don't want to buy more tomatoes, but I have these in my pantry, what are 10 different things that I can make with it, what do I actually have? Um So that's kind of the big overview and we're gonna keep doing more of these since everything's expensive, everything is expensive. So do you have any personal favorites when it comes to ingredients? So I I my co workers are going to call me the crazy bean lady, but beans are something that they're just so versatile. Um I think I learned from my coworkers. A bunch of petite is the thing you can do with the canned beans is you bloom your your spices first in the oil. So any spices, you have anything that you like, you put it in the oil and then it just increases the depth of the flavor and then eventually you can just put the drain the beans and put them in and then you can put it with crackers and put them on sandwiches. And even if you're making a salad later you just put the beans in and it's such an easy source of protein, it's such a versatile ingredient. So what are some of your top money saving recipes and how do people go about making them? So if you go to, But there are so many, there are hundreds and hundreds of them over there through different galleries. Um first of my favorites, so we can talk a little about the fish. So um one of them is this writer did this thing called cheap tricks, we have a column where you take something already have and the easiest way to get it to the the finish line. So one thing that I really appreciate about it is you kind of look at what is in your pantry, Think about flavor ingredients, you combinations already like, so maybe you went to a restaurant recently and you really love the roast chicken that happened to have a lemon and then a garlic and so maybe some sitar. So whatever spice blend that is and so you may be your spices in and you combine it with the fish and use it as a base and then similar thing with the beans. Can kind of put it on to think about the way for the whole week. So you can throw it in pasta, you can put it on sandwiches, you can put it in salad and just really thinking the way of stretching that and maximizing the flavor by just doing a few little tricks. So when it comes to leftovers, how can we revitalize, bring to life my leftover food, your leftover food. Yeah, I mean just thinking about what you have in your pantry and seeing, are there things that can, can twist with it? So for example, if you did make a meat dish and you me it's expensive and you really want to stretch it? Okay, maybe I can chop this up and make it into a sandwich later or maybe I can chop this up in part of a rice later. Is there another maybe you have some, one of my favorite things is if you have some vegetables a stir fry, you don't really want to eat stir fry again, you can actually, there's a recipe on bon appetit to come to make it into a korean style pancake. So mix the eggs. Yeah, yeah. And it's really great and maybe the vegetables feel like they're being a little wilted and you just throw it in and then it feels completely transformed. And I'm the kind of person who wants something unique every night, wants something delicious and once you transform it a little bit, it doesn't feel like you're eating the same thing every night. I love that. So you brought five ingredients for us, what are they? So we got some canned tomatoes, canned beans. Again, I'm the crazy bean lady and then some instant ramen, some tin fish and some soup. So we have cancer. So these are all things that most likely you have in your pantry, you're like, hey, I don't want to go to the grocery store again. I really, this has been stuck in there for a little bit, what do I do with them? So we can go through things you can make them feel like they're not sad. I mean if you love steak, you're not necessarily really gonna wanna just have eat a tomato or some beans and so a lot of these tips on petite are thinking about how can you transform it. So for example, one of my colleagues is really obsessed with canned soup and she's not just opening the can and putting in the microwave um what she's looking is, okay, maybe it's a chunky tomato bisque and she doesn't just want that. So okay, what does she have in her fridge already? Maybe it's some yogurt at the end of it, She's swapping some yogurt on it. Or maybe you know, it's not quite garlicky enough, there's some extra garlic and so making sure that you're adding some spices up front to kind of develop it a little bit. If it's a chunkier soup, maybe you can thin it out a little bit and adding some water, adding some broth and I'm thinking about that a little bit or you can do a combo if you need some protein, add some beans to a soup. I know, I know, I want you to do beans and soup and then maybe you have some vegetables in your fridge there kind of going bad. You don't want to waste them, throw them in the soup. Yeah. Or you can even do noodles, let's say you have this instant ramen and you don't want to spice packet, you've had it a million times already. Okay, what do I do? I don't want to waste it, You can maybe put it in one of the canned soups as well. Thinking about carbs, Thinking about if you want to throw a little vinegar at the end for a little bit of acid and just thinking about what you already have and seeing those tips and helping we're going to help guide you and saying, okay, get something acidic, get something carby and how do you combine this to make it more than the sum of his parts? Love it. Serena dai, editorial director at bon appetit, Open your covered, make some of this stuff. You're fantastic. I appreciate it so much.