The smoky, cheesy lentils I keep making

So much aspirational frugal cooking quietly assumes you have endless time, energy and executive function to devote to homemade bread, all-day braises and deeply involved kitchen projects. Sometimes what you actually need is a recipe that respects your exhaustion while still delivering something nuanced, comforting and genuinely craveable.

This week, I have three I want to share with you, all built with pantry ingredients and budget in mind, and all actually cooked in a single skillet. They each come together in an hour or under, perfect for weeknights.

And, best of all: Each one concretely teaches a tip about budget cooking that can be applied to other meals. Let’s start with the easiest (and my current favorite): Smoky, cheesy one-skillet lentils.

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Smoky, cheesy one-skillet lentils

Time: 30 minutes
Serves: 3-4
Tip: Buy spices in rich seasons; lean on them in lean ones

There’s a certain kind of gray, witchy spring day where dinner needs to feel less like a project and more like a rescue mission. You know the weather: warm wind, faint smell of rain, the vague sense that a storm could roll in at any minute. These smoky lentils were born on one of those evenings, during a week where time, energy and grocery options all felt somewhat limited.

What I did have, however, was a very specific collection of kitchen stragglers: red lentils, half an onion, half a tomato, a few slices of bacon, tortillas, white American cheese and a reasonably stocked spice cabinet — which, frankly, is one of the true secrets of budget cooking. Buy spices in rich seasons; lean on them in lean ones. Not because spices make cheap food merely tolerable, but because they’re often the difference between a meal that feels like compromise and one you genuinely crave again a few days later.

(For what it’s worth, some of those ingredients — the tomato, onion, bacon and white American especially — had already had one excellent run earlier that week tucked into homemade smash burgers. I’ve long suspected this is another one of the real secrets of good budget cooking: not austerity, exactly, but learning how to let ingredients drift gracefully from one craving into another.)

The whole thing comes together in one skillet: bacon crisped until smoky, onion softened in butter, tomato cooked down with chili powder, paprika, oregano and cayenne until the kitchen smells vaguely like your favorite chef’s favorite café hosting a cheeky Taco Bell-inspired pop-up. The lentils simmer in stock — or broth, or water and bouillon — until soft and stewy, and then comes the ingredient that makes the entire recipe sing white American cheese. I know. Stay with me.

You could absolutely use feta, goat cheese, mozzarella or cream cheese depending on what’s in your fridge, but there’s something uniquely satisfying about the melt of American cheese here. It disappears seamlessly into the lentils, turning them creamy, smoky and rich with almost no effort at all. Once the cheese melts, some of the lentils get mashed with the back of a spoon until the whole skillet lands somewhere between queso blanco and refried beans.

Spooned into warm tortillas and topped with cilantro, green onion and another shake of paprika, these lentils feel far more luxurious than their ingredient list would suggest. I’ve since used the leftovers as oven-baked taquito filling, where they somehow become even better.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

• 3 slices bacon, chopped

• 1 tablespoon butter (optional, but lovely)

• 1/2 yellow onion, finely chopped

• 1/2 tomato, finely chopped

• 1 cup red lentils, rinsed

• 2 1/2 cups chicken stock, vegetable broth or water plus bouillon

• 1 teaspoon chili powder

• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika, plus more for serving

• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

• Pinch of cayenne, or more to taste

• Salt and black pepper, to taste

• 3–4 slices white American cheese

• Warm tortillas, for serving

Optional toppings

• Chopped cilantro

• Sliced green onion

• Hot sauce

• Lime wedges

• Crushed tortilla chips

Directions

1. In a large skillet over medium heat, cook the bacon until crisp and the fat has rendered, about 5–7 minutes. If the skillet seems dry, add the butter.

2. Add the onion and cook until softened and lightly golden, about 4 minutes. Stir in the tomato and cook another 2–3 minutes, until it begins to break down.

3. Add the chili powder, smoked paprika, oregano and cayenne. Stir for 30 seconds, just until fragrant and the kitchen smells excellent.

4. Add the rinsed lentils and stock. Season with a few pinches of salt and black pepper, then bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally, until the lentils are soft and stewy, about 15 minutes. Add another splash of water or broth if things get too thick.

5. Tear the American cheese into pieces and stir it into the lentils until fully melted and creamy. Using the back of a spoon, mash some of the lentils directly in the skillet until the mixture lands somewhere between queso blanco and refried beans. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.

6. Spoon into warm tortillas and top with cilantro, green onion and another shake of smoked paprika.

Fire-roasted corn and black bean skillet

Time: 45 minutes
Serves: 4
Tip: Look for ingredients with extra flavor baked in 

Recently, I’m also enjoying meals built not from elaborate technique, but from ingredients that arrive already carrying a tremendous amount of flavor. Fire-roasted frozen corn. Pico de gallo. Chipotle peppers in adobo. Chorizo. These are ingredients that know exactly who they are. And when money or energy is tight, that kind of built-in personality matters. A single tub of pico de gallo, for instance, quietly replaces fresh tomatoes, onion, cilantro and jalapeños all at once. Chipotles in adobo bring smoke, spice and richness in a single spoonful.

Instead of buying an endless parade of individual ingredients, you’re strategically outsourcing part of the flavor-building process.

To that end, this skillet starts, as many good things do, with a slick of olive oil shimmering in the pan. Sometimes I add a bit of still-relatively-affordable chorizo first — not for bulk, but for richness and spice — though soyrizo, which is often slightly more expensive, works beautifully here too. Then comes the pico de gallo, which may be one of the most underrated grocery-store shortcuts of all time: tomatoes, onion, cilantro and jalapeños already chopped and ready to collapse into something savory. A spoonful of finely chopped chipotles in adobo follows, along with black beans and fire-roasted corn, available in the freezer section of the supermarket. From there, the whole thing gets nudged further into depth with oregano, paprika and, perhaps unexpectedly, soy sauce.

Trust me here. It will not suddenly transform your dinner into Mexican-Japanese fusion cuisine (though, to be clear, that would not exactly be a tragedy. See: Chicago’s beloved Casa Madai, Silverlake’s Santo, New York’s Takumi Taco and, more broadly, the enduring glory of birria ramen). What it will do is add a savory backbone that makes the entire skillet taste like you spent much longer cooking than you actually did.

You could absolutely stop at the stovetop stage, but I’d encourage you toward a brief stint in the oven if you have the time. Twenty-five minutes or so transforms the skillet from simply good to richly cohesive, allowing the smoky chipotle, sweet corn and creamy beans to settle into each other properly. Spoon it over white rice and top with whatever happens to be lingering in your fridge — leftover pico, shredded cabbage, cheese, avocado — and dinner starts to feel less like an act of budgetary restraint and more like the sort of burrito bowl you’d happily pay $17 for elsewhere.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil

• 4 ounces fresh chorizo or soyrizo

• 1 1/2 cups pico de gallo

• 1–2 chipotle peppers in adobo, finely chopped

• 1 teaspoon adobo sauce from the can

• 2 (15-ounce) cans black beans, drained and rinsed

• 2 cups frozen fire-roasted corn

• 1 teaspoon dried oregano

• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika

• 1–2 teaspoons soy sauce

• Salt and black pepper, to taste

For serving

• Cooked white rice

• Shredded cheese

• Avocado

• Extra pico de gallo

• Shredded cabbage or lettuce

• Sour cream or Greek yogurt

• Cilantro

• Lime wedges

Directions

1. Heat the oven to 425 degrees.

2. In a large oven-safe skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the chorizo and cook, breaking it apart with a spoon, until browned and slightly crisp at the edges, about 5–7 minutes. (If using soyrizo, cook just until heated through and fragrant.)

3. Stir in the pico de gallo and cook for 4–5 minutes, until softened and jammy. Add the chopped chipotles and adobo sauce, stirring until everything smells smoky and deeply savory.

4. Add the black beans, fire-roasted corn, oregano and smoked paprika. Stir well, then season with soy sauce, a few grinds of black pepper and salt as needed. Cook another 3–4 minutes, until heated through.

5. At this point, you could absolutely eat it as-is. But for deeper flavor, transfer the skillet to the oven and bake for 20–25 minutes, until bubbling around the edges and slightly thickened.

6. Spoon over warm rice and pile on whatever toppings you have around: avocado, cheese, cabbage, cilantro, leftover pico or a squeeze of lime.

Weeknight bean and skirt steak skillet chili

Time: 1 hour
Serves: 4-6
Tip: Use beans for bulk and meat for flavor 

This chili was born from a small personal challenge: spend less than $20 at the grocery store on a dinner that could stretch two nights for two people without anyone feeling remotely deprived. Not because I think every meal needs to become a budgeting exercise, but because sometimes you want — or need — your money to go elsewhere. It’s useful to have a few recipes in your mental rolodex for those weeks. And this one, when the supermarket gods allow, is a genuine keeper.

The whole thing begins in two of my favorite corners of the grocery store: the overstock meat section and the slightly bruised produce bins. (I’m also deeply fond of the “Oops! We Baked Too Much!” cart, though on this particular trip I wisely resisted several beautiful torta rolls I absolutely did not need.) From the meat section, I grabbed a discounted package of skirt steak — about three-quarters of a pound for roughly $6.

The steaks themselves were thin, well-marbled and clearly nearing the end of their ideal sell window, likely pushed aside in favor of fresher inventory ahead of a grill-friendly weekend forecast. Perfect. Nearby, I found a 99-cent bag of slightly bruised white onions in the produce markdown section. They weren’t beautiful, exactly, but beauty matters significantly less once an onion is destined for the inside of a chili pot. From there: two 99-cent cans of fire-roasted tomatoes, two cans of chili beans purchased with app coupons, a packet of chili seasoning, a bag of white corn chips and, with the final stretch of the budget, miniature avocados and discounted sour cream.

The chili itself builds in layers. The skirt steak gets seared first until deeply browned, leaving behind savory crisped bits on the bottom of the skillet that become the foundation of the entire dish. Onion follows, then one can of the fire-roasted tomatoes alongside garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, black pepper and beef bouillon. Once the mixture softens into something stew-like, a few handfuls of corn chips go directly into the pan — a trick borrowed from tortilla soup and my beloved corn chowder shortcut, where crushed chips mimic the thickening power and toasted corn flavor of masa harina with almost no effort.

Part of that mixture gets blended into a smoky, savory paste before returning to the skillet alongside the remaining tomatoes, chili beans and steak. Simmered together until rich and cohesive, the final chili lands somewhere between classic beef chili and taqueria-style comfort food: smoky, deeply savory and thick enough to scoop with more corn chips. The first night, I topped bowls with avocado and sour cream; the second, I spooned leftovers over white rice with shredded cabbage and green onion left over from another dinner earlier in the week. It was, somehow, even better then.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon neutral oil

• 3/4 pound skirt steak, thinly sliced into bite-sized pieces

• Salt and black pepper

• 2 small onions, chopped

• 2 (14-ounce) cans fire-roasted tomatoes, divided

• 2 (15-ounce) cans chili beans

• 2 teaspoons garlic powder

• 1 teaspoon onion powder

• 1 teaspoon dried oregano

• 1–2 teaspoons chili seasoning blend, or more to taste

• 1 teaspoon beef bouillon paste or powder

• 2–3 cups water or broth

• 2 generous handfuls white corn chips, plus more for serving

Optional toppings

• Sour cream

• Diced avocado

• Shredded cabbage

• Green onion

• Cilantro

• Lime wedges

• Hot sauce

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot or deep skillet over medium-high heat. Season the skirt steak with salt and black pepper, then sear in batches until deeply browned around the edges, about 2–3 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate.

2. Reduce heat to medium. Add the onions directly into the browned bits left behind in the pot and cook until softened and golden, about 6–8 minutes.

3. Stir in one can of the fire-roasted tomatoes, along with the garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, chili seasoning and beef bouillon. Add 2 cups water or broth and simmer for 5 minutes, until slightly thickened and stew-like.

4. Crush the corn chips lightly with your hands and stir them into the pot. Let them simmer for 2–3 minutes, until softened.

5. Carefully transfer about 2 cups of the mixture to a blender and blend until mostly smooth. (Alternatively, use an immersion blender directly in the pot for a few quick pulses.) Return the blended mixture to the skillet.

6. Stir in the remaining can of fire-roasted tomatoes, the chili beans and the seared steak along with any juices collected on the plate. Simmer uncovered for 20–25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until rich, smoky and thick enough to scoop with chips. Add another splash of broth or water if it becomes too thick.

7. Serve topped with avocado, sour cream and more corn chips for crunch.

This story originally appeared in The Bite, my weekly food newsletter for Salon. If you enjoyed it and would like more essays, recipes, technique explainers and interviews sent straight to your inbox, subscribe here.