Good Food Doesn't Have To Be Complicated

On simple ingredients, everyday cooking and why some of the best meals require very little effort.

Some of the best meals I've ever eaten have been the simplest.

Fresh bread with good olive oil. Tomatoes sprinkled with salt. A piece of grilled fish with lemon squeezed over the top. Nothing particularly elaborate, yet somehow exactly what you wanted to eat.

It's easy to forget that food can be this uncomplicated.

We're surrounded by recipes with long ingredient lists, elaborate cooking techniques and beautifully arranged plates that look wonderful in photographs but aren't always realistic on a Wednesday evening.

And while there's plenty of pleasure in spending an afternoon making something special, good food doesn't have to involve hours in the kitchen.

Sometimes, the simpler the meal, the better.

Start With Ingredients You Actually Enjoy

One of the easiest ways to make cooking more enjoyable is to stop feeling as though every meal needs to be a new recipe. Most of us have a handful of ingredients we naturally gravitate towards. Perhaps it's tomatoes, eggs, potatoes or a particular type of cheese. Maybe there's a spice you reach for almost every time you cook.

There's nothing wrong with building meals around those familiar favourites.

A few ripe tomatoes can become a salad with olive oil and herbs, a sauce for pasta or something to pile onto toasted sourdough.

A tin of chickpeas can be tossed with spices and roasted, added to a vegetable stew or mixed with lemon and parsley for a quick lunch.

You don't need an entirely different shopping list every time you want to cook something interesting.

In fact, learning to make a few ingredients work in different ways can be far more useful than collecting hundreds of recipes you'll probably never make.

The Pleasure of a Well-Stocked Pantry

A good pantry doesn't have to mean shelves filled with expensive ingredients or matching glass jars.

It's simply a collection of things you enjoy eating and know how to use.

Olive oil, tinned tomatoes, rice, pasta, lentils, beans and a few favourite spices can take you surprisingly far.

Add garlic, onions and whatever fresh vegetables happen to be in the fridge, and you've already got the beginnings of several meals.

We particularly like having ingredients around that can turn something ordinary into something worth looking forward to. A spoonful of harissa stirred into roasted vegetables. A little cumin added to chickpeas. Preserved lemon chopped into a salad dressing. A handful of fresh herbs scattered over a bowl of soup.

These aren't complicated additions, but they can completely change how a meal tastes.

It's also worth remembering that good food doesn't have to be made entirely from scratch. Tinned beans, frozen vegetables and good-quality shop-bought ingredients all have their place.

Convenience and enjoyment can happily exist in the same kitchen.

A Lesson From North African Cooking

Growing up around North African food, you quickly realise that some of the most memorable dishes begin with very ordinary ingredients. A pot of lentils, slowly cooked with onion, tomato and spices. Fresh bread served alongside a simple vegetable dish. A salad made from whatever is available, dressed generously with olive oil.

Much of the appeal comes from knowing how to use those ingredients well.

Take a traditional tomato and pepper salad, for example. With a little garlic, olive oil and seasoning, vegetables that might otherwise seem unremarkable become something you'll want to scoop up with bread until the plate is empty.

Of course, North African cooking also has its elaborate dishes, the ones that take time and are often saved for family gatherings or special occasions.

But everyday cooking tends to be much more straightforward.

It's food made to be eaten, shared and enjoyed rather than admired from a distance.

And that's an approach we rather like.

You Don't Need a Recipe for Everything

There's a certain freedom in being able to open the fridge and put together a meal without following instructions.

That doesn't mean you need to be a particularly confident cook.

Start with a few combinations you know work.

Roasted vegetables with couscous and a lemon dressing. Eggs with sautéed mushrooms and toast. Pasta with garlic, olive oil and whatever greens need using up.

Once you've made something a few times, you begin to understand what you can change.

Perhaps you add chilli next time, swap one vegetable for another or finish the dish with a different herb.

Before long, you're cooking according to what you fancy eating rather than what a recipe tells you to make.

And if it doesn't turn out quite as expected? That's fine too.

Not every dinner needs to be a culinary achievement.

Make More of the Things You Already Have

There's also something satisfying about using what's in the kitchen rather than constantly buying more.

Leftover roasted vegetables can become a filling for wraps or an addition to a frittata.

A few pieces of bread can be toasted and served with soup, turned into croutons or used to make a quick lunch.

Fresh herbs that are beginning to wilt can be chopped into a dressing or blended with olive oil.

It's a practical way of cooking, and often a more interesting one.

Some of the nicest meals happen when you're trying to use up what you already have.

You might not be able to recreate them exactly, but perhaps that's part of the appeal.

A Good Meal Doesn't Need to Look Perfect

Social media has made food look rather polished.

Even an ordinary breakfast can seem to require a carefully arranged plate, beautiful ceramics and the perfect amount of natural light. There's nothing wrong with enjoying food photography. We certainly do.

But it's worth remembering that the meals we enjoy most don't always look particularly impressive.

A bowl of pasta eaten on the sofa after a long day. A slightly messy sandwich made with really good bread. A big pot of soup that tastes even better the following afternoon. These are the meals that become part of everyday life.

They might never make it onto Instagram, but that doesn't make them any less enjoyable.

And while a beautiful table setting is always nice, there's no need to save your favourite plates for guests. Use them for lunch on a Tuesday. Put the bread in a proper basket. Pour your drink into the glass you actually like.

You can make an ordinary meal feel enjoyable without turning it into an occasion.

Sometimes the Best Ingredient Is Good Company

Think about the meals you remember most. Chances are, you don't remember every ingredient or how long something took to cook. You remember where you were, who you were with and how the afternoon unfolded.

Perhaps it was a long lunch on holiday, when you ordered a few dishes for the table and nobody was particularly interested in checking the time. Or a meal at someone's house, where the food was simple but everyone felt comfortable enough to stay for another cup of tea.

There's a reason shared meals are such an important part of so many cultures. Food gives people a reason to come together. And when you're enjoying the company, nobody is particularly concerned about whether the potatoes were cut into perfectly even pieces.

Keep It Simple, Keep It Enjoyable

Cooking doesn't need to become another thing on your list of things to get better at.

Some days you'll feel like trying a new recipe. Other days you'll want to make the same familiar dinner you've been eating for years. Both are perfectly fine.

Buy ingredients you genuinely enjoy. Learn a few simple ways to prepare them. Keep some useful things in the cupboard for evenings when you haven't planned anything.

And when you have the time, invite someone over. Put a few dishes in the middle of the table and let everyone help themselves.

Good food is often far less complicated than we make it.

Sometimes all you really need is something delicious to eat and enough time to enjoy it.

Looking for a few useful additions to your kitchen? Explore The Pantry Edit, where we share favourite ingredients, everyday kitchen essentials and independent food producers worth discovering.