Think There’s No Food in the House? Recipes to Change Your Mind.

Sopa de ajo, a Castilian specialty, is famously restorative, but it’s actually made with little more than stale bread, garlic cloves and water.

Cheese, pepper, pasta, butter: That’s all you need to make this Roman specialty.

While it’s usually relegated to breakfast, oatmeal shouldn’t be overlooked as a dinner option. This recipe’s incredibly versatile: Swap the trout for canned tuna, or omit the fish altogether; drizzle the bowl with sesame oil and soy sauce in place of olive oil; try stirring in shredded cheese of any kind.

This beloved recipe comes from Los Angeles chef Ray Garcia. If you don’t have fresh tomatoes, that’s no biggie; it would work using canned tomatoes, too.

Soft, stretchy cheese between two slices of bread: that’s all the proof in the world that sometimes the simplest foods in the world are the best. As long as you have a melting cheese and slices of any type of bread, grilled cheese can be in your future. (You can even make a version of egg-in-a-hole sandwiches if you have a couple of eggs on hand.)

Vegetable-lentil soup is a classic. Make it using whatever variety of lentils you have on hand; any variety of canned tomato—stewed, diced, whole—would work, too.

This comforting dish comes together with just four ingredients excluding seasonings: eggs, spinach, cream and butter. If you don’t have spinach, substitute any other leafy green, such as kale or chard, or even frozen spinach that’s been defrosted and drained.

Although this recipe calls for homemade fresh pasta, we’d also turn to it on a busy weeknight for the dried spaghetti we often keep on hand. Use boxed pasta of any variety to create an easy dish.