Marinara Ingredients: Oil Onions Crushed tomatoes Italian seasoning Pasta (+water for cooking) Instructions: Make pasta according to instructions, sauté onions in pan, add tomatoes and seasoning, simmer for a bit, add pasta noodles. Tasted better than anything pre made, easy to make right for beginners, and can grow with your skill. Add toppings like cheese, replace pasta water with chicken stock, add a bay leaf, add a dash of sugar and a little sliver of butter… I didn’t include garlic because of minimizing ingredients and the onion is more important for texture but garlic (fresh minced or bought in the little jars) can go a long way to improving this.

Lemon basil pasta Ingredients: Lemon juice (fresh squeezed is great in the winter, but honestly just a bottle of it works fine. Obviously you get the quality you pay for) Butter Pasta (+water for cooking) Basil Onion Instructions: Add butter to pan, melt it up till it’s all bubbly and delicious, add onions and sauté. Once those are nice and soft, add pasta noodles, basil and lemon juice. Pro tip: add a little of the water from your pasta. The starches help thicken the sauce. Just like a tablespoon at a time. Or don’t and it’s still good.

This one’s also easy to make, improved by garlic and chicken stock, and can grow with you. I like to add asparagus, bell pepper, garlic and sometimes finish it off with some arugula and fresh grated parm.

Better instant noodles Ingredients: Instant ramen packet Egg Green onion Tofu (or a protein of your choice, I like tofu) Instructions: Take a ramen packet, cook in a shallow pan with a little less of the water. Cube or thinly slice your tofu, slice your green onion how you like and add it on top. Once noodles soften, crack an egg on top, place a lid on the pan and turn the heat down a bit. Cook until the egg is the doneness you like. Eat directly out of the pan over the stove at 4am like a goblin.

Idk if you count salt and pepper as ingredients but I would recommend cooking with both.

Happy cooking!