The Six-Ingredient Solution · How to Coax More Flavor From Fewer Ingredients

Think it takes more than a handful of ingredients to get a hearty chicken soup, Sunday dinner worthy roast beef, or robustly flavored spaghetti and meatballs on the table? Think again. The test cooks at America's Test Kitchen tackled a new challenge in this collection of 175-plus fuss-free recipes that slash the shopping list but deliver the big flavor you d expect. In The Six-Ingredient Solution, we put our ingredients to work and revamped the cooking methods for everything from starters and soups to braises, casseroles, pastas, and desserts without losing any of the flavor. With our smart ingredient choices, we found a way to infuse our butternut squash soup with warm spice notes, minus a ton of spices (a chai teabag did the trick), and figured out how to give our roasted chicken intense flavor and a nicely bronzed exterior with just one ingredient (a glaze of pomegranate molasses, brushed on every 10 minutes, added sweet-tart flavor, plus its sugars helped the skin crisp and brown). A pasta-night stand-in (prepared pesto) helped us achieve a rich-tasting meatloaf with big garlic and herb notes no chopping necessary. But selecting the right mix of ingredients and convenience products was only part of the solution overhauling the cooking methods also helped eke out more flavor from fewer ingredients. For an easy, weeknight-friendly casserole, we unstuffed our shells. Tossing cooked shells with store-bought sauce enriched with browned sausage and fennel before baking ensured all the flavors and ingredients had a chance to meld in the oven, for a heartier dinner with less fuss. This collection shows you really can do a lot with a little when you know what you're doing. With The Six-Ingredient Solution, we might have cut back on the ingredients, but we didn't cut back on the flavor.