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5 Ingredients

These recipes are for all the busy people out there (college students included) who still want a good home-cooked meal but have limited time or limited pantry space.  These dishes are here to make your life easier. Each recipe is straightforward, delicious, and has 5 ingredients or less (assuming you already have olive oil, salt, and pepper in your kitchen). Simple doesn’t mean sacrificing flavor.


A side by side photo of raw blue Italian crabs on the left and bright orange cooked Italian crabs on the right.

The Easiest Way To Cook Blue Crabs (Granchio Blu Facile)

This is your one-stop shop for how to buy, cook, and pick blue crabs!  Whether it’s Maryland blue crabs (Chesapeake Bay Crabs) or the now-infamous Italian Granchio Blu, you’ll find all you need to know right here. Blue crabs are delicious and can be boiled in just 5 minutes, or […]

Vanilla pudding mix in a mason canning jar with pieces of vanilla beans poking out from the top.

5-Minute DIY Vanilla Pudding Mix (For Adding to Cake & Cookie Recipes)

This quick and easy homemade vanilla pudding mix takes just 5 minutes to make and it’s the perfect substitute for Instant Jello Pudding Mix when you want to bake cookie or cake recipes that call for using a box of vanilla pudding. Plus, it’s made without all of the highly […]

Homemade gnocchi in a cast iron skillet with half of a caramelized red onion and crispy sage leaves with extra virgin olive oil.

Toothsome Italian Potato Gnocchi Recipe (With Video)

You can find gnocchi on menus just about everywhere here in Italy — light, tender, toothsome, pillowy potato pasta dumplings! But making homemade gnocchi is incredibly simple and costs next to nothing (which is exactly why you should make your own). To make this potato gnocchi, you only need 3 basic […]

top down view into a jar of orange-red colored homemade strawberry-nectarine-apricot jam.

30-Minute Strawberry-Apricot-Nectarine Jam (Without Pectin)

If you love strawberry jam as much as we do and are just getting into learning how to make homemade jam, this unique fresh summer fruit jam recipe is for you! This isn’t just any strawberry preserves recipe, it also includes nectarines and fresh apricots to give it an almost […]

top down view into a mason canning jar filled with pizza sauce from scratch.

Easy Homemade Pizza Sauce Recipe (With Video)

This pizza sauce recipe uses just 4 ingredients (plus salt) and is so simple to make you won’t ever need to buy store-bought pizza sauce again. In fact, this is the best pizza sauce recipe ever for any kind of homemade pizza (except, of course, Neapolitan pizza and classic Italian […]

homemade spinach pasta rolled out and a zigzag-edged square lying on a cutting board with a mound of ricotto, Parmigiano-reggiano, and spicy salami filling in the center

Best Spinach Pasta Dough (Using Twice-Milled Semolina Flour)

If you’ve ever wondered how to make green pasta this is the recipe for you! Homemade spinach pasta is easy to make and uses just 4 ingredients –twice-milled semolina flour (semolina rimacinata), eggs, and a bit of extra virgin olive oil. This pasta dough recipe makes the best,  chewy spinach […]

a spoon full of homemade strawberry jam being taken out of the widemouth mason Ball jar

Easy 30-Minute No-Pectin Strawberry Jam (With Video)

This quick and easy homemade strawberry jam recipe (aka strawberry freezer jam) is delicious! It tastes as good slathered toast as it does drizzled over ice cream or used as a strawberry cheesecake topping. And it’s what I use to make one of our all-time favorite strawberry desserts –this Italian […]

deep red spaghetti with beef ragù in a pasta bowl

The Best Homemade Spaghetti Sauce with Beef (Spaghetti con Ragù)

This easy beefy homemade spaghetti sauce recipe is the best! Not only is it super quick and ready in just about 35 minutes, but it uses just 7 ingredients and it freezes really well making mid-week meal prep a cinch. Which by all standards, makes this a perfect spaghetti sauce […]

zigzagged square wonton wrappers cut out and ready to be filled

Easy Homemade Wonton Wrappers (Using Bread Flour)

This easy 3-Ingredient wonton wrapper recipe is my favorite one on the site. I use it to make all kinds of wontons (including Spicy Sichuan wontons), or sometimes potstickers — they’re especially delicious when fried to make crispy wonton strips for homemade egg drop soup. Plus, you can fill them […]

a pitcher half full milky-looking bright yellow homemade Italian limoncello next to a bottle of homemade limoncello and a fresh lemon on a red and white striped pot holder

How to Make Easy Homemade Limoncello (The Italian Way)

This homemade limoncello recipe is the best of Italian summer in a bottle — it’s smooth and sweet with an intense lemon flavor without a hint of sour or bitter notes. And with just 3 simple ingredients (and a little time and patience), it couldn’t be easier to make at […]

two long pieces of golden brown braised pork belly in a white ceramic casserole dish

Easy Japanese Braised Pork Belly (Momofuku & Ippudo Style)

This easy braised pork belly recipe is perfect for making Japanese-style pork buns, but you can also use it as a topping for homemade tonkotsu ramen, or as a delicious side to your eggs for brunch. Brined overnight and slow-braised until super tender, you’ll never need another pork belly recipe. […]

closeup of a super shiny single soft boiled caramel colored ramen egg resting in a ramen spoon in an empty ramen bowl

Perfect Jammy Ramen Eggs (Ajitsuke Tamago 味付け卵)

Learn how to make perfectly jammy soft-boiled ramen eggs at home with just 3 ingredients (4 if you want to get fancy). Also, known as Ajitsuke Tamago, Nitamago, or Ajitama, these caramel-colored umami-rich eggs are a favorite addition to homemade ramen or eaten as a snack. When cooked well, ramen […]

an aluminum foil-covered sheet pan with baking soda spread out evenly over the entire top

Easy Baked Baking Soda (for Ramen, Alkaline Noodles & Pretzels)

You might be wondering what is baked baking soda and what’s it used for?  For starters, when you heat baking soda in the oven for a long period of time, it chemically alters it from being bicarbonate of soda into sodium carbonate which is an even stronger alkaline salt. This […]

traditional homemade egg noodles being dried (some are traditional egg noodle shape for chicken soup and others are curly and look like ramen noodlees)

Easy Homemade Egg Noodles (For Chicken Noodle Soup & More)

This homemade egg noodle recipe is super easy and what I use to make classic homemade chicken noodle soup. In fact, these noodles are made with just 2 ingredients (four, if you count salt and water). So, if you’ve ever wondered how to make your own homemade noodles, this is […]