Browse recipes

A revithada-style chickpea stew: soft, warming and quietly spiced with cumin and smoked paprika. Ready in half an hour and lovely spooned over rice.

Smoky roasted sweet potato, spiced black beans, and enough lime to wake it all up. The roasting tray does most of the work.

A cheap, batch-friendly workhorse: mixed peppers cooked down until silky with sweet onions and tomato, then folded through chickpeas and finished with red wine vinegar and parsley.

The Punjabi chickpea curry that earns its place in every weeknight rotation: deeply spiced, made almost entirely from the store cupboard, and better on day two.

Fakes, the Greek lentil soup that's the gentlest way back to solid food. Brown lentils simmered soft with tomato, oregano and bay, then lifted at the end with a slug of red wine vinegar and good olive oil.

Smoky, garlicky and thick enough to stand a spoon in. Cheap store-cupboard beans turned into something that tastes like it simmered all day.

Red lentils collapsing into coconut milk with Caribbean curry powder, thyme and sweet potato. Ready in half an hour and thick enough to eat with a fork.

Chickpea flour whisked into a spiced onion base until it becomes a thick, smoky, deeply savory stew. One of the fastest genuinely great things you can cook from a cupboard.

Soft yellow lentils finished with a tadka: whole spices bloomed in hot oil and poured over at the last second, so it hits the surface and sizzles.

A thick, gently spiced lentil stew softened with squash-sweet carrot and finished with a hard squeeze of lime. Everyday Peruvian home cooking: cheap, filling and quietly excellent.

The Ethiopian red lentil stew. Almost nothing in it, and yet the berbere and a genuinely long onion cook do all the heavy lifting.

Lentils and rice cooked together under a heap of deeply caramelized onions, warmed with cumin, coriander and a whisper of cinnamon. The most filling plate in the set: the lentils make it stick with you far longer than rice alone.

The North Indian kidney bean curry that's built for batch cooking: onions taken deep golden, tomatoes cooked until the oil separates, and a few beans mashed against the pan for a thick, creamy gravy without a drop of cream.

Giant white beans baked slowly in a sweet tomato sauce with dill and plenty of olive oil, until the top catches and the beans turn to cream. Greek taverna cooking at its simplest.

Curry powder bloomed in oil until it perfumes the whole kitchen, then chickpeas and potato simmered in coconut until soft and golden. Warming, cheap and quietly fiery.

A smooth, golden lentil soup finished with paprika butter and a hard squeeze of lemon. Cheap, fast, and one of the most comforting bowls there is.

A silky, deep green spinach curry with cubes of golden pan-fried tofu folded through it. All the comfort of palak paneer with none of the dairy.