Browse recipes

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.

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.

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.

Twenty-five minutes, one pan, mostly cupboard. The beans break down just enough to make the sauce creamy without a drop of cream.

Herby, crisp-edged falafel baked instead of fried, piled into a bowl with salad and a swoosh of tahini. All the flavor, none of the pan of hot oil.

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.

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.

Egypt's national dish: rice, lentils and pasta layered together under a sharp spiced tomato sauce and a heap of crisp fried onions. Carbohydrate on carbohydrate, and completely justified.

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.

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.

A fragrant tomato, lentil and chickpea soup thick with herbs and finished with lemon. Traditionally eaten to break the fast during Ramadan, and restorative at any time.

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.

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.

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

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.