Yes, cooking with fewer ingredients can simplify your weeknights and trim your grocery bill—but it can also make you a better cook. Don’t get us wrong: We love a long ingredient list when we’re chasing big, layered flavors. But paring things down forces you to really taste what each component is doing. Season a roast chicken with nothing but salt and you’ll understand how it deepens savoriness and helps the meat stay juicy. Focus on paprika in a chicken paprikash and you’ll notice how blooming the spice in oil transforms its flavor. Build a dish around dark soy sauce and you’ll see how beautifully it caramelizes, adding sweetness as well as umami.
With fewer moving parts, everything becomes clearer: what matters, what doesn’t, and how great flavor comes together. Then, when you return to more complex weekend cooking, you’ll do it with sharper instincts and a better sense of how each ingredient pulls its weight.
Below, we’ve gathered 10 chicken recipes that make the most of tight ingredient lists. Most use five ingredients or fewer, though we let a few six- or seven-ingredient standouts slip in because they’re still simple—and absolutely worth it. (Salt and pepper, as always, don’t count.)
