Sometimes, 3 ingredients is all you need
And a three ingredient beetroot salad I can't stop eating
The roots of The Sauce come from an old Substack of mine. Back then, it was called The Capsule Pantry and featured recipes based on a small number of ingredients. These recipes were meant to be flexible — you could switch one ingredient you don’t have for another you do and they would still work.
They still exist today.
I started the Capsule Pantry during my traveling years. Three years living with Airbnb kitchens, moving every few weeks or months. Every time we left somewhere, we had to use everything in our cupboards. Every time we arrived somewhere new, we would buy all-new ingredients. I carried a small Tupperware filled with essentials. This was back when I dabbled (badly) with TikTok videos, one of which documented everything in that Tupperware:
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The following is an adaptation of an essay I wrote during those years. A story about how cooking with just a few ingredients can be good for us. For our creativity and wallet. For our brains, too.
I’ve also got a recipe for paid subscribers’ eyes made with just three ingredients - a beetroot and Greek yoghurt salad. You have to trust me about how good it tastes.
I used to complicate cooking.
If a curry recipe didn’t have double-digit spices, I wouldn’t make it. If a pizza wasn’t laden with toppings (ideally different ones on each quarter), I wouldn’t order it. If a burger didn’t have at least three garnishes, I wouldn’t be interested.
Then came a Thai curry that changed everything.
On paper, it sounded too simple. Ginger, garlic, five-spice, onions and chillies blended to a paste, added to pork and broth and simmered for a couple of hours. There is no way, I thought, that this was going to taste anything other than one-dimensional.
This was back in my twenties, long before I worked with food and wine. What my young brain hadn’t clocked back then was that magic can be found in simplicity. Especially when you add time to the mix.
This curry was a revelation, and a version of it quickly went into my weekly rotation.
Still does:
Then came a trip to Rome and a reservation at the famous Roscioli. I ordered cacio e pepe — pasta, cheese, black pepper.
Only a culture which knows what they’re doing in the kitchen could take something as simple as emulsifying pasta water with cheese and lashings of black pepper and turn it into the magic that is cacio e pepe. Simple ingredients brought to famed heights.
Then, there was my Naples pizza epiphany. Flour, yeast, salt, water, tomatoes and mozzarella cooked in a wood-fired oven and unceremoniously slapped down on a formica table for less than €4 a go.
I still can’t replicate those flavours at home, despite a pizza oven, good ingredients and no end of experimentation.
These simple yet delicious dishes got me thinking — why is it that the best food is often the most simple?
Part of it is that humans love nuance.
The average human owns 10,000 taste buds and between 10–20 million olfactory receptor neurons in the nose. 80% of taste comes from these neurons.
These are sensitive parts of the human body. What they don’t need is to be overwhelmed with complex dishes. They don’t need multitudes of ingredients forming an unharmonious flavour profile.
They need simplicity. And most importantly, quality. Because we can tell the difference.
There’s a reason why Napoli pizzas taste incredible. The best examples use PDO tomatoes and fior de latte. The French classic poulet au vin jaune is made from Poulet de Bresse, widely regarded as the best chicken in the world. Quality ingredients, always.
Simple cooking also highlights excellent cooking practices — a wood-fired oven overseen by a pizzaiolo with 20 years of experience. An Italian nonna on her 2000th time making pasta. Stereotypes that exist for a reason.
So we want simplicity. But we are also wired to complicate things.
Complexity bias means humans tend to complicate things for fear that the simple solution is, well, too simple.
As author Donald A. Newman says in his book Living With Complexity:
We seek rich, satisfying lives, and richness goes along with complexity. Our favorite songs, stories, games, and books are rich, satisfying, and complex … When things are too simple, they are also viewed as dull and uneventful.
This is true in food as it is anywhere else.
There are secret multi-spice blends in everything from tacos to fried chicken. In the 1980s, we had nouvelle cuisine with its complex towers and sauces. We had (God help us) molecular gastronomy.
But food trends move, often with a pendulum swing. Over the years, simplicity has taken centre stage more and more.
The most obvious example is the popularity of cooking over fire. There was a time when you couldn’t move in London for fire-only kitchens. Restaurants like Brat made a name for themselves by cooking quality ingredients over coal. Turbot simply adorned with butter and salt was considered a revelation.
The three-ingredient menu was another example. Some found these annoying. Deliberately opaque. You have a dish that reads as Berkswell, Coppa Piacentina, Marcona, and out comes a plate of cheese, cured meat, and almonds. Personally I love these menus (when well executed). They can be responsible for some of the most inventive cooking you’ll ever eat.
Creativity in simplicity.
Then there is home cooking. I don’t need to tell you that ingredients are becoming more expensive, and with a potential global trade war on our hands, it’s unlikely to get better anytime soon.
I’m not suggesting we should put our hands up and accept our lot. But I am saying that many of us will have to become more creative in the way we cook and eat just to keep our heads above water.
Being ruthlessly simple can force creativity and imagination. It can also speak to our base instincts — to be fed and satisfied in the simplest way possible.
We may look for complexity in life. But what we really need is simplicity.
In more ways than one.
My favourite three-ingredient recipe
Much like my aforementioned Thai curry, this beetroot dish seemed too simple to be good, but it’s turned into a staple in our house. We eat it at least twice a week as part of our green course.
Most of my recipes are behind the paywall, and this one is too. Call it a paid subscriber perk. As a reminder, The Sauce is only funded by my wonderful paid subscribers who keep the oven light on and me in enough tea to fuel writing sessions. It supports independent food and drink writing — thank you.
I’m also curious — do you have any three-ingredient dishes to share? Leave a comment or join us in the subscriber chat:
Other recipes in The Sauce archives that can be made using three(ish) ingredients include:
Charred tomatoes on yoghurt (you can forgo all the extra little bits like cumin seeds or lemon rind if you want to be militant about it)
The “just trust me on this” beetroot and Greek yoghurt salad
Serves 2
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