How do I cook using whatever's in the fridge?

Improvising from a fridge is much easier with a small set of formats that tolerate substitution. Soup, frittata, fried rice, a traybake and pasta between them absorb virtually any combination of leftovers, and each has a fixed method regardless of what goes in.

Step by step

1. Take everything out and see what you actually have.Sort into base (grains, potatoes, bread), protein, vegetables, and flavourings. Half-used items are your starting point.
2. Prioritise whatever will spoil first.That's the point of the exercise. Start from what needs using rather than what you fancy.
3. Pick a format that suits the contents.Lots of vegetables: soup or traybake. Eggs and odds and ends: frittata. Cooked rice: fried rice. Anything at all: pasta.
4. For soup: soften onion, add everything, cover with stock, simmer, blend or don't.The most forgiving format there is. Almost any vegetable combination works.
5. For a frittata: sauté the fillings, pour over beaten eggs, cook low, finish under the grill.Six eggs to about 400g of filling. Cooked potatoes, greens, cheese and herbs all work.
6. For fried rice: hot pan, aromatics, chopped vegetables, cold cooked rice, egg, soy.Cold rice is essential — fresh rice turns to mush. This is the best use for leftover rice, cooled and refrigerated promptly.
7. For a traybake: everything chopped evenly, oil, salt, hot oven, dense things first.Add quick-cooking items partway through so everything finishes together.
8. Season properly and finish with acid and fat.Improvised meals particularly need this. Salt, lemon, olive oil, herbs or cheese at the end.

Tips

• Half a jar of something — pesto, harissa, curry paste, mustard — is often what turns a pile of odds and ends into a coherent dish.
• A hard cheese rind, a stock cube or a spoon of miso adds savoury depth to almost any improvised dish.
• Wilting vegetables are fine cooked, even when they're past salad-quality. Soup and traybakes absorb them entirely.
• Keep a note of improvisations that worked. Some of the best regular meals start as fridge clear-outs.

Common mistakes

• Trying to follow a recipe with substitutions — It's much harder than picking a format and filling the slots. Formats are designed to tolerate variation; recipes aren't.
• Using freshly cooked rice for fried rice — It's too moist and turns to mush. Cold, refrigerated rice is what gives separate grains.
• Combining too many strong flavours — Improvised dishes go wrong by including everything. Pick a direction and leave the rest out.
• Under-seasoning — Improvised meals particularly need salt and acid at the end to taste deliberate.

Questions people ask