🎯 The Goal: You don't need 100 recipes — you need 5 'mother recipes' you can cook without looking at your phone. Each one takes a different protein, sauce, or veggie and becomes a brand-new meal, so five techniques quietly turn into a 20+ meal rotation.
🍳 Step 1: Learn the Big Five. 1. A stir-fry (any protein + any veg + sauce over rice). 2. A pasta (one sauce you love, done properly). 3. A sheet-pan roast (protein + veg on one tray, 425°F). 4. A soup/curry base (onion + garlic + broth + can of coconut milk or tomatoes). 5. Eggs three ways (scrambled, fried, omelet). That's the whole curriculum.
🔁 Step 2: Cook each one 3 times in 2 weeks. Repetition — not recipes — is what makes you fast. First time: follow instructions exactly. Second time: no timer, taste as you go. Third time: swap one ingredient (chicken → tofu, broccoli → peppers). By round three it's muscle memory and takes 20 minutes.
🧂 Step 3: Upgrade with the 'flavor trinity' rule. Almost every cuisine is the same technique with different aromatics: garlic-ginger-soy = Asian stir-fry; garlic-onion-tomato = Italian; onion-cumin-chili = Tex-Mex; garlic-lemon-herbs = Mediterranean. Same pan skills, four different 'restaurants'.
📋 The Cheat Sheet: Screenshot the formula grid: Stir-fry = protein + veg + (garlic/ginger/soy) + rice. Pasta = noodles + sauce + something green + cheese. Sheet-pan = protein + 2 veggies + olive oil + 425°F/25 min. Soup = onion + garlic + broth + can of anything + simmer 20. Eggs = butter, low heat, patience. Rotate one per weeknight and you never have to think about dinner again.