Top 10: Easy Recipes with Five Ingredients

PHOTO © QUENTIN BACON

Sometimes the simplest dishes have the boldest flavors. These recipes use just five or fewer ingredients, not including pantry staples like salt, pepper and oil.

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Mustard-Baked Chicken with a Pretzel Crust

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This dish, from chef Ilene Rosen at the City Bakery in New York City, matches chicken with the classic NYC street-vendor combo: pretzels and mustard.

Delicious Chicken Recipes

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Crisp Polenta with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

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Like many red fruits and vegetables, the juicy roasted cherry tomatoes topping the polenta contain lycopene, which protects against cancer and heart disease.

More Tomato Recipes

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Balsamic and Rosemary-Marinated Florentine Steak

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Chef Matt Molina and his entourage prepared the dish on their last night in Italy, marinating the meat in olive oil, balsamic vinegar and rosemary.

Delicious Steak Recipes

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Green Mango Salad

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The mangoes in this jalapeño-spiced salad are full of vitamin C. Be sure to use firm, underripe fruit: They add an essential tang to the recipe.

Healthy Main Dishes

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Swordfish with Orzo, Pistachios and Olives

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Katy Sparks, an F&W Best New Chef 1998, knows busy people don’t have lots of time to spend in grocery stores. That’s why this tasty recipe has a short shopping list.

F&W's Fish and Seafood Guide

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Baked Peaches with Almond Paste

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Stuff ripe, juicy peach halves with pureed almond paste and then bake them until tender and golden. Puree the almond mixture ahead of time if you like, but wait until the last minute to cut and stuff the peaches, or they’ll turn brown.

Recipes with Peaches

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Irish Brown Bread

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Even though this bread is dense, hearty and complex-tasting, it requires no yeast and therefore no rising time. Cathal Armstrong says he likes it best “fresh from the oven and with lots of Kerrygold butter.”

Breads and Biscuits

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Cranberry Panna Cotta

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This elegant, low-fat panna cotta requires only five ingredients: cranberries, sugar, gelatin, water and buttermilk (instead of the usual cream).

Amazing Low-Fat Recipes

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Bucatini with Pancetta, Pecorino and Pepper

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“I love knowing that I have leftovers in the refrigerator,” says chef Shelley Lindgren. She’ll often make pasta during the day—like this rich, pancetta-studded bucatini that’s tossed with plenty of freshly ground black pepper and Pecorino—and then reheat a big bowl of it when she comes home from work late at night.

F&W's Pasta Recipes Guide

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Fudgy Chocolate-Walnut Cookies

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New York pastry chef François Payard’s divinely gooey chocolate cookies are flourless.

Chocolate Cookies

Replay gallery

Top 10: Easy Recipes with Five Ingredients

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Mustard-Baked Chicken with a Pretzel Crust

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Crisp Polenta with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

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Balsamic and Rosemary-Marinated Florentine Steak

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