Welcome to 40 Ingredients Forever

Recipes that are abundant in flavor and joy yet streamlined in process and shopping (because they’re all made of the same 40 ingredients).

When I was writing I Dream of Dinner (so You Don’t Have To), I was so fixated on including a variety of ingredients that I’d periodically make word clouds of the ingredients to see which were overused and which were mistakenly forgotten. My next book’s title will be I Overthink Everything so You Don’t Have To.

But I’ve come to realize that using fewer ingredients in more ways isn’t boring—it’s something to strive for. It means less food waste, a smaller grocery bill, fewer trips to the store, and no more lingering bottles of “what am I gonna do with that?” It also just makes things easy! Not sexy, but it’s the truth.

40 Ingredients Forever is devoted to recipes that are abundant in flavor and joy and streamlined in process and shopping—because they’ll all be made only using my 40 go-to ingredients. You don’t need all 40 ingredients right now, and there’s a chance you’ll already have everything to make the featured recipe. Any items you do accumulate will get used up over time with a little help from 40 Ingredients Forever (and me). 

This limitation isn’t an arbitrary jump through hoops. I know my Forevers are enough because every winter, my boyfriend and I load our lives into a camper van and head west for six months, stopping occasionally at rentals so I have a full kitchen to work in. These are the ingredients that have either won a spot in the van’s pantry drawer or are purchased at stops since I know they’ll get eaten before we hit the road again.

The little van kitchen / wet bar. [Credit Sarah Zweig]

Tetris-ing recipes with real-life guardrails is very fun for me, which phew since I made it my career of somehow 15 years. You might know my first cookbook, I Dream of Dinner (so You Don’t Have To): Low-Effort, High-Reward Recipes, or you might’ve seen my recipes at Bon Appetit, the Washington Post, or the New York Times—perhaps the ginger-dill salmon (most popular recipe class of ‘20), burst tomato gnocchi (class of ‘21 and all time), or the Greek chicken (‘22). 

Eye spy seven Forevers in the Ginger-Dill Salmon

But who cares, back to the food…Just how many meals can I really make with 40 ingredients? What are the 40 ingredients? Only one way to find out:

Free subscribers get 1 recipe per month.

Paid subscribers ($6/month or $50/year) get 1 email per week:

• 2 complete-meal recipes per month (1 vegetarian, 1 meaty)

• 1 weeknight dessert recipe per month by Sarah Jampel, my best pal and King Arthur Baking Company’s recipe manager. This will be SUCH a treat for both you and me.

• An advice column: Show me your Forevers and I’ll make you dinner. No really, show me. A reader will share the ingredients they always have and I’ll dream up 3 meals that use them.

• Other things you’d find helpful? (Open to suggestions.)

A spiel about paid subscriptions…

Here are some shouldn’t-be-secrets about freelancing: 

• In addition to being an expert at whatever you do, you must be a business: accounts payable, accounts receivable, agent, publicist, dishwasher, all of it.

• You pay for your own healthcare, which is shockingly expensive as an individual. 

• No one is obligated to hire you or even respond to your emails. Job security, who’s that?

• You have to do your very best every time because you want to get hired again so you can, like, pay for healthcare.

• You hold none of the power.

• I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

40 Ingredients Forever is my attempt to have a little more agency and make the above a bit more manageable. My work is physically, mentally, and emotionally consuming (

Alicia Kennedy

captured it so well here). It’s not saving lives but it is hard work. At least I like to make it hard for myself. 

If you like my recipes and want me to make more, please consider becoming a paid subscriber and telling your friends about 40 Ingredients Forever. Besides buying my book, it’s the only way you can directly support and follow my work.

Okay, here we go, more soon.