Techniques

The moves that show up across recipes: how long to soak a bean, how to toast a spice without burning it, how to sweat an onion in water instead of oil. Learn one here and it applies everywhere the pantry says it does.

Curious what the cost tiers, flags, and salt marks on each recipe mean? See reading the recipes.

• Soaking Dal and Beans A longer soak swells the beans before they hit the pot, so they cook faster, more evenly, and gentler on digestion.
• Water Cooking, Not Oil Sweating, sauteing, boiling, and parboiling in water instead of fat, and the one habit that keeps it from scorching.
• Whole-Food Substitutions The handful of swaps that let a whole-food pantry stand in for the dairy, refined flour, and added sugar most recipes assume.