Three Jars That Change How You Cook All Week
A $3 bowl is going viral. Here's the chef upgrade.
Quick question before we start — what's one pantry item you always seem to be missing when you actually try to cook?
Mine used to be sesame oil. Every single time. I'd get halfway through a recipe and realize I didn't have it. Hit reply or drop it in the comments — I want to know what yours is, because it connects to something I want to talk about today.
I was scrolling TikTok last week and kept seeing the same thing: ground beef and white rice. In a bowl. Unseasoned. Eaten standing over the counter at 8 PM.
The internet has given it a name I won’t repeat because it’s terrible. But the concept underneath caught my attention. People are exhausted. Groceries are expensive. Nobody wants to think about dinner after a long day. So they found the simplest possible meal — protein, carb, done — and started eating it every single night.
And my first reaction as a chef was: I get it, but also — seasoning doesn’t add calories. You can make this easy AND make it taste good. Those aren’t opposing forces.
Here’s what actually got me thinking, though. The base idea — ground beef and rice as your weekly anchor — is sound. It’s cheap. It’s fast. It stores well. The problem isn’t the ingredients. The problem is that everyone’s eating the exact same bowl seven nights in a row and wondering why they’re bored by Wednesday.
Sound familiar? Because this is the same conversation we had last week about meal prep.
The Real Move: Three Sauces, Three Meals, One Batch
What if I told you there are three pantry sauces — each costing $2-4 — that could turn that same ground beef and rice into three completely different meals?
Gochujang (Korean chili paste). Chipotle peppers in adobo. Hoisin sauce.
These three jars live in your fridge for months after you open them. They cost less than one delivery order combined. And they are the difference between eating “ground beef and rice” five nights in a row and eating a Korean bowl Monday, a chipotle burrito bowl Wednesday, and crispy lettuce cups Friday — from the same batch of beef.
This is what I mean when I talk about building your pantry. If you’re someone who orders delivery three or four times a week, the issue usually isn’t that you can’t cook. It’s that when you open your fridge, there’s nothing there to work with. No sauces. No flavor builders. Nothing that makes plain protein exciting.
Buying three jars this week doesn’t just make this week better. It makes next month easier. That’s how a pantry works — you build it gradually, and eventually you stop needing a recipe for every meal because you have the tools to make anything taste good.
This Week’s Featured Recipe: Korean Gochujang Beef Bowl
This is the one everyone online is trying to figure out right now — how to make the ground beef bowl actually taste like something. Sweet, spicy, savory, and ready in the time it takes to reheat rice.
One thing I want you to notice: the quick-pickled cucumbers. They take 5 minutes and they’re the reason this bowl tastes like a restaurant and not like leftovers. That cold crunch against the warm, saucy beef is what chefs call contrast — and it’s the single easiest way to make any bowl feel finished.
The Other Two Meals (Same Beef, Different World)
Wednesday/Thursday: Chipotle Beef Burrito Bowls Same batch beef, completely different direction. Smoky chipotle sauce, black beans, corn, cilantro, lime. Warm, filling, and stretches the beef further with beans so you’re spending even less per serving.
Friday: Beef & Broccoli Lettuce Cups Light, crunchy, fast. Hoisin-ginger sauce, charred broccoli, butter lettuce wraps. Different format entirely — no rice, no bowl, just crispy cups you eat with your hands. End-of-week energy where dinner takes 8 minutes.
The full recipes for all three meals, the base beef method, a complete grocery list, and a cost breakdown are in this week’s free PDF — download it here:
Total cost for 12 meals: about $35. That’s under $3 per serving. Less than a single delivery fee.
The Bigger Picture
I want to be honest about where this newsletter is heading, because I think it matters.
Every week, I’m going to give you one base recipe and show you how to transform it into multiple meals. Different proteins. Different cuisines. Different flavor profiles. But always the same framework: cook once, eat well all week.
The goal isn’t to hand you recipes. It’s to change how you think about your kitchen. When you have a stocked pantry and a simple system, cooking stops being a chore you dread and starts being the easiest part of your day.
Three jars this week. Three completely different dinners. That’s the whole system.
Try It This Weekend
Make the base beef on Sunday. Start with the Korean bowl Monday — it’s the boldest flavor, and you want to start the week excited about what’s in your fridge.
Then come back and tell me: which of the three meals was your favorite? I’m genuinely curious whether people lean Korean, Mexican, or Chinese-American with this one.
And don’t forget the question at the top — what’s the pantry item you’re always missing? I’m collecting answers because next week’s newsletter might be about exactly that.
— CulinaryBrief
P.S. If someone in your life is stuck in the delivery app cycle and keeps saying they “don’t know how to meal plan” — send them this post. Three jars and one batch of ground beef might be the thing that gets them started. They can subscribe for free right here.
The Tools I Actually Use
Every week people ask me what I cook with. These are three things I use constantly — not sponsored, just what’s in my kitchen. If you grab any of them through the links below, it helps support this newsletter at no extra cost to you. That’s what keeps these meal plans free every Thursday.
Made In 12” Stainless Steel Frying Pan— The skillet I use for every single batch cook. Heavy enough to get a real sear, big enough to brown 2.5 lbs of beef without crowding.
Prep Naturals Meal Prep Containers— The containers I store everything in. Freezer-safe, microwave-safe, stackable. I portion beef, rice, and sauces separately in these every Sunday.
Dalstrong 8” Chef Knife — The knife that does 90% of the work in my kitchen. If you’re still using a dull blade from a block set, this is the upgrade that changes how cooking feels.
What are some ingredients that are always in your pantry?