Category guide
Miscellaneous
recipes.
TheMealDB's Miscellaneous category is where the recipes that resist categorisation land — egg-based dishes, mixed-category casseroles, breakfast plates, snacks, sandwiches, dishes built around a sauce or a technique rather than a protein. It's the cooking your week actually needs: the shakshuka on a Sunday morning, the savoury tart that uses up the last of the cheese, the soup that anchors a quick dinner. Don't dismiss it as the leftover bin — some of the most useful weeknight cooking lives here.
Miscellaneous recipes
24 dishes to cook from
How to cook in this category
Three pillars to anchor what you cook.
Egg-based dishes
Shakshuka, frittata, omelette, quiche, soufflé, eggs Benedict. Eggs are the cheapest, most versatile protein in any kitchen — and they cook differently than almost anything else. Low and slow for tender curds; high and fast for a crisp-edged omelette; carefully tempered for a custard or a hollandaise.
Soups, stews, and one-pot dishes
Minestrone, ribollita, French onion soup, ramen broths, congee. The cheapest way to feed people well — vegetable scraps + a bone or two + time = stock; stock + grain or beans + whatever vegetables = soup. Building flavour layer by layer is the discipline; the rest is patience.
Snacks, sandwiches, and small plates
The Croque Monsieur, the Reuben, the bánh mì, the falafel wrap, the Cuban, the Italian beef. The world's great sandwich traditions are themselves an entire category — bread + filling + condiment, in carefully balanced ratios. Don't underestimate them.
Pantry staples
What to keep on hand.
Eggs, good bread, sharp cheese, butter, neutral oil, onions, garlic, canned tomatoes, stock (vegetable, chicken, beef), dried herbs, smoked paprika, mustard, vinegar, lemon, anchovies, pancetta or bacon for flavour, hot sauce.
You don't need everything at once. Build the pantry as recipes call for it; most of these are shelf-stable and useful across many dishes.
Core techniques
A few moves to learn well.
- Building soup on a thoroughly sweated base of onion + garlic + carrot + celery before adding liquid
- Cooking eggs over moderate heat — high heat tightens the proteins and produces rubbery curds
- Salting at every stage (the onion, the stock, the seasoning at the end), not just once
- Toasting bread aggressively for any sandwich that gets a wet filling