Why the Simplest Meals Are Often the Best Ones

A few months ago, my wife and I decided to start inviting neighbors over to our home for Sunday supper. The idea was to build stronger friendships while enjoying a leisurely meal. It’s been a huge success so far, but one choice has proven especially wise: we keep the meals as simple as possible so we can focus on being together and not the details of food preparation.

One of our favorite meals to serve is a sourdough pizza that we make in a big cast iron skillet. We serve it alongside a huge pile of fresh cut vegetables and a simple spinach salad. For dessert we might put out a bowl of fruit or bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies the previous day. As you can see, there’s nothing fancy or complicated about this spread, and yet we’re all able to feast like royalty among the company of good friends.

Some people reading this may get the impression that we’re just lazy, and in fact, our first week we did try something more complex that required more time in the kitchen and planning in advance. But we quickly realized that in keeping things simple we were not only simplifying our evening, we were making the meal itself better in a number of different ways. In this post I’ll share what we learned, and hopefully encourage you to embrace the wonderful joy of eating simple meals.

Simple meals allow more time to be spent with friends

The more complex the meal, the more time you’ll inevitably have to spend in preparation. Even if you get things prepared in advance, you’ll still be losing some of your energy and enthusiasm to be with your guests if you’ve worn yourself out in the kitchen. On a typical Sunday, we’ll not only be able to spend a few hours around the table after our meal, we’ll often sit around and let our kids play together for another few more hours— something we would have never found the time for if we were too busy organizing a more elaborate meal.

Fewer dishes means less cleanup afterwards

One of the best parts of our Sunday evening is the fact that clean up is such a breeze. Our whole family can tackle the dishes together, wiping down the table, and sweeping the floor in less than 15 minutes. Because we keep our meal prep simple, we don’t make a big mess in the kitchen either and that means more time to invest in our friendships or just to unwind ourselves after a long day of fun and activity.

A small number of ingredients lets you focus on the quality of each one

We’re firm believers in high quality ingredients. Anytime we get the chance to buy fresh produce at the farmer’s market or some homemade cheese or bread from one of our local artisans, we splurge a bit on those items as one of life’s simple pleasures. But I’ve also found that a large part of that pleasure is in the joy of knowing those items are being enjoyed instead of being covered up with a bunch of other flavors. We try to keep our recipes simple so that those few quality ingredients really shine through.

A beautifully simple meal is less likely to be stressful

As we’ve come to enjoy our Sunday rhythm, one of the things I’ve looked forward to the most is the carefree spirit with which our friends arrive in our home. They know we’re just having a simple meal and none of the typical stress that comes with hosting. In fact, we didn’t make it a rule or anything, but quite naturally, our friends oftentimes bring something to share, and that makes everything feel more communal with contributions coming from everyone around the table.

Simple meals are less expensive than elaborate ones

I think one of the worst feelings in the world is when you host a big meal for friends and pull out all the stops, but find that you’ve made way too much food and much of it goes to waste. Hopefully, your friends offer to take a bit of food home, but even then, things often don’t get eaten because people don’t want to spoil their dinner plans in the coming days. One of the things we’ve noticed is that simple meals naturally have less food waste because it’s just easier to gauge how much people are going to eat, and the relaxed nature of the meal means guests are more likely to fill their plates with seconds and thirds if they’re available.

Straightforward recipes can be memorized easily

Have you ever noticed that people who are really good at cooking don’t use recipes? Why is that the case? The main reason, I think, is that recipes slow you down. They take you out of the natural flow of preparing food, which can be a wonderfully relaxing experience when you aren’t in a hurry. The key is to have a handful of simple recipes that you use over and over, until you know them like the back of your hand. With enough repetition you’ll notice yourself making small improvements that you wouldn’t have noticed by scrolling your phone or flipping through pages of a cookbook.

Simple meals have less food waste

As I mentioned previously, simple meals have less food waste because you can more easily gauge how much you need to prepare. You also won’t be tempted to purchase a bunch of new ingredients or spices that you’re unlikely to use again. When you eat simply and enjoy transforming the same handful of ingredients into a variety of meals, you’re much less likely to waste your food, and that’s a win for everybody.

Less time in the kitchen means more energy for quality conversation

As much as I enjoy a good meal, I think that eating is really just the backdrop for enjoying the company of good friends or my own family. On the perspective of a lifetime, I want to be able to look back and realize that I invested my time in the things that mattered the most. Since our new Sunday tradition, it’s quite easy to see what we’re doing as living life to the fullest, and that’s largely because we didn’t spend the whole day frantically preparing for an event that would only last a few hours. Instead we spent a few hours preparing for an entire day, and I think that’s a distinction that carries a powerful punch.