Discover a New Recipe with Recipe Bingo

Justin and I have really gotten into Master Chef and Chopped. Really, I'm just getting a tad obsessed with any cooking show (I also really love the Great Food Truck Race). We love to play along with these shows and decide what we would cook with the given ingredients. It has sparked our creativity, and has made us think of a perfect date night: Chopped-themed. And, there are many ways to be creative with the ingredients available in the kitchen.

Via

All chefs know how rewarding it feels to get an idea for a recipe, and to check the pantry and see that you have all the ingredients you need. Sometimes, however, we find ourselves having to make do with what we have, and it’s in these instances that we end up creating the most delightful dishes. From using overripe bananas to make a fudgy cake to finding new uses for those berries you left in the freezer, there’s just something fulfilling about finding new uses for old ingredients.

Being able to make the most of the ingredients in your pantry is the sign of a truly skilled chef, and several mobile apps like Epicurious and Ratio have made recipe suggestions by ingredients an integral part of their features. If you’d like to challenge yourself, however, perhaps you’re better off playing a game of Recipe Bingo.

Bingo hasn’t always been seen as a game to be used in the kitchen, but these past few years have seen the game rise in popularity, to the point that Free Bingo Hunter has reported that there are hundreds of bingo portals with different themes operating out of the UK alone. The UK’s FSA has also seen it fit to use the game to promote healthy eating habits through a game called Eatwell Bingo. Home chefs can use bingo to experiment in the kitchen as well, and all you’d have to do is make a list of all the ingredients you have in your pantry.

Try to get as many ingredients as you can, and once you have your list, populate a 5x5 bingo card with the items by using an online bingo card generator like the one on Print-Bingo. If you don’t have enough items to fill out the card, feel free to repeat some ingredients, and then number the items on each row from 1-5. To start playing, simply roll a die for each row of the card, taking note of the ingredient that corresponds to the number you rolled. Should you end up rolling a 6, feel free to pick from the ingredients instead. By the end of the game, you should have 5 different ingredients, which will serve as the base of your next dish. Try to stretch your creativity and come up with a recipe that makes use of all the ingredients you’ve rolled for, just like they do with Mystery Box Challenges on Master Chef.

How fun does that sound!?! Especially if you are low on groceries and want to get the most out of them before you go to the grocery store! Would you do this at home?

*This has been a contributed post*