"back of the box" recipes

[mdurette]

I started cooking family meals when I was a teenager. I had (and still have it) my mom's betty crocker recipe book, but I always would try the recipes on the back of the box, can, package etc. I haven't done that in decades. A favorite I'm still make 30+ years later is a lasagna from the back of a prince pasta box.

Cooking all meals from home for the last 6 months I have really gotten into a rut. I was going to start up a meal kit delivery subscription again for a bit, but as I started to put groceries today, I made a point to look for recipes and found a few to try this week! Most of them were few ingredients, easy and quick to make. Which is what I look for during the work week.

Do you have any favorite recipes that were found on a packing label?

 

[Luanne]

Nestle's toll house cookies.

Shortcake from Bisquick.

 

[geekette]

sausage balls from a pkg of Jimmy Dean sausage.

 

[DaveNV]

Not so much from the package label, but I do find convenient things available with a quick Google search. I have a crockpot I like to use, and whenever I can let it do the heavy lifting, I'm good to go. This week was an easy classic chicken and rice casserole thing that worked very well, once I edited things to suit our preferences, and how my crockpot cooks. I have a folder on my computer of bookmarked favorites for recipes, and I put the link there. Easy to find them again when I need inspiration.

My favorite recipe for oatmeal raisin cookies came from the back of a Quaker Oats box-shaped cookie jar. It's slightly different from the recipe on the actual Quaker Oats box, and makes awesome cookies. (I'd offer it here, but the cookie jar is packed in a box somewhere in the garage right now. Ask me again in a few weeks. )

Dave

 

[DeniseM]

Subscribe to a recipe Newsletter and you will get tons of ideas. I like Taste of Home's newsletters, because they usually don't require exotic ingredients that I don't have. TOH Newsletters: https://www.tasteofhome.com/newslettersignuppage/?OptID=82&OrgSource=CMHeader&pmcode=CMHeader

 

[Cornell]

Chicken Barley Chili on the Quaker Barley box. Delicious & healthy.

 

[clifffaith]

Nestle's toll house cookies.

Shortcake from Bisquick.

Shortcake isn't on the box anymore -- I had to look it up online this spring and I hand wrote it on the box. Just bought a new box and transcribed recipe on to box again. Sadly, Cliff's strawberry crop has quit for the year but it had a good run up through the beginning of August when we were still "forced" to have strawberry shortcake for dessert several times a month.

 

[amycurl]

Ghirardelli's double chocolate chip cookies.
Simple no-yeast cinnamon buns from the back of a Jiffy's baking mix

I found recipe emails/newsletters to be overwhelming. I do use the internet to search for recipes, but my rule is that I need to be able to make it well at least twice, and that it is popular with my family, before I copy it down to a recipe card. I've found that if I try and search for it again, sometimes I can't relocate it--so I go with the recipe card, which also reflects my adjustments.

 

[Talent312]

Banana pudding from a box of vanilla wafers.
It called for vanilla pudding mix, sour cream, cool whip, milk and... bananas.

 

[beejaybeeohio]

Years ago I cut out a Sour Cream Chicken Casserole recipe from a Fritos bag. I just assembled it for tonight's supper - must have been good or I wouldn't have saved it. We'll see if we still like it later on.

Tired of same ol', same ol' chicken recipes- seem to make Chicken Divine @ every three weeks!

 

[nerodog]

If I recall when I bought Lipton the onion dip or soup mix there was a great recipe to make french fries.
And Good Seasons dressing packets had a few too.

 

[Fredward]

Bacardi Rum cake- on their website but not the bottle. It’s been a family tradition for decades.


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[rickandcindy23]

My mother-in-law had a huge collection of cookbooks and told me many times that she wanted our daughter to take the "Taste of Home" ones. There must be 400 cookbooks in her old office. Our daughter took half of the Taste of Home, so about 100 cookbooks, and she decided that was all she could possibly use. There were some great recipes in those books.

I love the Pillsbury cookbooks I used to buy at the grocery checkout.

 

[Passepartout]

Paula says she won a blue ribbon every time she made Wyman's (canned) blueberry muffins from the label on the can.

Jim

 

[stmartinfan]

I love the Pillsbury cookbooks I used to buy at the grocery checkout.

I used to work with all the home economists who created the recipes for those books. They were all food professionals who knew principles of cooking well and the recipes were thoroughly tested, so you could count on them working. They also had some good common sense guidelines that fit how people liked to cook, like if you called for something like stewed tomatoes, you had to be able to use the whole can in the recipe, so you didn't leave an odd amount leftover.

I often find now when I try a random recipes online that they don't work well, and I know I'm a good enough cook that I'm following the directions correctly.

 

[Fredward]

Has anyone used the Eat Your Books website? I have tons of cookbooks and food magazines that I rarely use now but might try it to find those old favorites. I think it’s $3 a month or $30/yr but it was highly recommended by the guest personalities from America’s Test Kitchen on our Holland America cruise several years ago.


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[Janann]

I often find now when I try a random recipes online that they don't work well, and I know I'm a good enough cook that I'm following the directions correctly.

If it is a recipe where something can truly go wrong (e.g. cakes, breads) then I'm pretty cautious with the source. Even with that, I see typos and errors in recipes all the time. There is a celebrity chef that I won't name here who has frequent errors in his recipes that are posted through his Facebook feed. Who edits this stuff? Sometimes the mistakes are obvious before you even start cooking.

I used the back of the box recipe method when I first started cooking. My theory was that the manufacturer wouldn't put something on a label that was a poor use of their product, or if it was likely to get ruined in the cooking process.

 

[Monykalyn]

Yes a crockpot vegetable soup from the back of a crockpot liner box! Glad I kept the recipe as it’s new ones on there now!
I keep recipes I like in a digital recipe app called The Recipe Box. It will add ingredients from recipes you’ve marked to a grocery list, has space to add your own edits and best part- when someone asks for recipe you can send via email easily!

 

[Monykalyn]

love the Pillsbury cookbooks I used to buy at the grocery checkout.

Those smaller spiral bound ones? Those are about the only physical cookbooks I still keep!

 

[controller1]

The Green Bean Casserole recipe from the back of the French's Fried Onions container.

 

[beejaybeeohio]

Ditching that Fritos recipe....too dry.

 

[clifffaith]

Back when Cliff made pies, the pumpkin pie recipe on the back of the Libby's can was always a winner. Just don't vary from it -- I'd made pumpkin muffins and for some reason saved 1/3 cup because the recipe called for 2/3 cup. Said to Cliff "just throw that into your pie". Wrong. Totally threw off the taste. And I am still pissed off as I type this because his mother and sister, guests for five days in our home, went on and on about it in spite of me saying it was my fault.

 

[Cornell]

I used to work with all the home economists who created the recipes for those books. They were all food professionals who knew principles of cooking well and the recipes were thoroughly tested, so you could count on them working. They also had some good common sense guidelines that fit how people liked to cook, like if you called for something like stewed tomatoes, you had to be able to use the whole can in the recipe, so you didn't leave an odd amount leftover.

I often find now when I try a random recipes online that they don't work well, and I know I'm a good enough cook that I'm following the directions correctly.

Funny bring this up about online recipes. My daughter , when she was a tween, would get sucked into online recipes and after a couple of fails I told her "no more". Explained to her that with legitimate cookbooks, the recipes are vetted and tested and there is going to be a much greater chance of success.

When I moved I ditched my giant cookbook collection and now only have the America's Test Kitchen cookbook, The Joy of Cooking, and Bittman's "How to Cook Everything". Between those 3 I have really everything covered.