Wait. Don’t toss that out.
Frankie Celenza | June 2026
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Some dinners start with a plan. Some dinners start with me looking at ground chicken and wondering how far I can push it.
Chicken Pizza is a comfort food mashup in the best way: part chicken parm, part pizza night, part skillet dinner. It started as an idea from a friend of mine who told me how hard it can be to feed kids protein.
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Sometimes they just want what they want. There’s an element of animal crackers here — food that looks a certain way can be appetizing to picky eaters, and that’s what this dish is. “Daddy, I don’t want chicken, I want pizza!” Well, here you go — pizza (with dough made of chicken). Easier than butterflying and pounding a cutlet, more appetizing than a chicken meatball.
The broiler does the dramatic part.
The trick this week is that the same ingredients keep working after that first dinner: canned tomatoes, garlic, mozzarella, breadcrumbs, Parmesan, basil. I make sauce once, then use what’s left later in the week. I cook a little extra chicken, then a salad becomes dinner.
This is the Chicken Pizza from the Struggle Meals episode that premiered Sunday, and it’s up on YouTube now.
Week two: five dinners, one pound of ground chicken, a can of tomatoes, mozzarella. Here’s how to use all of it.
All five recipes in one place — with a grocery list built in. → Get it.
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—> Save the recipe <—
This is chicken parm after it stopped caring about the rules. I mix ground chicken with breadcrumbs, egg, milk, Parmesan, garlic powder, oregano, and basil, then press it into the skillet so it browns on both sides before the sauce and cheese go on.
Making the sauce from scratch matters because it saves money without asking for much. A can of tomatoes, garlic, a little oil, a pinch of sugar, and some red pepper flakes get me something better than most jars in about fifteen minutes.
I also try not to make sauce for one dinner only. This recipe only needs about a cup, so the rest gets saved for later in the week. That’s the move: one small pot of sauce, more than one dinner.
Took me a few grocery runs to learn this one. Forward this email to someone who could use the plan.
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Recipe two
Vegetarian Birria Tacos
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This is Taco Tuesday, but with a little more ambition. The recipe uses jackfruit, which is great, but I also like this with mushrooms or whatever protein is in the fridge that week. The dried chiles are worthwhile because they bring that deep, toasty flavor, but when I don’t want to buy three kinds, canned chipotle in adobo is the hack: smoke, heat, and chile depth in one small can. |
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SHARED INGREDIENTS
tomatoes garlic oregano mozzarella
DINNER WIN
vegetarian-friendly
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Recipe three
Chicken Milanese
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This is technically another chicken dinner, but it earns its place because it uses the breadcrumbs and Parmesan already in the kitchen. If I’m buying a pack of chicken breasts, I cook a little extra while the pan is hot. Future me is happy because present me did ten more minutes of work. |
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SHARED INGREDIENTS
breadcrumbs parmesan
DINNER WIN
under 30 min
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A Caesar salad has enough backbone to become dinner, especially with leftover Milanese sliced over the top. Caesar is also one of those things that’s just better when I make it from scratch: the dressing is sharper, the Parmesan actually tastes like something, and the croutons are just day-old bread getting one more job. |
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SHARED INGREDIENTS
garlic parmesan egg
DINNER WIN
use-it-up dinner
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Recipe five
Frankie’s Arrabbiata
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By the end of the week, I want the simplest possible version of dinner. Garlic. Tomatoes. Chile flakes. Basil. Pasta. Parmesan. If there’s leftover red sauce from the Chicken Pizza, I use it as the head start, wake it back up with more garlic and heat, and toss in the pasta. It’s short, sweet, and tastes like I made a plan, because I did. |
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SHARED INGREDIENTS
tomatoes garlic basil red pepper flakes parmesan
DINNER WIN
pantry dinner
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Ingredients pulling double (or triple) duty this week: |
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Tomatoes —Pizza, Tacos, Arrabbiata Garlic — Pizza, Tacos, Caesar, Arrabbiata Mozzarella — Pizza, Tacos Breadcrumbs — Pizza, Milanese Eggs — Pizza, Caesar |
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Parmesan — Pizza, Milanese, Caesar, Arrabbiata Oregano — Pizza, Tacos Basil — Pizza, Arrabbiata Red pepper flakes — Pizza, Arrabbiata Chicken breast — Milanese, Caesar |
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