Not all recipes need to use the freshest ingredients. There are many ways to use other ingredients that you have in your kitchen that you might not have thought to make before!

Cooking is really all about your creativity in the kitchen and your ability to mix and match ingredients so that when combined into a dish, it will taste great. Not all attempts are successful but those that are can be the source of encouragement you need to keep on cooking and experimenting.

You can make other dishes using canned food that you probably didn't think would even work! It's these recipes that can inspire more creativity so if you want your meal to aspire to be cooked with more than just plain oil, here are recipes we think you didn't think to cook and should probably try:

Everybody loves baked macaroni. This party dish staple is a classic one alongside the spaghetti, hot dogs, and Pinoy-style pork barbecue, but not all baked macs are made the same. For this recipe, we ditch the ground meat and instead, raid the kitchen cupboards for ingredients for corned beef. We even substitute some of the tomato sauce with banana ketchup for that sweet, spicy combination that we Filipinos love.

To top that, we use quick-melting cheese instead of the gooey and stretchy mozzarella to emphasize that this isn't your usual baked macaroni.

If you love Japanese food, then stop what you're doing and look at this recipe. This uses frozen kani sticks or crabsticks and Vienna sausages in the sushi. There are no raw ingredients in these sushi rolls and it's easy to make, too. You just need these specialty Japanese ingredients: the nori sheets or seaweed paper, the crabsticks, wasabi paste or powder (if you like wasabi that is), rice vinegar, and the short and rotund Japanese rice.

Don't worry if you can't find all the ingredients. While the nori sheets are essential, if you can't source Japanese rice, you can use malagkit rice as a great alternative to that and regular white vinegar will work for the rice vinegar. Then just learn how to make these into rolls using a bamboo mat, plastic wrap, or parchment paper, and a taste of sushi is just a few rolls away.

Canned tuna is one of the best kitchen staples you can have in your food stash. These are instantly hearty and easy to use since these are ready-to-eat straight from the can. It's with this in mind that makes this sisig recipe extremely fast and simple to make. You still get the same flavors and tastes that you get from your usual sisig but with the big exception being that it's made from fish instead of the usual pork.

Just like sisig can be made from tuna, you can make a burger from tuna as well! This burger is loaded with not just tuna flakes. These tuna burgers are bursting with other flavors, too, courtesy of the ingredients that make up each patty. Plus, these are made small enough so that you don't need burger buns. Grab your favorite pandesal and stuff it in there together with all the toppings you love on your usual burger, and you're ready to take that bite.

Plus, did you know these freeze well? You just need to make the recipe as far as the forming the patties and then freeze patties between wax paper. These are ready to gently fry until the outside of the patty is golden brown before serving.

a plate of food with rice meat and vegetables

You can use corned beef in these potato balls but that's not the only canned food you can use! Corned beef is a fantastic way to season the mashed potatoes with its flavor. You can even make this even more appetizing if you raid your kitchen supply for more ingredients. Canned corn can add bursts of sweetness to every bite and luncheon meat can replace the corned beef for meatiness in each ball.

In fact, if you don't have potatoes, you can even use mashed beans!