The Base Layer System

A cheap, whole-food way to eat on autopilot. It has three core parts, each prepped in bulk on its own schedule, and you put them together at every meal. On top of that, seasonal vegetables from the market get one or two simple treatments. Change the parts when you get bored. The structure stays the same.

This is component cooking: you prep building blocks, not recipes.

Daily targets: ~3000 cal · 220g protein · 40g+ fiber. Nothing else is tracked.

The Parts

• Base: fiber, carbs, about a third of the protein
  • Batch: 6 servings · Prep: every 3 days · Keeps: 4–5 days in the fridge
• Protein: most of the protein
  • Batch: ~4 lb raw · Prep: every 3 days · Keeps: 3–4 days in the fridge
• Ferment: acid, crunch, live cultures
  • Batch: 1 half-gallon jar · Prep: start a new one when the current jar is half gone · Keeps: months in the fridge
• Market additions: variety, seasonality, micronutrients
  • Batch: whatever you bought · Prep: weekly market run · Keeps: 3–5 days (preserved: weeks+)

A bowl: 1 serving of base, ~225g cooked protein, a big scoop of ferment, and whatever market addition you have on hand. Eat it hot or cold. Add the ferment last, and never heat it.

Two bowls a day is about 2000 cal and 200g protein. Breakfast and snacks cover the rest.

1. The Base

How to build it

Every batch uses the same template:

• Legume A: 454g (1 lb) dry. Most of the fiber and protein.
• Legume B: ~190g (1 cup) dry. More protein, a different texture.
• Grain: ~170g (1 cup) dry. Chew, carbs.
• Sturdy green: ~400g. Volume, micronutrients. It has to survive days of dressing.
• Allium: ~150g. Bite.
• Extras: ~350g total. Sweetness, color, heat, herbs.
• Dressing: 500g 2% Greek yogurt + ~120g acid + mustard + garlic + spice. Holds everything together, and adds protein.

Current build: black beans, lentils, quinoa, kale, red onion, corn, cilantro, jalapeño, and a lime-cumin yogurt dressing. Per serving: ~627 cal · 41g protein · 22g fiber.

Swaps

Swap within a slot at the same dry weight and the macros stay within about 10%.

Legumes (per 100g dry)

• Black beans: 341 cal · 22g protein · 16g fiber. The default.
• Pinto: 347 cal · 21g protein · 16g fiber. Creamier.
• Kidney: 337 cal · 23g protein · 15g fiber. Must boil or pressure cook. Never slow cook, because it can stay toxic.
• Chickpeas: 378 cal · 21g protein · 12g fiber. Firm, nutty.
• Brown/green lentils: 352 cal · 25g protein · 11g fiber. No soak, 20 min on the stove.
• Split peas: 341 cal · 25g protein · 26g fiber. They turn to mush, so they work better in a stew base than a salad.

Grains (per 100g dry)

• Quinoa: 368 cal · 14g protein · 7g fiber. Fast, light.
• Brown rice: 367 cal · 8g protein · 4g fiber. The cheapest. Classic beans-and-rice texture.
• Bulgur: 342 cal · 12g protein · 18g fiber. Best fiber. Just soak it in boiling water.
• Pearled barley: 352 cal · 10g protein · 16g fiber. Chewy, holds up well.
• Farro: ~340 cal · ~13g protein · ~11g fiber. Chewy, nutty.

Sturdy greens: kale, collards (sliced thin), shredded Brussels sprouts, green cabbage. Skip lettuce and spinach, because they turn to slime within a day of being dressed.

Alliums: red onion, shallot, scallion, pickled onion.

Extras: corn, roasted sweet potato, bell pepper, carrot, cucumber (it gets watery, so add it the day you eat it), cherry tomatoes, herbs, chiles.

Dressing formula

Plain Greek yogurt, acid, mustard, garlic, salt, and one spice direction. No oil. A batch uses 500g of 2% Greek yogurt (~365 cal · 50g protein). Fat-free works too: it saves ~70 cal per batch with the same protein, so use whichever you like the taste of.

Store the dressing separately and dress each bowl. Yogurt goes thin and watery when it sits on the base for days. Mixed, the dressing keeps ~5 days in a jar.

Want fat? Half an avocado on the bowl adds ~160 cal · 15g fat · 7g fiber.

Directions

• Mexican: lime + red wine vinegar · cumin, cilantro, chipotle
• Mediterranean (tzatziki-ish): lemon · garlic, dill, grated cucumber
• Ranch-ish: lemon or apple cider vinegar · dill, chives, garlic and onion powder
• Smoky: apple cider vinegar · smoked paprika, chipotle
• Asian: rice vinegar + lime · miso or soy sauce, ginger, scallion

Process

1. Beans: Instant Pot with water covering them by 2” plus salt. Black or pinto take 35 min at high pressure with 15 min natural release. Chickpeas take 45. Kidney beans can be pressure cooked, but never slow cooked.
2. Lentils and grains: Cook them on the stove at the same time as the beans.
3. Cool everything before mixing so the greens don’t wilt.
4. Massage the greens with salt and a squeeze of lime.
5. Toss everything except the dressing, portion into 6 containers, and refrigerate. Mix the dressing in a jar and add it per bowl.

2. The Protein

Target: ~1 lb cooked per day, which is ~1.35 lb raw. Buy about 4 lb raw every 3 days.

Options (per 100g cooked)

• Chicken breast: 165 cal · 31g protein. Leanest. Easy to dry out.
• Chicken thigh, boneless skinless: 179 cal · 25g protein. Hard to mess up. Extra calories help you hit 3000.
• Pork tenderloin / loin: ~145–170 cal · ~26–28g protein. Often the cheapest lean option.
• 93% ground turkey: ~213 cal · ~27g protein. Fastest to cook.
• 90% ground beef: ~217 cal · ~26g protein. Flavor. Budget swap.

Cooking: sheet pan at 425°F, air fryer, or Instant Pot and shred. Season the whole batch in one direction and match it to the dressing direction.

Food safety: cooked meat is good for 3–4 days in the fridge. If the schedule slips, freeze half the batch right after cooking.

3. The Ferment

Default: curtido, which is fermented cabbage, carrot, onion, jalapeño, and oregano.

The rule

Salt = 2% of vegetable weight. Weigh the vegetables, multiply by 0.02, and that’s your salt in grams. Use salt with no iodine and no anti-caking agents.

Process

1. Shred the vegetables, weigh them, and add the salt.
2. Massage 5–10 min until there’s a pool of brine.
3. Pack tightly into a jar with everything under the brine. Leave 2” of headspace.
4. Put on a weight and an airlock lid, and leave it at 65–75°F out of the sun.
5. Taste from day 4. When it’s sour enough (usually 5–10 days), refrigerate it.

Normal: bubbles, cloudy brine, a sour smell, and a white film on top (kahm yeast, which you just skim off). Toss it: fuzzy mold in any color, pink or slimy vegetables, or a rotten smell.

Swaps

Anything raw and crunchy works at the same 2% salt:

• Sauerkraut: cabbage and salt, optionally caraway
• Kimchi-ish: napa cabbage, radish, scallion, garlic, ginger, gochugaru
• Pickled red onion ferment: red onion and a few peppercorns
• Fermented carrots: carrot sticks, garlic, dill
• Hot sauce mash: chiles and garlic, then blended

Don’t ferment cooked beans or grains in a jar. They go bad instead of turning sour.

Gear

• 2–3 wide-mouth half-gallon mason jars
• One wide-mouth airlock lid and one glass weight per jar
• A kitchen scale

4. Market Additions

Go to the farmers market, buy whatever looks good, and cook it with one or two ingredients. No recipes. Think in treatments, not dishes.

The universal finish

Salt it, add acid at the end. Fat is optional: avocado, a spoon of yogurt, a little hard cheese, or toasted seeds.

The six treatments

• Raw + salt + acid
  • Method: slice, salt, wait 10 min, then a squeeze of acid
  • Best for: tomatoes, cucumbers, raw corn, radishes, fennel
• Roast hot
  • Method: 425°F or air fryer, salt and a light oil spray (or none in the air fryer), don’t crowd, pull when the edges are dark
  • Best for: squash, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, beets, eggplant, Brussels sprouts
• Char
  • Method: smoking-hot cast iron or broiler, then salt and lime
  • Best for: peppers, corn, scallions, tomatoes, shishitos
• Wilt
  • Method: hot pan, garlic, a splash of water or a little oil, ~3 min
  • Best for: greens, zucchini, mushrooms
• Cook down
  • Method: low heat, 30+ min, salt, lid on at first to release juices, until jammy
  • Best for: soft or overripe tomatoes and peppers
• Preserve
  • Method: quick pickle (1:1 hot vinegar and water, plus salt) or 2% ferment
  • Best for: anything you bought too much of

How to pick a treatment

• Watery and tender: raw, or quick heat
• Dense or starchy: roast
• Leafy or bitter: wilt
• Past its prime: cook down
• Too much of it: preserve

Finishers

Keep a few on hand and grab one: flaky salt, lemon or lime, chile flakes, fresh herbs, a hard cheese, toasted seeds.

Examples

• Tomatoes: salt, a squeeze of lemon
• Cucumbers: smash, salt, rice vinegar
• Peppers: blister, salt, lime
• Corn: char, lime, chile, salt
• Zucchini: wilt with garlic, finish with lemon
• Squash: roast, then flaky salt and toasted seeds

At the market

• Buy whatever’s piled highest. That’s peak season and usually the cheapest.
• Ask the grower how they eat it. You’ll almost always get a two-ingredient answer.
• Keep a tub of each treated vegetable in the fridge and put it on top of the bowl next to the ferment.

5. Breakfast

The same idea as the bowls: build breakfast from parts already in the fridge. Aim for ~500–750 cal and 30g+ protein.

Batch component: a sheet-pan frittata. Make it on base day and cut it into 6 pieces.

• 12 eggs, 250g egg whites, ~600g market vegetables (zucchini, spinach, peppers, whatever you have), 1 onion, 60g feta
• Sauté the onion and vegetables until their water cooks off, spread them in a parchment-lined sheet pan, pour the whisked eggs over, and top with the feta. Bake at 375°F for 20–25 min, until just set.
• Per piece: ~218 cal · 20g protein · 2g fiber. It keeps 4 days and reheats in 60 sec.

Rotation

• Eggs, oats, banana: 4 eggs any style, 80g oats, 1 banana
  • ~694 cal · 37g protein · 11g fiber
• Overnight oats: 80g oats, 250g Greek yogurt, 15g chia, 150g berries (frozen is fine). Mix the night before.
  • ~644 cal · 39g protein · 17g fiber
• Frittata and toast: 2 pieces of frittata, 2 slices of bread
  • ~731 cal · 51g protein · 9g fiber
• Beans and eggs: half a serving of base warmed in a pan, 3 fried eggs on top, a scoop of curtido
  • ~556 cal · 40g protein · 14g fiber
• Savory yogurt bowl: 300g Greek yogurt, 150g salted tomatoes (or any raw-treated market vegetable), a scoop of curtido, 20g toasted pepitas, 1 slice of bread
  • ~518 cal · 43g protein · 7g fiber
• Tomato toast and eggs: 2 slices of bread, 150g sliced tomato with salt, 3 eggs
  • ~534 cal · 31g protein · 7g fiber

6. Bread

A no-knead half whole wheat loaf for a Dutch oven. It takes about 10 minutes of hands-on time spread over a day, and it’s four ingredients.

Ingredients

• 250g whole wheat flour
• 250g bread flour
• 10g salt
• 3g (1 tsp) instant yeast
• 400g lukewarm water

Process

1. Mix: Stir everything in a large bowl until no dry flour is left. It will be shaggy and sticky. Cover it.
2. Rise: Leave it at room temperature for 12–18 hours, until it has doubled, is bubbly on top, and jiggles. Mixing it at night and baking the next afternoon works well.
3. Shape: Tip it onto a floured counter. Fold the edges into the middle to make a rough ball, then flip it seam-side down onto a sheet of parchment.
4. Preheat: Put the Dutch oven, lid on, in the oven at 450°F for 30 min. Let the dough rest on the parchment while it heats.
5. Bake: Lower the dough into the pot on the parchment. Bake 30 min with the lid on, then 12–15 min with the lid off, until it’s deep brown and sounds hollow when you tap the bottom (about 205°F inside).
6. Cool: Leave it on a rack for at least 1 hour before slicing. It’s still cooking inside.

Macros

• Whole loaf: ~1762 cal · 64g protein · 34g fiber
• Per slice (12 slices): ~147 cal · 5g protein · 3g fiber

Keeping it: It stays good 2–3 days cut-side down on a board. For longer, slice the whole loaf and freeze it, then toast slices straight from the freezer.

Swaps

• More fiber: go 100% whole wheat (use 420g water) and it will be denser, or add 30g ground flax.
• Seeded: fold in 60g of sunflower, pumpkin, or sesame seeds at the mix step.
• Rye: replace 100g of the whole wheat with rye flour.

A Sample Day

• Breakfast: 4 eggs, 80g oats, banana
  • ~695 cal · 37g protein · 11g fiber
• Lunch: bowl of base + dressing + 225g chicken breast + curtido
  • ~1029 cal · 112g protein · 25g fiber
• Dinner: same bowl
  • ~1029 cal · 112g protein · 25g fiber
• Total: ~2753 cal · ~261g protein · ~61g fiber

To close the calorie gap, use chicken thighs, add avocado or a handful of nuts, or have a potato. You’re well over on protein, so you can cut the meat to ~150g per bowl, which drops about 45g protein and 125 cal.

The Rhythm

• Day 1: Cook the base, the protein, and a frittata. Check the ferment.
• Days 2–3: Eat the bowls.
• Day 4: Repeat.
• When the curtido jar is half empty: Start the next jar.
• Weekly: Go to the market, pick a treatment for each vegetable, and fill a few tubs. Mix bread dough the night before you want a loaf.
• When you’re bored: Change one slot at a time (a different legume, a different dressing direction, a different ferment) so it stays familiar and you learn what you like.

Lineage

None of this is new, and that’s a good thing. It’s where a few well-worn threads meet:

• Peasant food. Beans + grains + fermented vegetables is how most of the world has eaten for centuries. Rice and beans with curtido, dal and rice with pickles, kimchi and banchan.
• Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat (Samin Nosrat). Cooking from principles instead of recipes.
• An Everlasting Meal (Tamar Adler). Cooking from what you have, without recipes.
• Six Seasons (Joshua McFadden). Farmers market vegetables, simple treatments.
• The Art of Fermentation (Sandor Katz). The ferment side.

What makes it different

Whole-food and seasonal cooking mostly ignores macros. Macro-driven eating is mostly chicken, rice, and protein bars. This system is whole-food, seasonal, and fermented, and it’s engineered to hit high-protein targets. That’s a much less crowded space.

Where this could go

Live it for a few months and document it in the digital garden as you go: this doc, market hauls, what you did with them, what worked and what didn’t. If people show up and it’s still fun to write, that material becomes the cookbook.