Aristotelian mechanics with conservative "forces" can be written as $m\dot{\vec{x}}+\vec{\nabla}L=0$, where I have denoted the potential $L$ instead of $V$ because its dimension is that of angular momentum, and I don't want people saying "you can't do that because of dimensional analysis". First-order Euler-Lagrange equations are achievable by introducing an auxiliary variable, viz. $L=\vec{y}\cdot\left(m\dot{\vec{x}}+\vec{\nabla}L\right)$. It is worth shifting this by a total derivative to make $\vec{y}$ dynamical, viz. $L=\vec{y}\cdot\vec{\nabla}L-m\vec{x}\cdot\dot{\vec{y}}$. (The Schrödinger equation can be obtained from a Lagrangian in which the "auxiliary variable" is $\psi^\ast$, because complex numbers allow such a "don't invent anything new" trick. Shifting by a total derivative is in that case justified by a desire for Hermiticity.)
Varying $\vec{y}$ gives us the ELE we want. (As a matter of completeness, varying $x_i$ gives us $\sum_jy_j\partial_i\partial_j L-m\dot{y}_i=0$ with $\partial_i:=\frac{\partial}{\partial x_i}$, i.e. $m\dot{\vec{y}}-\vec{\nabla}\left(y\cdot\vec{\nabla}L\right)=0$.) I'll leave as an exercise the addition of terms for non-conservative forces, in analogy for how this achieves a Lagrangian formulation of Newtonian mechanics with non-conservative forces.