Recipes By Ali Slagle
497 recipes found
Cheesy Breadsticks
While cheesy breadsticks made with pizza dough are a classic appetizer at pizza chains, making them at home doesn’t require much effort — and guarantees you can enjoy them when the cheese is as ooey-gooey as can be. These are baked in a metal pan to ensure a soft interior with a crisp crust. They’re topped with a swipe of garlic-herb butter and a shower of mozzarella and Parmesan for a thick layer of melted cheese in every bite. For that true pizzeria experience, be sure to dip your breadsticks in marinara, ranch or a combination of the two.
Microwave Nutella Pudding Cake
This warm, gooey, flourless chocolate cake requires just three ingredients, five minutes and a zap in the microwave. Nutella does the heavy lifting here, standing in for sugar, fat and flour and offering its milky cocoa sweetness and toasty hazelnut flavor to every spoonful. This cake is best slightly underbaked so the center is molten like a lava cake. A dollop of vanilla ice cream or Greek yogurt is optional, but a wonderful way to balance the richness of the cake beneath.
Stovetop Berry Crisp
You don’t need to wait for summer’s ripest fruit to enjoy a fruit crisp. This quick, small-batch version delivers jammy fruit beneath a crispy topping any night of the week, no matter the season. Start by making the topping in the microwave, then as it crisps, simmer the berries on the stovetop. Once they resemble a compote, add more berries for pops of freshness. You can use a mix of berries or just blueberries, and they can be fresh or frozen — no need to thaw the frozen ones first. Because the topping is already cooked when it’s scattered on the fruit, it won’t get soggy, delivering a brown-sugary crunch in every bite.
Microwave Sticky Toffee Pudding
You’re just 10 minutes away from a bowl of soft, date-flecked cake draped in a brown sugary sauce. This speedy take on sticky toffee pudding is made for one or two people and doesn’t require turning on the oven — just the microwave. Topping your warm cake with cold ice cream, whipped cream or sour cream is a welcome contrast and helps temper the sweetness. A few toasted pecans on top would add a nice crunch.
Fairy Bread
If you go to a children’s birthday party in Australia or New Zealand, you are very likely to find fairy bread: triangles of untoasted white bread covered with margarine or butter and “hundreds and thousands” (you can use round rainbow sprinkles stateside). Fairy bread is a much-loved treat with fairly murky origins; one variation is hagelslag, a Dutch treat that uses chocolate sprinkles instead of rainbow-colored rounds. After one bite of fairy bread, it is clear why the combination of soft bread, creamy butter and crunchy, sugary sprinkles is beloved by so many — and may be soon by you, too.
Tajín Chicken Wings
These chile-lime baked chicken wings get their spunk from Tajín, a tangy and mild combination of dried chiles, salt and dehydrated lime juice that is often sprinkled on fruit. Bake the wings with the seasoning (as well as baking powder and salt for crackly skin), then gloss them in a buttery sauce that’s bright with Tajín, lime juice and fresh chile. Take a cue from tajín fruit cups (as well as the carrots and celery typically eaten with Buffalo wings) and serve alongside spears of jicama, cucumber and pineapple.
Easy Cooked Grains
If you can boil pasta, you can cook most any grain. While grains come in all shapes, sizes, hues and textures, they can all be cooked using the same straightforward method. For evenly cooked grains, just let them tumble in a saucepan of simmering, salted water until tender, then drain them of excess water. For a warm side, rest them in a covered pot. For separated grains to add to salads or bowls or refrigerate for the future, cool and dry them on a sheet pan before using. With such a simple, multipurpose method, the bouncy chew of barley, the springy pouf of quinoa, the bitter edge of buckwheat and the sour tang of rye berries can all easily be incorporated into your cooking routine.
Kimchi, Egg and Cheese Sandwich
For heat, crunch and a jolt of brightness, add kimchi to your breakfast sandwich. Most classic egg sandwiches, like sausage or bacon, lack the necessary acidity to balance out the richness of the other ingredients, which is why we often slather on ketchup — it’s sweet, but also tart. By replacing the meat with kimchi, the flavors in the sandwich are awakened. If your fridge isn’t always stocked with kimchi, you can also use another pickled vegetable, like sauerkraut or chopped pickled peppers or dill pickles.
Miso-Parmesan Noodle Soup for One
This speedy, veggie-rich, solo bowl of soup uses a combination of water, miso paste and Parmesan to create a creamy, savory broth. Leeks, peas, kale and pasta add sweetness and heft, while ginger and black pepper (or chile oil) bring a little heat. For more protein, add a handful of cubed tofu or white beans, or swirl in a beaten egg like stracciatella. The recipe is also easily doubled.
Roasted Mushroom Soup
You don’t need fancy mushrooms to make a rich soup, you just need to brown them. To do that, spread creminis — save fancier mushrooms for another recipe — on a sheet pan and roast them until they’re juicy. Pour off and save the umami-heavy juices — they’ll provide a savory backbone to the soup — then keep roasting the mushrooms until they’re glistening brown. Blending so many mushrooms with plain water (or stock, if you have some) creates a thick soup, not to mention one with a deeply earthy flavor. For a more substantial meal, top with croutons, farro or sautéed spinach, or serve alongside buttered toast, roasted sausage or a green salad.
One-Pot Beans, Greens and Grains
Many filling, flavorful and flexible meals are within reach with this technique: It produces fluffy grains, just-soft-enough greens and creamy and garlicky beans all in one pot. Customize your mix based on your cravings and your pantry: Use any dark leafy greens and any cooked legumes. Use quinoa, rice or a mix of the two for a variety of textures; for other grains, refer to the cooking instructions on their package and add the greens in the last 5 to 7 minutes. You can infuse the grains with flavor by stirring ground spices or other seasonings into the pot. Add brightness with lemon and garnish wildly — or not at all. This meal can be eaten warm or cold, which means lunchtime grain bowls are now easier to pull off.
Scrambled Eggs for a Crowd
Making fluffy, tender and creamy scrambled eggs for a crowd is easier than you might think — and it doesn’t require learning a totally newfangled method. This recipe makes just a few tweaks to a common technique to accommodate two dozen eggs. Trade the skillet for a Dutch oven and add the eggs to a warm, not hot, pot. As you slowly scrape in long sweeps, the eggs will begin to clump. Once you see the bottom of the pot behind your wooden spoon, take the pot off the heat and add cold butter, which will drop the temperature to prevent overcooking. Flip the curds until the still-runny egg and melting butter form a creamy, obviously buttery, coating.
Baked Brie Puffs With Chile Crisp
This flaky, creamy, sweet and spicy appetizer shrinks baked brie into single-bite, snackable sandwiches. (It’s hard to eat fewer than five.) They’re made by filling small squares of seeded puff pastry with a combination of Brie, raspberry preserves and chile crisp. The assembly is repetitive but not difficult — enlist friends to help, and they can be made up to 1 hour ahead of serving. If you want to serve the puffs warm, stick them in the oven for just a minute or two until the brie is gooey. If you have extra filling, add more to the puffs or save it to spread on tomorrow’s turkey sandwich. If you have extra puffs, eat them on their own as crackers.
Parmesan and Crispy Prosciutto Tower
Add drama to appetizer hour by making a tower of crispy prosciutto, Parmesan and crackers. Here, the crackers are made of puff pastry triangles sprinkled with black pepper, rosemary and sage leaves, then baked into herbaceous, flaky wafers. Shingle the crackers, oven-crisped prosciutto and Parmesan shavings into a tower, as if you were playing a delicious game of Jenga, but reduce the number of crackers each round so it peaks to one or two crackers at the top. Light in feel but hefty in flavor, with pops of salt, herbs and black pepper, this tower is exactly what you want from cheese and crackers, but in an altogether new, eye-catching format.
Ginger-Scallion Squiggles
Crunchy, flaky and aromatic with ginger and scallion, these squiggles are a fun twist (pun intended) on the classic cheese straw. Instead of cheese, these puff pastry appetizers are studded with ginger, scallions, nori, peanuts and red pepper flakes — and instead of straight sticks, they’re curved and curled to make snake-like squiggles. Serve them at your next cocktail party, as an afternoon snack to visitors or as an appetizer before a bigger meal. They’re the most crisp the day they’re made, but can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature for up to one day.
Roasted Squash and Bacon Salad
This sweet and savory sheet-pan recipe has everything you want in a full-meal salad: caramelized winter squash, crisp bacon, mustard-dressed kale, maple-toasted pecans and piquant blue cheese. By using one sheet pan for all the cooking, the bacon’s smoky drippings coat the squash for added flavor, and clean-up is a breeze. This salad can be eaten right when it’s made, warm or at room temperature — leftovers are great for lunch the next day. If you have them, feel free to add fresh apples or grapes, dried dates or cherries or another bitter green like radicchio or frisée.
Cinnamon Toast Cookies
Buttery-sweet like cinnamon toast in the snackable size of a crouton, these lovable cookies are quick to make and quicker to eat. Start by coating cubes of white bread in a mixture of melted butter, sugar and cinnamon. For a slightly more grown-up flavor, use a pumpkin-spice blend instead of straight cinnamon. As the cubes bake, the bread toasts and the sugar caramelizes. Then sprinkle with more cinnamon sugar for sparkle and crunch. Enjoy by the handful, over ice cream or in a bowl of milk by the spoonful. Or give them to friends and watch them smile wide, then grab another.
Make-Ahead Breakfast Sandwiches
These bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches are the ideal breakfast for your busiest or groggiest mornings. You can make the sandwiches ahead and stash them in the fridge or freezer. Take one to work to heat up in the toaster oven or microwave, or warm up a whole bunch to feed a hungry group before they start their days. Start by roasting bacon in a baking dish; no need to arrange them flat. (For curly bacon, it’s better if you don’t.) Then bake the eggs in the bacon fat. You can also add a cup of chopped vegetables to the egg mixture; just make sure they’re well-cooked and not too watery so the egg keeps well.
Spicy Black Bean Soup
There are a lot of things to love about this soup: It comes together in 20 minutes in just one pot with fewer than 10 ingredients. But most importantly, minimal effort results in a velvety yet bright soup. The cocoa powder accentuates the fudginess of the black beans, while the salsa verde adds surprising tartness. The tomatillos in the salsa also contain pectin which, along with the starchy bean liquid, quickly thickens the soup. While the soup’s cooking, ready your garnishes as you’ll want plenty to top the bowls. Leftover soup keeps for up to three days, but will stiffen as it sits, so thin with water as needed or turn it into refried beans.
Hoisin-Peanut Shrimp and Slaw
Inspired by Vietnamese fresh spring rolls dipped into peanut sauce, this simple-to-prepare meal features sticky glazed shrimp and a lively salad of crunchy vegetables, sprightly herbs, crispy fried onions and a creamy peanut dressing. Hoisin sauce helps streamline the ingredient list; the sweet, salty, umami-filled condiment coats the shrimp before a quick broil and adds depth to the dressing. And by using a coleslaw blend, preferably one with a mix of vegetables, chopping is minimal, too. This recipe quickly feeds a crowd, but it can also be halved to serve four on a weeknight. For a heartier meal, eat with rice noodles or rice.
Cranberries and Cream
Inspired by British fool, swirl the last spoonful of Thanksgiving cranberry sauce into whipped heavy cream and Greek yogurt for a creamy, cooling relief after the big meal. For a little crunch, dunk into it with gingersnaps, or use the cranberries and cream in place of plain whipped cream atop slices of pumpkin, apple or pecan pie for a tart contrast to the sweet pie. Because yogurt adds structure to the whipped cream, the mixture can be made ahead, covered and refrigerated for up to 4 hours, and if you want to make this another night and don’t have cranberry sauce, substitute cherry or raspberry preserves.
Sautéed Kale With Hot Honey
This kale gets its sweet heat from a floral and fruity combination of orange, habanero chile, honey and thyme. By cooking the kale in a covered pot, the flavors of the aromatics seep into each bite, and the kale stems soften, so you can skip the fussy step of stripping the leaves. This recipe doubles easily, and would work beautifully with brussels sprouts, broccoli, carrots or winter squash; adjust cooking times accordingly and add more water or orange juice to keep the mixture from drying out. Eat alongside black beans, crispy potatoes and a roast chicken or turkey.
Roasted Gochujang Cabbage
As the moisture from a heap of chopped cabbage evaporates in a scorching hot oven, the leaves shrink and soften and their edges crisp. Each bite is also warming and spicy thanks to a coating made mostly of gochujang, the chile paste made of gochugaru, fermented soybeans and glutinous rice. (Gochugaru and cabbage are a classic combination in kimchi.) Serve alongside tofu, pork tenderloin or another protein, or something starchy like rice or roasted sweet potatoes. Leftovers are great in egg sandwiches and quesadillas.
Crispy Gnocchi With Sausage and Broccoli
In this cozy, easy dinner, store-bought gnocchi, broccoli and little meatballs (made by pinching pieces of Italian sausage) roast together on a sheet pan. When everything comes out of the oven bronzed and crisp, sprinkle it with Parmesan and stir: The heat from the sheet pan will help the cheese gloss the gnocchi. Some lemon juice lightens the mix; for a little heat to balance the richness, use hot Italian sausage or a sprinkling of crushed red pepper.