Recipes By Ali Slagle
490 recipes found
Chili
This is a spicy, smoky and hearty pot of chili. It’s the kind of chili you need after a long day skiing — or hibernating. To create a rich and thick sauce, simmer aromatics, chili powder and cocoa powder with a small quantity of tomato sauce and a big quantity of ground beef. Use meat with ample fat (at least 20 percent), because it deepens the flavor of those aromatics. If you like the meat in your chili to be so soft it nearly crumbles, simmer your batch longer; if you prefer your chili without beans, just leave them out. Just don’t forget the toppings.
Turmeric-Black Pepper Chicken With Asparagus
In this sweet and spicy stir-fry, black pepper, honey and rice vinegar help accentuate turmeric’s delightfully earthy qualities. Thinly sliced asparagus doesn’t need much time to cook, but feel free to swap with any other vegetables that cook in just a few minutes, like thinly sliced green beans, frozen peas or baby spinach. Serve this with rice or rice vermicelli noodles, or tuck it into a lettuce cup or pita with yogurt and fresh herbs. You could also trade the chicken for tofu, shrimp or cubed pork shoulder.
Farro and Bean Chili
For a vegan chili that’s rich, silky and hearty, introduce a whole grain like farro. When cooked, it has a similar rubble as ground meat, a nutty flavor that’s natural in chili, and starches that thicken the surrounding liquid. Feel free to swap in other grains like white or brown rice, bulgur or wheat berries, and adjust the cooking time and water quantity so the grains are tender, and the chili isn’t soupy. The combination of chili powder and fire-roasted tomatoes creates a moderately spicy base, but for more heat, add chipotle chiles in adobo, chopped fresh jalapeño or hot sauce with the tomatoes. However you tweak it, this chili’s flavor improves with time, so make it ahead and warm up a bowl anytime the need strikes.
Roasted Cauliflower With Crispy Parmesan
The key to well-roasted cauliflower, with frizzled edges and sweet and tender middles, is to cook it at a high heat on a rack near the heat source, mostly on one side. You could stop there or, toward the end of cooking, shower it with grated Parmesan to crisp and add a salty boost. Follow the instructions in Step 1 to cut the cauliflower through the stem to create lots of flat sides, which yields more surface area for browning and cheese — in other words, more of the good stuff.
Baked Potato Soup
If we’re being honest, a baked potato isn’t really about the potato. It’s about the toppings: plush sour cream, butter, cheese, salty bacon, bright scallions. This soup version doesn’t skimp on those extras: The potatoes simmer in milk with garlic and scallions until just tender, then they join sour cream and Cheddar in the pot before the toppings — including potato skins — are added. It’s potatoey, creamy and adaptable. Make it smooth or textured, skip the bacon and-or serve it with a side salad (though it’s plenty hearty all on its own).
Kale and Butternut Squash Bowl With Jammy Eggs
Steaming vegetables is a quick way to enjoy their inherent sweetness, and steaming eggs is the secret to perfect-as-possible jammy eggs. In this recipe, you don’t need a steamer basket for either. Cook the eggs in a covered skillet or pot of shallow boiling water, then layer winter squash, broccoli or cauliflower and dark leafy greens. The small amount of water will produce ample steam to cook the vegetables. Eat with plenty of sesame seeds for crunch and a yogurt sauce that is nutty from sesame oil and bright with lemon and ginger. The sauce is endlessly adaptable; add fresh or dried herbs or chile, ground or toasted spices, toasted coconut and more.
Pan-Seared Fish With Citrus Pesto
Genovese pesto Genovese pesto isn’t the only pesto around: There are many regional variations, including a vibrant and light Sicilian version that stars citrus. This naturally vegan version doesn’t need cheese: The citrus provides acidity, and the umami comes from the capers and toasted nuts. Pistachios and almonds grow abundantly in Sicily, but walnuts or pine nuts also work. Feel free, generally, to adapt this base recipe, as you’ll find Italian citrus pestos made with anchovies, garlic, dried oregano, fennel fronds, dried chile and, yes, cheese. The pesto below eschews cheese as written — Italians historically don't mix seafood and cheese — which only adds to its versatility. Pair it with pasta and fish alike.
Honey-Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Apples
Simple enough for weeknights but special enough for holidays, this mix of roasted root vegetables and fruits showcases all the sweetness fall produce has to offer. Because each ingredient roasts differently, you’ll also get various textures, from jammy apples to crisp-tender carrots. Honey accentuates the sweetness, but there’s plenty of room for personal flair. For warmth, roast with 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, cardamom or ginger. For crunch, add chopped nuts to the pan in the last few minutes of roasting. For a little zip, add lemon or orange zest with the red-pepper flakes. Eat alongside turkey, lamb or pork, or serve over sautéed greens or salad greens.
Silky Creamed Corn
The original creamed corn likely did not have any cream at all: Native Americans scraped the cobs of their milky, starchy juices and simmered them with kernels until everything was thick and creamy. This recipe — which works with any frozen, canned or fresh corn — builds a similar silkiness by blending some of the cooked corn. Half-and-half adds richness, but not so much that it mutes the sweetness of the corn like heavy cream can. There’s no one way to flavor creamed corn; you can add herbs, cheese and peppers to make maque choux, or add nothing at all.
New Mexico Breakfast Burritos
The breakfast burrito is to New Mexico what the bagel is to New York, or the loco moco is to Hawaii; they are an important part of the state's culture. While you can find variations of the burrito in New Mexico and beyond, the non-negotiables are flour tortillas, scrambled eggs and New Mexico green chiles, a red chile sauce or both. (This variation is called “Christmas”). While wrapping eggs and other fillings in a tortilla likely goes back thousands of years, the breakfast burrito earned its place in New Mexican cuisine in the 1970s, when it was served handheld at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, and smothered with cheese and sauce at Tia Sophia’s, a restaurant in Santa Fe. To fit bacon, sausage, carne adovada or another protein, use less potato.
Bacon, Egg and Cheese Sandwich
For Millie Peartree, a chef and lifelong New Yorker, the bacon, egg and cheese “is everything you need: salty, crunchy, creamy, filling.” Because the iconic New York sandwich (which is also known as a “baconeggandcheese” or “B.E.C.” when you’re in a hurry), is made at thousands of carts and bodegas in all five boroughs, many locals wouldn’t think to cook one at home. But if you’re desperate for the resuscitation only a B.E.C. can provide, this homestyle adaptation delivers: gooey cheese, crispy bacon and eggs smushed between a buttered roll then wrapped tightly in foil. The only in-person experience you’ll miss is waving goodbye to the bodega’s owner and cat.
Denver Omelet
The Denver omelet — a diner classic of eggs, bell peppers, onions, ham and often cheese — actually began as a sandwich made with those ingredients in the American West in the late 19th century. Its exact origins are fuzzy, but some historians think it was a modification of egg foo yong made by Chinese laborers working the transcontinental railroad, or a scramble made by pioneers masking spoiled eggs with onions. (Bell peppers were likely a later addition.) When the sandwich became popular in Utah, it was named the Denver sandwich after Denver City, Utah. By the 1950s, the Denver was one of the most popular sandwiches around, and at some point in the mid-20th century, diners swapped the sandwich bun for a knife and fork.
Sheet-Pan Feta With Chickpeas and Tomatoes
In a spread of Greek appetizers, or meze, there’s often a warm feta dish like bouyiourdi (baked feta with tomato and hot peppers) or a saganaki (fried cheese). This recipe combines elements of these two classic appetizers into a sheet-pan meal. Softened feta provides a salty, creamy counterpoint to sweet, juicy tomatoes and chickpeas that are sticky from honey and spicy from dried chile. Try this version, then riff wildly: Switch out tomatoes for mini peppers, olives, dates or cauliflower. Swap the hot honey for anchovies, harissa, smoked paprika or turmeric. Eat with pita, grains, salad greens, hummus or yogurt.
Everything-Bagel Smoked Salmon Dip
Reminiscent of whitefish salad, smoked trout spread and everything bagels with lox, this creamy dip combines hot-smoked fish, yogurt, everything bagel seasoning, fresh dill and lemon. It can be eaten with crisp and fresh accompaniments, such as bagel chips, cucumbers and tomatoes. Or, enjoy it in a sandwich or as a salad scooped onto a bed of greens. Feel free to add capers, horseradish, chopped celery or red onion or anything you like in your tuna salad or on your bagel, but taste before adding: The fish and everything bagel seasoning provide plenty of flavor on their own.
Ricotta Toasts With Melon, Corn and Salami
Fresh cantaloupe and corn star in these meal-worthy toasts. They are mixed with spicy salami to complement their sweetness. You can use any cured meat with a kick, such as black pepper salami, cubed Spanish chorizo or torn soppressata. Whole-milk ricotta, made extra creamy with “milk” scraped from the corn cobs, is spread on crusty bread, then topped with the salad of melon, corn, salami, plus almonds and cilantro. Play with the balance of sweet, spicy, juicy and crunchy by adding fresh chile, thinly sliced cucumbers or snap peas or swapping the melon for stone fruit.
Chicken Salad With Nectarines and Goat Cheese
Crunchy and creamy, sweet and tangy, this main dish salad is a new take on the goat cheese, spinach and fruit salads of the 1980s. Lemon-kissed nectarines and shallots are tossed with chicken, pita chips and greens. A mature green like spinach adds heft, but any salad green works. Goat cheese cream hidden beneath the salad is a delightful surprise; you get a bit of the tangy cream every few bites. Make it vegetarian by nixing the chicken and adding white beans to the nectarines in Step 1. Embellish freely with thinly sliced beets, sunflower seeds, sliced jalapeños or soft herbs, or swap in another stone fruit like apricots or cherries.
Summer Shrimp Scampi With Tomatoes and Corn
Shrimp get along well with garlic, butter and lemon, and so do tomatoes and corn. Combine them, and you get a summery shrimp scampi that comes together in one skillet. A searing hot pan helps the tomatoes blister and the corn caramelize before they are coated in a garlic-lemon butter sauce. This is a meal in and of itself, but if you want to serve it with pasta or bread, they’d be welcome additions.
Fish Laab
Laab (also spelled larb), a boldly flavored Thai dish, often combines ground chicken, ground pork or other ground meat with dried chile, scallions, shallots, fish sauce, lime, fresh herbs and nutty toasted rice, which you can make yourself or find at Asian markets. The dish also works with crumbled tofu, mushrooms, cauliflower or fish. In this quick-cooking fish version, fish fillets are pan-seared until cooked through, then broken into bite-sized pieces and tossed with the rest of the ingredients. Serve with sticky rice, small wedges of salted green cabbage, cucumber spears or lettuce leaves.
One-Pot Pasta With Ricotta and Lemon
This elegant, bright pasta dish comes together in about the same amount of time it takes to boil noodles and heat up a jar of store-bought marinara. The no-cook sauce is a 50-50 mix of ricotta and Parmesan, with the zest and juice of one lemon thrown in. That’s it. To make it more filling, add peas, asparagus or spinach in the last few minutes of the pasta boiling, or stir in fresh arugula or watercress with the sauce in Step 3. It’s a weeknight and for-company keeper any way you stir it.
Baked Buffalo Wings
For chicken wings that come out of the oven as crisp and tender as their fried counterparts, coat the wings in salt and baking powder. The combination promotes even browning, crackly-crisp skin and moist, tender meat. (Do this for roast chicken, too!) Then, cook them directly under the high heat of the broiler, which renders fat and fuses the spicy buttery sauce to each wing. You can buy any combination of meaty drumettes, wingettes (flats) or wing tips, or buy whole wings and break them down yourself, cutting at the joints to separate each wing into three pieces. Looking for a vegetarian version — or simply to add some vegetables to your spread? Try these Buffalo crudités.
Oven Bacon
Cooking bacon in the oven gives you perfectly crispy slices without any flipping or fussing, and the cleanup is superspeedy. It’s also the best way to make bacon for a crowd. You can cook the bacon directly on aluminum foil-lined baking sheets or on a wire rack set on top of the baking sheets. The latter method will give you extra crispy bacon, but you'll have to wash that greasy rack. Your choice! (To make bacon in an air-fryer, try our air-fryer bacon recipe.)
30-Minute Skillet Chicken Thighs with Crispy Garlic Chips
This 30 Minute, one-pan, few-ingredient, Chicken Thigh recipe is impossibly crisp and juicy, topped with a tangle of garlic chips that are fried in chicken fat.
Garlic Bread
You may have once struggled with dry or greasy breads reeking of burned or raw garlic, but it's time to put that behind you. This is a versatile recipe, as readily made with thin baguettes, as it is with rustic sourdoughs and airy Italian loaves. Cutting the bread like a Hasselback potato keeps the butter from seeping out and allows the garlic to infuse the bread with its flavor without scorching. But, if it's an extra cheesy garlic bread you're looking for, slip a little mozzarella into each slit.
Cacio e Pepe Con Ricotta
The idea of adding a puddle of ricotta on your cacio e pepe comes from Sora Margherita, a Roman-Jewish restaurant in Rome that's been around in the 1920s, and likely hasn't changed much since then. The cacio e pepe base recipe is inspired by one in Katie Parla and Kristina Gill's Tasting Rome, which comes from Leonardo Vignoli.