Recipes By Melissa Clark
1468 recipes found
Crispy Tofu With Balsamic Tomatoes
You don’t need to fry tofu to get it crisp-edged and golden brown. Drizzling it with a mix of cornstarch and oil, then roasting it will deliver a closely crunchy approximation that won’t splatter oil across your countertop. Here, the tofu is roasted alongside balsamic-glazed cherry tomatoes, sliced garlic and red onions, all of which caramelize as they cook. Top everything with a handful of fresh herbs, then serve it over rice, quinoa or another grain for an easy, plant-based meal. Note that the recipe serves only two to three. To double it, use two sheet pans and add a few extra minutes to the cook time.
Fried Green Tomatoes With Bacon Rémoulade
Tart unripe tomatoes are the star of this dish: Tossed in a cornmeal batter, then fried in bacon fat for just a couple of minutes per side. The crisp outside yields to a soft middle, finished with a relish of pickled tomatoes and smoky-sweet bacon. Or, skip the relish, and do as our commenters suggested: Pair it with a creamy mayonnaise sauce, infused with red peppers or even sriracha.
Cherry Tomato Caesar Salad
Whether the tomatoes deserve it or not, I make some version of a tomato Caesar salad every summer. Here, I inverted the usual proportions of lettuce to tomatoes, favoring the tomatoes. It was the juiciest of Caesars, and pretty, too, dotted with anchovies and curls of Parmesan.
Sweet-and-Spicy Roasted Tofu and Squash
This is a meal with complex flavors and a variety of textures: velvety from the honey-roasted squash, tender and juicy from the tofu, with the occasional crunch from the sesame-seed garnish and a slight chew from the squash peel. I like to serve this dish with more hot sauce on the side, preferably over brown rice or lightly dressed baby spinach, though it’s also good served all alone. As long as the squash and the tofu have each other, that’s all they really need.
Coconut Red Curry With Tofu
This simple weeknight red curry relies on jarred or canned red curry paste for flavor, which you can find at larger supermarkets and specialty markets. Transfer leftover canned curry paste to a jar, top it with a little oil and store in the refrigerator for up to a month. Or freeze for longer storage. Feel free to substitute other vegetables for the mushrooms and snow peas, though you might have to increase the cooking time slightly if using something dense like carrot or cubed winter squash.
Indian Butter Chickpeas
A vegetarian riff on Indian butter chicken, this fragrant stew is spiced with cinnamon, garam masala and fresh ginger, and is rich and creamy from the coconut milk. You could add cubed tofu here for a soft textural contrast, or cubed seitan for a chewy one. Or serve it as it is, over rice to catch every last drop of the glorious sauce. You won’t want to leave any behind.
Coconut Curry Chickpeas With Pumpkin and Lime
Canned pumpkin purée and coconut milk, heavily seasoned with curry spices and lots of fresh lime juice, make a sweet-sharp sauce for chickpeas. It’s a rich, creamy curry that you can eat on its own, or serve over rice or couscous. If you want to incorporate more vegetables, stir in some spinach, baby kale or sliced green beans during the last few minutes of cooking, letting them soften in the sauce.
Crunchy Roasted Za’atar Chickpeas
Za’atar, a Middle Eastern spice mix made from dried thyme, sumac, and sesame seeds, gives these roasted chickpeas a fragrant, herbal, tangy bite. Unlike other similar recipes, the chickpeas are roasted without any oil, which is added after they come out of the oven. This allows the peas to crisp up without turning greasy. Do make sure to dry them out for an hour as directed, which adds to their crunchy texture. It’s hard to stop eating these once you start, so if you’re serving these to a group, consider making a double batch.
Crispy Chickpea Stew With Greens and Lemon
The hardest part about making this dish is not eating all the garlic-strewn crispy chickpeas right after you’ve made them. But try to resist — they will taste even better as a crunchy topping to this gorgeous, velvety stew laden with tender greens, salty feta and even more chickpeas. All the textures here make this dish, adapted from “Dinner in One: Exceptional & Easy One-Pan Meals” (Clarkson Potter, 2022), highly appealing, and very hard to stop eating. You’ve been warned.
Lablabi (Tunisian Chickpea Soup)
There are myriad ways to cook lablabi, the classic, cumin and garlic scented chickpea soup from Tunisia. This version, adapted from Joe Yonan’s cookbook “Cool Beans” (Ten Speed Press, 2020), has crunchy, spice-sprinkled chickpeas garnishing the top, and a creamy, silky broth made from puréeing some of the chickpeas and stirring them back into the pot. It’s earthy and satisfying, with a chile kick from harissa and a bright tanginess from a squeeze of lemon at the end.
Chickpea Stew With Orzo and Mustard Greens
A complex and colorful chickpea stew, this is rich with vegetables, olive oil and Parmesan cheese. You can vary the vegetables to use what you’ve got. Here, I keep to the basics, adding carrots for sweetness, fennel or celery for depth, cherry tomatoes for looks. Tender greens, wilted into the bubbling mixture at the end, are optional, but they do add a bright, almost herbal note. I particularly love using baby mustard greens, which are pleasantly peppery. But spinach, arugula and kale work well, too.
Spicy Pan-Fried Noodles
Garlicky, gingery and as spicy as you dare to make it, this Asian-influenced pan-fried noodle dish comes together in minutes. Most of the ingredients are pantry staples, which means you can make it whenever you need a comforting noodle dish that comes with a bite. If you can’t find the Chinese egg noodles (also called Hong Kong-style noodles), you can make this with rice noodles or soba. The key is to only boil them until they are halfway done. (They should be pliable but still firm in the center.) They will finish cooking when you pan-fry them.
Instant Pot Tomato-Braised Chickpeas With Tahini
Perfumed with cinnamon, cumin and turmeric, and drizzled with a creamy, garlicky tahini sauce, these tomato-braised chickpeas make for a complex, satisfying meatless meal, especially when served with warm flatbread for dipping into the sauce. If you are starting with soaked and drained chickpeas, reduce the water to about 1 1/2 cups — just enough to cover them — then cook on high pressure for 13 minutes instead of 35.
Baked Rice With Slow-Roasted Tomatoes and Garlic
Baking rice on a bed of tender vegetables has to be one of the most fail-safe ways to prepare it. Here tangy-sweet tomatoes, garlic and shallots are slowly roasted in olive oil with cinnamon and thyme, then baked with basmati rice until everything is fragrant and soft. Adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi’s cookbook, “Ottolenghi Simple,” it makes a spectacular side dish to pan-seared meats or fish, or can be the heart of a vegetarian meal with some crumbled feta and pine nuts sprinkled on top for serving.
Excellent White Bread
This straightforward loaf is the white bread of your dreams, and its fluffy slices make for evenly browned toast. The 1/3-cup of sugar makes this mildly sweet and perfect for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but you can cut it down to 2 tablespoons if you’d rather have something more neutral in flavor. You do need some sugar, however, to feed the yeast and ensure a lofty rise. This recipe makes two loaves, one for now, and one for the freezer or to share with a lucky friend.
Market Table's Quinoa Hush Puppies with Chile Aioli
These hush puppies, served at Market Table in Manhattan, have a nubby texture and craggy surface, a perfect delivery method for a spicy, creamy aioli. You can make the quinoa mixture one day ahead, and you can even fry these a few hours in advance. Just crisp them under the broiler for a few minutes.
Quinoa Bowl With Crispy Brussels Sprouts, Eggplant and Tahini
There’s a lot going on in this satisfying grain bowl, topped with crunchy vegetables, a creamy lemon-tahini dressing and plenty of fresh mint. Feel free to substitute any cooked grain for the quinoa: Brown rice or millet would work just as well as a base for the roasted brussels sprouts with their blackened edges, and the soft, velvety eggplant. If you love tahini dressing, consider doubling it. Any left over will keep for a week in the fridge and can be used as a salad dressing or dip.
Whole-Wheat Date Bread
Anadama Bread
A New England staple loaf composed of cornmeal mush, flour and a good dose of molasses, anadama bread bakes up moist and a little chewy, with a soft golden-brown crumb that begs for a copious slathering of butter. If you’re wondering about the name, the story refers to a fisherman cursing his wife’s terrible cooking. But she sure did right by this hearty loaf.
Crispy Spiced Chickpeas With Peppers and Tomatoes
This vegetarian sheet-pan supper has verve to spare. You will need two sheet pans to make it, but that’s about all the kitchen equipment necessary. On one of them, spice-coated chickpeas are roasted until golden and crisp, while juicy peppers, tomatoes and onions caramelize on the other. Handfuls of bright fresh herbs and sweet pomegranate seeds add color and crunch. Serve this by itself for a light dinner, or with couscous or rice for something more substantial.
Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread
You can use any white bread recipe to make any swirl breads listed below. The cinnamon raisin version is a classic, inspired by a recipe from James Beard. The sherry gives an unusual complexity to the sweet raisins and brown sugar, and most of the alcohol is cooked off while the mixture simmers. Feel free to use apple cider instead. This recipe makes two loaves, one to eat right away, preferably warm from the oven, or toasted and buttered the next day. Freeze the other loaf and use it to make what is arguably the best French toast imaginable.
Quinoa and Rice Bowl With Kale, Kimchi and Egg
Easy, healthful and infinitely adaptable, grain bowls are equally ideal for feeding a family (picky eaters can build it to suit their own tastes) and using up leftovers in the fridge. You could also cook up the ingredients at the beginning of the week, and mix and match ingredients at will as the week progresses. Try rice, quinoa, kamut, farro, freekeh, wheat berries, barley and grits for the grain (this recipe calls for mixing brown rice and quinoa for a nice variety of textures, but feel free to use just one or the other). Put your grains in a large bowl, then arrange small piles of vegetables, protein and something pickled or spicy over the grains. Top with a sauce that brings together all the ingredients in the bowl. Crunch — here, sesame seed and dried seaweed — is a nice finishing touch.
Smoked Bread With Maple Butter
Traditional Irish Soda Bread
While soda bread with add-ins like currants and caraway can be delicious, it's not at all authentic. In Ireland, soda bread tends to be plainer and more restrained. Here is a classic Irish soda bread recipe adapted from Darina Allen, an Irish television personality and the owner of the Ballymaloe Cookery School in Shanagarry. This soda bread is best eaten still steaming from the oven, slathered with good salted Irish butter that melts on contact with your slice. It’s a fine accompaniment to corned beef and cabbage, should you be making that dish this St. Paddy’s Day. Or make this recipe all year long. That’s how they do it in Ireland.