American Recipes
2884 recipes found
Creamy White Bean and Fennel Casserole
This one-pan recipe melds roasted fennel, creamy white beans and salty Parmesan, and tops it with crunchy lemon-zested panko. Fennel is often dismissed because of its perceived licorice notes, but the anise flavor is significantly muted after the vegetable is cooked. Tuck fresh, sliced sausages into the mixture before baking to imitate a simplified cassoulet, turn it into a side dish by pairing it with meat or let the dish live as a main, served with a simple green salad and some rustic bread to sop up the sauce. Reserve the fresh fennel fronds for garnish, which add concentrated fennel flavor and a pop of green.
Vegan Roasted Banana Ice Cream
A combination of coconut milk, homemade cashew milk and cocoa butter gives this dairy-free ice cream its particularly luscious, creamy texture. Ripe bananas, roasted with brown sugar and coconut oil until caramelized and golden, add a deep butterscotch-like note. You’ll need to start this at least one day before you plan to serve it. Or make it up to a week ahead. Chopped bittersweet chocolate makes a fine substitute for the walnuts, or use 1/3 cup of each.
Vegan Chili
This chili starts with a few different whole dried chiles, toasted and blended together, then fried with vegan ground meat and other aromatics to form the complex backbone of this stew. Along with tomatoes and kidney beans, I like to add some soy sauce (for umami depth), cider vinegar (for acidity and brightness) and a shot of hard liquor. The volatile alcohol in the liquor helps pull aromas up and out of the chili and into your nose. If you want to opt for a vegetarian version, feel free to use unsalted butter in place of the vegan butter, and garnish with sour cream or Cheddar.
Vegan Green Bean Casserole
The classic Thanksgiving side dish becomes instantly more flavorful with the use of fresh green beans, shallots and mushrooms. This recipe is also vegan, owing to a quick, creamy sauce made with non-dairy milk and thickened with flour. You can save yourself the trouble of deep-frying onions by using store-bought French fried onions. They’re usually vegan, but be sure to double check the ingredient label to be sure.
BBQ Pulled Chicken
Almost nothing beats a barbecue pulled pork sandwich, but this faster and leaner spin, which is made with roasted chicken thighs and breasts and a quick barbecue sauce, is a delicious alternative that only tastes like it took all day to cook. Serve on buns with a vinegary slaw and ranch or buttermilk dressing, if you like. For a smokier flavor, use a combination of sweet and smoked paprika. Like most barbecue recipes, this is even better reheated the next day.
Instant Pot Carrot-Saffron Risotto
An electric pressure cooker is so worth the precious counter space it takes up. Not only does food cook in a fraction of the time, but the results are rich and flavorful. Use this recipe as a guide, and sub out whatever vegetables and flavorings you have on hand. Zucchini and mint, mushrooms and thyme, or shredded butternut squash and rosemary would all be lovely in place of the carrots and saffron.
Pressure Cooker Mushroom and Wild Rice Soup
This comforting soup tastes long-simmered, but it’s cooked in a pressure cooker, which makes it a weeknight possibility (though you could also make this recipe in a slow cooker). Use any variety of mushrooms you like: Cremini (also called baby bella) are affordable and easy to find and work well, or you can add shiitake or oyster mushrooms for a mix of texture and flavors. Don’t worry about removing small, supple stems, but discard any that are tough or dried-out. Wild rice isn’t a true rice at all but the seed of a grass that’s native to North America. When it’s cooked, it should be pleasantly chewy and nutty, not hard, and most of the grains should be slightly split open to reveal their creamy insides.
Sourdough English Muffins
Bring a little tang to classic English muffins with this naturally leavened dough, which develops deeper flavor thanks to a longer fermentation than most sourdough breads. While most English muffin recipes call for dairy for tenderness, this one gets its texture — and flavor — from the spongy sourdough, and a final steaming to achieve that quintessentially soft exterior. Take your breakfast sandwich or tuna melt game up a notch with these big and fluffy stovetop muffins.
Pressure Cooker Beef Stew With Maple and Stout
This savory-sweet stew is delightfully hands-off — no sautéing, searing or simmering. The key is the timing: Cook the beef first and add the vegetables later to ensure that the meat tenderizes while the vegetables retain some bite. Real maple syrup gives the dish a sweetness that pairs well with the mild bitterness of stout beer. Carrots, potatoes and parsnips are classic stew vegetables, but rutabaga or celery root work well, too. A squeeze of lemon at the end brightens the flavors of this cold-weather dish.
Pressure Cooker Chicken Soup With Lemon and Rice
Lightly thickened with egg yolks and sour cream, this comforting soup is both deeply satisfying and springy-bright. Choose the amount of lemon juice that’s right for you: Using a half cup makes an assertively tart soup, while the smaller amount gives a gentler result. This soup is a really excellent way to use up leftover rice. Any kind of cooked rice will work, though white jasmine and basmati are particularly nice. Finish the soup with a big hit of dill for freshness, but other soft, fresh herbs of your choice would also be welcome. Find the slow-cooker version of the recipe here.
Slow Cooker BBQ Pulled Pork
If you’ve spent any time on Pinterest or food blogs, you’ve likely come across a recipe for three-ingredient barbecue pulled pork that can be made in the slow cooker. Methods and ingredients vary, but the recipe almost always calls for boneless pork shoulder, some sort of dark cola (usually Dr Pepper or root beer) and barbecue sauce. Dubious? We were too, so we asked the members of our NYT Cooking Community Facebook page if anyone had ever made it and if they liked it. We received more than 150 very opinionated responses. Many readers have come up with their own clever twists, like using coffee or beer in place of cola, adding onions or chipotles, rubbing the meat with a spice blend and searing the meat before cooking. We tried cooking it a few different ways and found we liked this adaptation best. It calls for a few more ingredients and an extra step or two, but it’s got layers of flavor and it’s still mostly fuss-free. (You can find the pressure-cooker version of this recipe here.)
Pressure Cooker Chicken With 40 Cloves of Garlic
Typically, chicken with 40 cloves of garlic needs to cook for a long time to mellow out all that garlicky sharpness, but in this recipe, a pressure cooker softens and sweetens the garlic in record time. Still, 40 cloves is for the most dedicated garlic lovers, so feel free to reduce the quantity if you like; the recipe will work all the same. The addition of beans to the classic dish makes it a one-pot meal. The chicken skin won’t be crisp at the end of cooking, so if that bothers you, discard it afterward — it will have done its duty, imparting deep chicken flavor to the dish — or you could place the thighs on a baking sheet and set them under the broiler to brown just before serving.
Pressure Cooker Chicken Tortellini Tomato Soup
This comforting soup is a one-pot meal-in-a-bowl. The key to its deliciousness is the way in which the pressure cooker makes the soup taste as though it’s been simmered for hours when, in fact, it’s been only about 30 minutes. (You could also make the slow-cooker version of this recipe, if time is on your side.) Quick-cooking baby spinach works beautifully, but you can choose a different green if you prefer: If you use a heartier green, like chopped kale or chard, give it a few more minutes to get tender before adding the tortellini. If you’re planning for leftovers, add only the tortellini you will eat right away. Left in the soup, they will overcook. Be generous with toppings; they make the soup even more delicious.
Slow Cooker BBQ Pork and Beans
Pork and beans are cooked together in a slow cooker for mutually beneficial results (If you don't have a slow cooker, you can do it in a pot in the oven.) As the pork shoulder and barbecue sauce braise in the oven, the sauce soaks up the pork juices while the pork tenderizes. Then, beans are added to soak up the deeply concentrated sauce. The recipe uses store-bought barbecue sauce enhanced with the smoky heat of canned chipotles in adobo and brown sugar, which helps glaze the pork. Because every barbecue sauce is different, taste and adjust yours as needed. (For a more acidic sauce, add apple cider vinegar with the beans, or you can increase the sweetness with added sugar.) To serve, slice the pork or shred it into pulled pork.
Christina Tosi’s Crockpot Cake
Christina Tosi, the pastry chef and an owner of Momofuku Milk Bar, sits near the beating heart of David Chang’s eclectic and innovative Momofuku restaurant empire. Off the clock, though, her cooking runs to inspired simplicity, as in this simple, tangy, slightly-caramelized at the edges slow-cooker cake, a version of which appears in her cookbook from Clarkson Potter, “Milk Bar Life.” Slow-cooker recipes invariably tell you to make something at night and enjoy them in the morning, or to make them in the morning and eat them after work. That only works if you don’t sleep much, or have a part-time job. This is a recipe for a weekend afternoon, or for cooking from the moment you get home until the very near end of a dinner party. It is a four-to-six hour affair.
Slow Cooker Mashed Red Potatoes With Parmesan
When there’s no space on the stovetop to boil and mash potatoes, braise and mash them in a slow cooker — an easy and forgiving one-pot method. This rustic version has big flavors, thanks to the garlic that's cooked and smashed with the potatoes. The five garlic cloves lends a fairly assertive flavor, so decrease it to 2 or 3 cloves if you want a more subtle effect. You can leave the dish on warm for up to 3 hours after you mash the potatoes, just stir in the Parmesan and parsley right before serving.
Slow-Cooker Mulled Cider
A slow cooker is an ideal way to make and serve a warm cocktail for a party: Throw the ingredients into the cooker several hours before guests arrive and the cider will bubble away, making the whole house smell wonderful. Reduce the heat before adding the rye whiskey so it maintains its kick. The toasted spices make the flavors so vibrant that the drink is delicious even without the whiskey. No slow cooker? This recipe is your stovetop option.
Slow-Cooker Beef and Barley Soup
This recipe is inspired by the beef, leek and barley soup in “Home Cooking” (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2010), a memoir and cookbook by Laurie Colwin. It defies what you’re told you must do to make an exceptional soup: Brown your meat, add ingredients in layers, and taste as you go. Instead, just chop a few vegetables, put everything in a pot — or in this case, a slow cooker — then forget about it. This recipe builds satisfying, hearty flavors in a few key ways: The small quantity of dried mushrooms not only nods to mushroom-barley soup, but also creates an umami backdrop. Opt for chicken stock instead of beef, which is more consistently flavorful across brands. Use a collagen-rich cut of meat, like chuck or short ribs. And last, a long cook time allows flavors to deepen, without any babysitting.
Slow Cooker Chicken With 20 Cloves of Garlic
This weeknight-friendly version of the French classic — chicken with 40 cloves of garlic — has half the amount of garlic, because a slow cooker doesn’t get quite hot enough to mellow out 40 whole cloves. This dish cooks on high for three hours, but you can lengthen the cook time to six hours using the low heat setting. In that case, cut the garlic further to 15 cloves, because it may taste a bit stronger when cooked at that lower temperature. The beans end up pleasantly soupy, in a sauce rich with chicken juices and wine. The herbs stirred in at the end impart a welcome freshness. This is best served in shallow bowls, with good bread on the side.
Slow Cooker Guinness Beef Stew With Horseradish Cream
This is a thick, rich braise that makes good use of root vegetables. Pick whichever roots you like best; carrots and rutabaga work particularly well together; celery root and parsnips are very nice, too. This is not a toss-it-in-and-go kind of slow cooker recipe: It takes a little time to brown the beef and make a roux-thickened gravy, but those steps build flavor and ensure that you end up with a hearty stew rather than watery soup. Get everything going in the slow cooker — prepare the night before if you have the time — and the stew will be ready the moment you step in the door at suppertime. The horseradish sour cream comes together in minutes and makes a fresh, tangy topping for the mellow stew. (Here are pressure cooker and oven versions of the recipe.)
Slow Cooker Chili
A great chili should be richly spiced, with layers of deep, savory flavor. Here, that big flavor comes from the usual contenders, but also from the unexpected additions of unsweetened cocoa, soy sauce and Worcestershire, which provide complexity. This recipe makes a thick, comforting chili that can be prepared in a slow cooker or in a Dutch oven on the stovetop. Chili is perhaps the ideal slow-cooker dish because its flavor improves with a long, slow simmer. This makes a big batch, perfect for a cold-weather get-together, but if you’re making it for a smaller group, the leftovers freeze well.
Slow Cooker Mushroom and Wild Rice Soup
Making creamy soups in the slow cooker can be tricky because it’s not possible to simmer them with the top off and reduce the liquid. One easy way to thicken without reducing is to use a roux, a mix of flour and butter. Heat the roux in the microwave, then whisk it into the stock in the slow cooker before adding the other ingredients. (If you don’t have a microwave, simply melt the butter in a small saucepan, stir in the flour, let it bubble, then proceed.) This soup is best prepared on the high setting for two reasons: First, when cooked on low, the wild rice becomes too soft before the mushrooms are tender. Second, the roux doesn’t thicken as effectively on low. If you need a longer cook time, omit the rice, put the soup on low for 8 hours, and turn the heat up to high before serving. Cook the rice separately according to package directions, then stir it in before serving. Find a pressure cooker version of this recipe here.
Slow Cooker Pot Roast
A hunk of beef slowly braised in red wine, herbs and garlic makes for a classic pot roast that’s also easily customizable: Add the root vegetables and herbs you like best. The tough chuck roast needs about eight (or more) hours in a slow cooker to become fork tender, but the vegetables are better with a shorter cook time, so add them about four hours after the start. (If this is impossible because you’ll be gone all day, you can add the vegetables in the morning; just make sure you cut them into large chunks and know that the vegetables will be quite soft.) Optional quick-pickled onions add welcome bright flavor and make this simple dish feel special.
BBQ Chicken
Barbecued chicken isn’t, really: It’s grilled rather than smoke-roasted at low temperature. But it requires a similar attention to technique. You’ll want to move the pieces around on the grill to keep them from burning, and flip them often as well. Cooking barbecued chicken benefits from a basting technique used by the chef and outdoor cooking maven Adam Perry Lang, who thins out his sauce with water, then paints it onto the meat he’s cooking coat after coat, allowing it to reduce and intensify rather than seize up and burn.