American Recipes
2884 recipes found
Stuffing Panzanella With Cranberry Vinaigrette
The best way to reheat leftover stuffing? Press it into a pan, cut it into cubes and fry it in oil until crisp. The exterior browns and caramelizes, while the inside remains tender and creamy, just like the best bread pudding. This trick works best with stuffing made from smaller pieces of bread, but even if you don’t end up with perfect cubes, they will still be delicious. Serve them warm, on top of a fresh, raw salad tossed in a tangy cranberry-mustard vinaigrette, with fried pepitas running throughout for even more crunch. If you use a homemade cranberry sauce for the dressing, you may want to sweeten it with a touch of honey.
Eggnog Snickerdoodles
These pillowy, festive cookies are great to have in your back pocket when you’re in the mood for a quick holiday treat. Rum extract, widely available during the holidays, is the secret to replicating that classic eggnog flavor. An extra egg yolk in the dough and a dusting of nutmeg-sugar yield a cookie that’s custard-like on the inside and crisp on the outside. These are even better the second day, and keep very well in an airtight container at room temperature. This season, forgo the eggnog altogether and enjoy these cookies with a bourbon neat. (Watch Vaughn Vreeland make his Eggnog Snickerdoodles.)
BBQ Chicken Pizza
This simple recipe celebrates a 1980s classic invented by the American pizza genius Ed LaDou (whose fingerprints are also on Wolfgang Puck’s famous smoked-salmon pizza). The pizza matches the flavors of chicken with barbecue sauce, red onion, two kinds of cheese and a little cilantro. Use homemade dough and barbecue sauce, cook it in the hottest setting of your oven, and the classic pie goes from good to great. Want to make the recipe vegetarian? Simply substitute mushrooms for the chicken and sauté until most of their moisture is evaporated.
James Beard’s Farmer’s Chicken
This recipe from the eminent American food writer came to The Times through the chef Andrew Zimmern, who was a frequent guest at James Beard’s legendary Sunday and holiday open houses when he was a child. The savory combination of red peppers, onions, raisins, almonds and green olives was new and exciting to him in the 1970s, and still tastes fresh today.
Extra-Flaky Pie Crust
This easy, sturdy all-butter crust has one unorthodox ingredient in it: baking powder. Cheryl Day of Back in the Day Bakery in Savannah, Ga., learned to add a splash of apple cider vinegar to the dough from her grandmother; it helps the crust stay tender by preventing gluten from forming. But the baking powder gives it “a little lift,” she said, which helps the butter and flour form flaky layers — like a biscuit.
Plum and Raspberry Cornmeal Crisp
This summery fruit crisp has a bit of a savory edge thanks to crunchy cornmeal in the topping and pinches of salt. Plums and raspberries are a wonderfully sweet-tart pair, but you can use any fruit you like. Simply use a little less sugar if your fruit is particularly sweet. You can also prepare this dessert ahead to enjoy later: Make the topping (Step 3) and freeze it for up to one month. If traveling or bringing this dessert to make elsewhere, mix the dry topping ingredients in a bag and pack the remaining ingredients separately to assemble and bake at your destination.
Cherry-Lemon Cream Jell-O Mold
This jiggly, layered mold holds a base of clear crimson (sweet cherry) and a topping of ivory white (tangy lemon mixed with sour cream). If you have extra time, you could make it into four layers, producing red and ivory stripes. Garnished with shiny green leaves like bay or holly, it looks especially festive, and is also quite delicious. Swapping out some of the water in the Jell-O formula for ingredients like sour cream and cherry juice gives this dessert its bright taste.
Sloppy Joes
This is a no-recipe recipe, a recipe without an ingredients list or steps. It invites you to improvise in the kitchen. Put a Dutch oven over medium-high heat on your stove, then add a glug of olive oil and sauté in it a handful of chopped onions, a couple diced ribs of celery, a diced jalapeño and a small diced red pepper. When the mixture is supersoft, add a few cloves of minced garlic and cook for a couple more minutes, then dump a pound and a half of ground beef into the pot — ideally the sort that is 20 percent fat — and stir and sizzle until it is well browned, about 10 minutes. Bring the heat down a bit and add a lot of tomato paste — say 3 tablespoons, maybe 4 — and let it get a little toasty before adding a cup or more of puréed canned tomatoes. Cook that down for a few minutes, then add quite a few glugs of Worcestershire sauce and hot sauce to taste, and continue cooking until the mixture is quite thick, another 15 or 20 minutes. Season to taste and serve on toasted potato buns. I like steamed broccoli on the side, a walk for the dog and bed. Sam Sifton features a no-recipe recipe every Wednesday in his What to Cook newsletter. Sign up to receive it. You can find more no-recipe recipes here.
Salmon Croquettes
These croquettes have what may just be the perfect texture combination: crispy outsides and tender insides. Made from simple ingredients, they’re also a great use of leftovers, putting to work those halves of onion and bell pepper from last night’s dinner, and any remaining salmon, though you can also use canned (boneless works best). The filling may be a little delicate when you put it together, but a quick pop in the fridge or freezer makes it easier to work with. Serve the croquettes alone as an appetizer with tartar sauce or hot sauce, or make them a bigger meal alongside grits.
Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas
The popular “Magnolia Table” cookbooks by Joanna Gaines are full of Texas classics like king ranch, chicken spaghetti and this creamy version of chicken enchiladas. The combination of tart salsa verde (which has tomatillos and green chiles) with cream and melted cheese makes it special; don’t use red enchilada sauce here. The cream of chicken soup mixed with the chicken meat makes a super-rich filling, but you can absolutely use an additional 8 ounces of sour cream instead if you prefer.
Blueberry-Cinnamon Coffee Cake
Studded with bright, juicy blueberries, this spiced coffee cake has a hefty dose of cinnamon in the cake and the crumble, and a cinnamon ribbon running through the center. You can use blackberries or raspberries in place of the blueberries, or even chocolate chips for an extra-sweet treat. Serve warm slices of cake with a cup of coffee for the perfect weekend brunch or afternoon pick-me-up.
Buttermilk-Brined Roast Turkey
With only two ingredients — buttermilk and salt — this might be the least complicated turkey brine recipe ever. The trickiest step will be pulling out your kitchen scale to weigh out the salt, but it's worth doing if you can to ensure a properly seasoned turkey. The acid in the buttermilk leads to moist, tender meat throughout, while the sugars result in a gorgeous golden-brown skin. This turkey is spatchcocked, which might sound like a lot, but it’s just another way to simplify the recipe: By removing the backbone before brining, you’ll be able to fit the turkey, placed in a 2-gallon plastic resealable bag, in the fridge more easily. And you’ll get a lot more of that beautiful lacquered skin in about half the cooking time. It’s a total win-win situation. Just make sure you don’t skimp on the brining time; 48 hours is essential to make sure the bird gets seasoned through and through. (Watch the video of Samin Nosrat preparing the turkey here.)
Kale and Bacon Hash Brown Casserole
With bacon, eggs and hash browns in the baking dish, this sounds like breakfast — but it works just as well as lunch or dinner. This recipe from Joanna Gaines, the reigning queen of Southern home design, is a good example of how she works: Texas tradition but with some modern touches. You can use other kinds of frozen potatoes, like waffle fries, or add par-boiled fresh potatoes to the skillet with the kale and garlic.
Spinach-and-Cilantro Soup With Tahini and Lemon
The simplicity of this soup’s technique belies its depth of flavor, which is both vivid and complex. The soup is made bright with lemon and fresh with cilantro, but the secret ingredient is tahini, which is layered into the soup to thicken it, and then drizzled generously on top in the form of a gently spiced sauce. The result is a soup that’s both vegetal and creamy, tangy and rich. You’ll find it so tasty that you’ll forget you're drinking your vegetables.
Golden Ginger Cake
Not your traditional gingerbread, this cake is flavored with familiar spices and enhanced with freshly grated ginger. (And yes, of course, there is still molasses.) Unlike a brittle cookie or dense loaf, this cake has the texture of what can only be described as a very good cake doughnut, crunchy on the outside and delightfully fluffy on the inside. It’s best served just warmed, with a generous helping of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
Brussels Sprouts Pasta With Bacon and Vinegar
This recipe is endlessly adaptable: You can use pancetta or even sliced salami in place of the bacon, and chopped cabbage or torn escarole work well if you don't have sprouts. No shallots? A small red onion will do. Keep in mind different types of bacon (or other cured pork) will render different amounts of fat. When you add the brussels sprouts, if the skillet starts to look a little dry, add a tablespoon of oil to keep things moving. To achieve a nice mix of crisp leaves and tender cores, tear off some of the loose outer leaves from your brussels sprouts; they will wilt and blister while the more tightly bundled cores will soften and steam. This recipe is designed for a half pound of pasta; though you may be tempted to add extra pasta, the dish will be plenty filling with a whole pound of brussels sprouts.
Easiest Vanilla Ice Cream
There are many delicious things you can add to this vanilla ice cream. Try berries mashed with sugar, thick dulce de leche or chocolate shards; they should be added to the machine at the very end, once the mixture is already thickened and ready to go into the freezer. Or make Earl Grey ice cream by using loose tea (and a teaspoon of vanilla extract) instead of the vanilla bean.
Spiced Pumpkin Cookie Cake
Two spiced shortbread cookies are soaked with a little coffee, then layered with a light pumpkin whipped cream in this rich, elegant icebox cake. You don’t need to be precious with the cookies or the cream while preparing them — they're fairly foolproof — yet they come together into a stunning make-ahead dessert. If you don’t have pumpkin pie spice but have a relatively well stocked spice cabinet, you can make your own homemade version (see Tip).
Applejack Butter Pecan Bundt Cake
A traditional flavor combination (butter pecan) melds with a modern one (salted caramel) in this magnificently burnished golden cake. Brian Noyes opened Red Truck bakery in 2008 on the eastern edge of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, where plentiful local produce was part of the draw. A dose of aged apple brandy (he uses a local product, Catoctin Creek) keeps the sweetness in check, but bourbon or any aged brandy will do the job. For a nonalcoholic version, simply omit the brandy from the sauce, and swap in apple juice or cider in the cake batter.
Caramelized Onion, Apple and Goat Cheese Melts
Caramelizing onions can be a lesson in patience, but you need to cook these onions for only half the usual time, just enough to break them down and turn them a light golden brown. Once cooked, they make up the bulk of the filling for these sandwiches. Folding the warm onions into the goat cheese softens the cheese, helping it glide easily over the bread. The cheese helps bind everything together, so nothing slips out while the sandwich is toasting in the pan. You can use apples or pears here; either adds some fresh crunch. Seasoned with woody thyme and zippy kalamata olives, this sandwich makes a hearty lunch, or a light supper paired with soup or salad.
Buttermilk-Brined Turkey Breast
The proven alchemy of a salt-and-buttermilk brine does wonders for the often-dry roast turkey breast. The recipe is so easy, the trickiest step will be pulling out your kitchen scale to weigh out the salt. But it's worth doing if you can in order to ensure a properly balanced brine. Emerging from the oven with a beautiful lacquered skin and an incredibly moist and tender texture within, this roast is ideal for a scaled-down Thanksgiving meal, a cozy family dinner or to generate a stack of unbelievably tasty sandwiches.
Quick-Pickled Okra
Quartering the okra significantly cuts down pickling time in this recipe: The vegetable pickles more quickly because its insides are exposed. Most picklers have their own special way of seasoning the love-it or leave-it vegetable. “Pickled okra had to grow on me,” Kenneth Garrett, a lifelong New Orleans resident and avid pickler, said. Now, he eagerly awaits okra’s growing season, and he makes pickled okra with basil and oregano, all from his garden. He serves it alongside fried chicken or as a snack. Mr. Garrett adds Creole seasoning, but this recipe uses whole peppercorns instead. Feel free to be creative with spices here. This recipe is ready in hours, but you can minimize okra’s characteristic gooeyness by refrigerating the pickles for two weeks before enjoying. Lastly, whenever preserving or canning, even for a “quick” job like this, it’s important to maintain a sterile environment. Wash the jars, lids and rims with hot, soapy water and dry them with clean towels.
Strawberry Muffins With Candied Almonds
Classic strawberry muffins get a few modern twists in this cheery take. First, egg yolks replace whole eggs, resulting in a richer, more flavorful crumb. The muffins get a double dose of strawberries: diced fresh berries in the batter and an optional dusting of freeze-dried strawberries on top. Finally, a reserved egg white is tossed with sugar and sliced almonds to make a crunchy topping for the muffins. As always, for the best flavor, pick the ripest, brightest strawberries of the bunch.
Flourless Beet Brownies
Despite being flourless, these beet brownies bridge the gap between fudgy and cakey, offering the best of both worlds. Raw beets make the brownies dense and moist, helping them stay luscious and soft long after they’ve finished baking. Though the beets bring their own natural sweetness, pulsing the chopped raw beets in a food processor with some additional granulated sugar breaks down the hard root into a vibrant red base. In fact, the food processor does most of the work in this recipe. Baked until just cooked through, the resulting brownies are rich, subtly sweet and deeply chocolatey. If you prefer your brownies a little sweeter, sub the bittersweet chocolate baking chips for semi-sweet baking chips. You can top them with a little flaky sea salt out of the oven. Serve them warm with ice cream for dessert or at room temperature with a cup of coffee in the morning.