Mediterranean Recipes
262 recipes found
Suzy Karadsheh's Strawberry, Arugula & Spinach Fattoush With Lime Chicken
A vibrant, Levantine-inspired salad with sweet strawberries, baby greens, and crisp pita chips pairs perfectly with juicy chicken breasts simmered in a citrusy dill and olive pan sauce. A fresh, satisfying dinner that’s weeknight easy and dinner party worthy.
Roasted Cod With Burst Tomatoes and Olives
In this effortless one-skillet meal, cod fillets are simply pan-roasted — basted in butter on the stovetop — then gently finished in a moderate oven to guarantee even cooking and tender, flaky fish. While the cod rests, the flavorful pan juices quickly turn into a bright, lemony sauce with sweet cherry tomatoes, briny olives, tangy capers and fragrant dill. The balance of buttery richness and bright acidity in the sauce complements the mild seafood, but this dish is versatile: Hake, halibut or some other similarly mellow white fish would also work nicely.
Farinata (Herbed Chickpea Flour and Onion Pancake)
Farinata is a popular street food from the Ligurian coast surrounding Genoa, Italy, to the French Côte d’Azur, where it’s called socca. Typically a humble pancake built on only chickpea flour, water, olive oil and salt, it’s inexpensive, gluten-free and suitable for vegans. It can be very thin, highlighting its crispy, golden exterior, and is usually eaten plain or with a simple side of cured meats. This version is thicker, showcasing its creamy herbed interior, and topped with an array of garnishes for a more substantial dish and a plant-based alternative to a frittata. (For an even heartier meal, top with roasted vegetables, such as broccolini.) Thyme, sumac and sesame oil are not traditional seasonings — unlike rosemary, fennel seed or sage — but they recall za’atar and meld with the chickpea flour and olive oil.
Shish Kebab
Cooking pieces of skewered meat over fire is a practice almost as old as the discovery of fire itself, and it’s a culinary tradition that has been embraced across the globe. Shish kebab, from the Turkish words şiş (sword or stick) and kebap (roasted meat), is beloved across the Mediterranean and beyond. There are endless regional preparations for shish kebab; in this version inspired by Turkish flavorings, a yogurt and tomato paste-based marinade, punched up with lively spices like Aleppo pepper, paprika and cumin, tenderizes succulent pieces of lamb or beef. If you prefer a milder lamb taste, use boneless leg of lamb; for a more pronounced lamb taste, use boneless shoulder meat. If you’d like to skip the lamb altogether, use beef sirloin or top loin, which each make for tender and juicy kebabs without the expensive price tag. Shish kebab is best grilled, but you can also use a broiler or a stovetop grill pan (see Tip). For a complete meal, skewer peppers and onions (or any other vegetables you like), grill them alongside the kebabs and serve with flatbread.
Easy Vegan Chocolate Truffles
These vegan chocolate truffles are super rich and decadent! The best part is that they are SO EASY to make, using only 3 ingredients!
Warm Eggplant & Mint Salad
The eggplant I knew, growing up, was a bland, bitter Korean banchan called gaji bokkeum (“stir-fried eggplant”). Sesame oil, burnt garlic, salt, maybe soy sauce. This is not that. When you roast the eggplant, char it at the edges, you somehow make it earthy again, like ash, which is a welcome substratum for fresh mint, a pinch of sugar for balance, and a bright, yellow squeeze of lemon. The lemon juice is insurance against that styrofoam texture you can sometimes get with undercooked eggplant, as are the extra five minutes at the very end, when you leave your warm, fully dressed sheet-pan salad in the oven to finish alloying.
Lemony Mashed Potatoes With Asparagus, Almonds and Mint
Sautéing asparagus in butter and oil, rather than boiling it in water, locks much of the flavor inside. The asparagus could be served without the lemony mashed potatoes, or the other way around, but together they make a glorious side dish to roasted chicken, fish or spring lamb. Alternatively, adding a poached egg or two to each plate will turn this into a substantial vegetarian meal.
Braised Chicken With Artichokes and Olives
Imbued with the classic Mediterranean flavors of artichokes, garlic, mint and olives, this braised chicken is complex and highly satisfying, with a white wine sauce brightened with lemon. Fresh artichokes have the most pronounced character and meatiest texture, but if you can’t get them or don’t want to go to the trouble of cleaning them, you can substitute frozen artichoke hearts (you'll need a 9- or 10-once package). Serve this with crusty bread for sauce-mopping.
Fried Snails with Olive Oil & Rosemary (aka Boubouristoi)
In Crete we call snails boubouristi, which means "with their head looking down". Being a student in Crete, I had to learn to cook fried snails for this recipe.
Lamb Shanks slow cooked with sun dried tomatoes
Mediterranean Whole Roasted Cauliflower
This Whole Roasted Cauliflower recipe can be served at a rustic dinner party or as a weeknight dinner. Traditional Mediterranean flavor, only 5 ingredients.
Tuna and Bean Salad
This is a mainstay in my house, something you can always throw together for an easy light meal. The authentic version would call for tuna packed in olive oil, but I actually prefer water-packed tuna. The salad packs a lot of protein, not just from the beans, but also from the tuna, which is also an excellent source of Omega-3 fatty acids.
Black Rice and Lentil Salad on Spinach
Black rice is inky, as black as squid ink, and glistens against a bed of spinach. The pigments provide anthocyanins, flavonoids that are high in antioxidants. I was inspired to cook the rice with lentils by a pilaf that I ate recently at the “Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives” conference at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley. In addition to the familiar green or black lentils, I’ve thrown in uncooked split red lentils, which contribute their own soft salmon color and crunch; they are soaked for a few hours to soften them, and that’s all they need. Prepare the ingredients for the salad while the rice and lentils are cooking. The cooked rice and lentils will keep for 3 or 4 days in the refrigerator.
Bulgur and Chickpea Salad With Roasted Artichokes
Quartering and roasting the artichokes instead of steaming them whole intensifies flavor and cuts down on preparation time for this salad. My initial idea here was to stuff the artichokes with the salad and steam them. But that took a lot of time, and diminished the flavor of the salad. So I trimmed and cut the artichokes into wedges, tossed them with olive oil and roasted them. The roasted artichokes tasted so wonderful that I’ll be inclined to cook them this way from now onhereon in. They are perfect served atop or on the side of this lemony grain, chickpea and herb salad. The bulgur will keep for 4 or 5 days in the refrigerator, and can be frozen. The artichokes can be roasted several hours or even a day ahead but are best when freshly roasted.
Barley and Herb Salad With Roasted Asparagus
When fat stalks of asparagus come into the markets, what better thing to do with them than roast or grill them? What’s more, the California chef and teacher John Ash, demonstrating a recipe at the recent “Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives” conference at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley – an event that bridges health care, nutrition science and cooking – insists that not only does asparagus taste better when it’s not cooked in or near water, but also that it doesn’t cause that distinctive odor in urine many people experience after eating it. I can’t vouch for the latter claim, but asparagus is intensely delicious when you roast it And it’s a beautiful addition to this lemony mix of barley and herbs. For the herbs, I like to mix sweet (tarragon, chives) with bitter (parsley, marjoram, thyme). Cooked barley will keep for 3 days in the refrigerator and can be frozen. The dressed grains will be good for 2 to 3 days.
Cod in Sweet and Sour Pepper Sauce
Vinegary sauce in which fish is marinated after cooking is sometimes referred to as escabeche. This one is inspired by a recipe in Yotam Ottolenghi’s cookbook “Jerusalem.” It is at once a sauce and vegetable side dish. Instead of frying the fish like Ottolenghi does, I oven-steam it, then bury it in the sauce.
Mediterranean snack wrap
This simple wrap has nearly every flavor component--lightly sweet fig preserves, briney, creamy feta, nutty wheat lavash (can be substituted with wheat flatbread/tortilla), and some dry black pepper heat. I don't eat pork, but imagine this could be even more delicious with some prosciuotto and arugula and a few drops of citrusy olive oil; alternatively, rosemary caramelized onions will be a nice touch.
Fennel Compote With Tomatoes, Olives and Fish (or Not)
Mediterranean Lentil Purée
The spicing here is the same as one used in a popular Egyptian lentil salad. The dish is inspired by a lentil purée that accompanies bread at Terra Bistro in Vail, Colo.
Pasta Salad With Roasted Eggplant, Chile and Mint
This is a pasta salad, but it is not the mayonnaise-slicked, droopy-noodle kind found on salad bars. To bring out the soft meatiness of the eggplant, roast cubes of it until they collapse into a caramelized heap, and toss them with chopped raw tomatoes and a handful of salty capers. Then dress the vegetables and pasta in the pungent, spicy oil, which is rich with anchovies, browned garlic and chiles, a strong contrast to the sweetness of the tomatoes and eggplant.
Mediterranean mac and cheese
This Mediterranean Diet Mac and Cheese recipe is not loaded with butter and cream, has all the greatness of mac and cheese AND is good for you! And so easy too!
Mediterranean Chickpea Salad
This pretty chickpea salad comes together quickly. If you can't find juicy, flavorful tomatoes, leave them out, or use halved grape or cherry tomatoes instead.
Summer Minestrone With Fresh Basil
You can finish this hearty summer soup with slivered fresh basil, or with pistou, the Provençal version of pesto (it’s pesto without the pine nuts). A Parmesan rind, simmered in the soup and then removed, adds great depth of flavor without adding fat. On a hot summer day in Italy the soup might be served at room temperature, or just barely warm.
