Bread & Baking
456 recipes found
Summer Pudding With Blackberries and Peaches
Constructed from layers of soft, spongy sliced bread and tons of juicy, just-cooked fruit, this British dessert gets an update with a layer of barely sweetened whipped cream. It is the best thing since, well, sliced bread. Think of it as somewhere between a layer cake (where you don’t have to bake any cake) and a tiramisù (where the coffee and chocolate is replaced by burst berries and juicy peaches). While the assembly should be a relaxed, messy affair, just be sure to adequately soak the bread so it reads as custardy, not dry.
Cornbread Dressing
This crisp, rich and buttery dressing is excellent as a side dish for dinner on Thanksgiving and as leftovers the next day. Aromatics and a mix of fresh and dried herbs give it a deep savoriness. The sausage brings a flavor of its own, but you can leave it out for a vegetarian-friendly alternative. The accompanying cornbread recipe yields a result firm enough to soak up the stock and buttermilk without it turning to a pudding, but you can also use store-bought cornbread or a boxed mix. If you do, just crumble the baked cornbread and spread it out on a sheet pan in an even layer to dry for at least 4 hours and up to 12 hours before mixing it with the rest of the dressing ingredients.
Easy Cornbread-Brown Butter Stuffing
For many people, Thanksgiving is one big excuse to eat lots of stuffing. This one is particularly easy to make. Prepare cornbread using any recipe you'd like, then let it sit out until it gets a little stale. Crumble it into large pieces and then sauté with aromatics in deeply browned butter. Be sure to really let the butter brown: that's where much of the flavor is. Drizzle any remaining brown butter over the top of the stuffing once you've transferred it to the baking dish — that will make the top nice and crispy.
Ham Buns
Jennifer Owens doesn’t know where her mother, Frances, first found the recipe for these ham buns, but they have been a part of her life since childhood in Easley, S.C. It may have come from relatives in Tennessee, as a similar recipe appears as “Hallelujah Ham Loaves” in “Dinner on the Diner,” a 1983 cookbook from the Junior League of Chattanooga. The warm appetizer has won fans wherever Ms. Owens goes. Her mother’s original formula called for raw onions, but Ms. Owens now sautés them. Use good smoked ham, either holiday leftovers or from the deli counter. As the buns bake, the butter pools at the bottom, toasting up the base of these irresistible bite-size sandwiches.
Steak Tacos With Pineapple Salsa
This is a no-recipe recipe, a recipe without an ingredients list or steps. It invites you to improvise in the kitchen. Get some fresh tortillas and a pound of skirt steak, then make salsa from mostly fresh or canned pineapple, pickled jalapeños and a healthy couple shakes of chile powder, along with plenty of chopped cilantro. Shower the steaks with salt and pepper, and broil them for 2 to 3 minutes a side until they’re perfect and rare. Warm the tortillas. Grate some Cheddar. Rest the steak, slice it, and serve with the tortillas, cheese and that awesome salsa. Anyone want to watch a movie after dinner? We have time. 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.
Moroccan Nachos
This Moroccan twist on the much-loved appetizer features kefta, a ground beef (or lamb) mixture seasoned with parsley, cilantro, mint, paprika and cumin, and a spicy-sweet harissa salsa. Both give these nachos an unusual kick that’s as festive as it is comforting. Creamy guacamole, bright with lemon zest and juice, balances everything out. To save time, cook the kefta mixture and prepare the salsa in advance. Using a combination of fresh and canned tomatoes creates a not-too-runny and not-too-chunky consistency that’s ideal for drizzling over a tray of nachos. That said, feel free to swap the fresh tomatoes for half a 14-ounce can crushed tomatoes or vice versa.
Eggnog Overnight French Toast
Like a good pitcher of eggnog, this French toast is rich, sweet, boozy and covered in nutmeg. Slicing the bread but keeping the base connected not only makes this an attractive breakfast centerpiece, it also feeds family and friends with little effort since all the servings bake simultaneously. Allowing it to soak in the refrigerator overnight deepens the dish’s flavors. Don’t worry about forcing the bread pieces apart when pouring in the soaking mixture: The loaf will flower naturally as it bakes. This dish is sweet enough to eat without a final drench in maple syrup, but it’s great with a mountain of fresh, tart berries. A little homemade whipped cream wouldn’t hurt either.
Meatloaf Stroganoff
This meatloaf pays homage to one that was served at the old M. Wells in Long Island City, when the restaurant was in a dodgy old diner where the cooks did prep work on the lunch counters and the vents occasionally caught fire. The chef, Hugue Dufour, folded knuckles of foie gras into this marvelous Stroganoff gravy that he used to nap big loaves of aged-beef meatloaf. I’ve made versions at home with beef and lamb and pork covered in sauce made with mushrooms both wild and supermarket-bland. I’ve spooned canned foie gras into my meatloaf mixture to mimic the original, and I’ve dotted it into the finished sauce as well. That last maneuver was in truth more successful, providing pops of richness against the silkiness of the cream, but I’ve also omitted the foie entirely and no one has been the poorer for it. The adaptations hardly matter. Make a good and juicy meatloaf with the best meat you can find, and cover it with mushrooms and cream. You’ve got a meal to suggest magic.
Skillet Refried Beans With Avocado and Radish
This hearty vegetarian mash-up of burritos and seven-layer dip is a crowd favorite for good reason: It’s easy, it’s fast and it encourages diners to gather around the table and fill their tortillas however they wish. Canned refried beans seasoned with a dash of cayenne are heated through on the stovetop, then topped with a generous sprinkling of cheese. Before serving, lots of cool, crunchy toppings like avocado, grated Cotija cheese, snap peas, radishes and romaine lettuce are piled on top. The toppings make it feel like a proper meal, though you could serve it with tortilla chips as a snack or with eggs for brunch.
Papadzules (Rolled Tortillas With Pumpkin Seed Sauce)
In 1970, Craig Claiborne took a Mexican cooking class at the New York City home of Diana Kennedy, where he learned how to make these papadzules, a Yucatecan dish of rolled tortillas with pepitas (pumpkin seeds). After the death of her husband, Paul Kennedy, a reporter for The New York Times, and with encouragement from editors in New York to write a book, Ms. Kennedy moved to Mexico to record its culinary diversity. As Mr. Claiborne noted in his 1970 article, a coffee grinder works best for puréeing the pepitas here, but the best way to coax the rich oil out of the seeds is by hand. (Tejal Rao)
Stamped Citrus Shortbread
Use cast-iron cookie stamps to leave imprints on this beautifully textured shortbread, which is flavored with tangy orange and lemon zests. The stamps, which are available online, are a fun way to shape and decorate cookies without much effort. (Don’t be afraid to be generous with the flour, on the cookie balls and on the stamps themselves, shaking off excess so you still get a clean imprint.) But if you don’t have stamps, you can roll and cut the dough using a simply shaped cutter, or roll the dough into a log for slice-and-bake cookies.
Enfrijoladas Pintos
In this take on enfrijoladas, chipotle makes the pinto bean sauce slightly smoky and spicy, perfect for dipping pan-fried blistered corn tortillas. If you don’t have pinto beans on hand, use black or mayocoba beans for equally delicious results. Top this dish with quick-pickled red onion, which tastes even better if you make it the day before. For a perfect weeknight meal, garnish with a dollop of sour cream, avocado slices, and a sprinkle of toasted pepitas and cilantro leaves. To get vegetarian recipes like this one delivered to your inbox, sign up for The Veggie newsletter.
Capirotada (Mexican Bread Pudding)
Capirotada is a seasonal dish eaten for Lent or Cuaresma, a time of the year when many Mexican households whip up meatless meals on Fridays. This cinnamon-scented bread pudding is a balance of textures, and sweet and slightly savory flavors. Its array of garnishes vary, and families debate which ingredients should make the cut and which should be forgotten. In Zacatecas, Mexico, onion is an unexpected ingredient that ties together the piloncillo and cheese. This dish can be made traditional or plant-based by selecting dairy-based or vegan butter and cheese. The key ingredient is a stale or lightly toasted baguette, birote or bolillo, which absorbs sweet piloncillo syrup melded with melted cheese, and holds up your chosen ingredients.
Sizzling Pork Tacos
Heavily spiced strips of pork shoulder fried crisp in a pan. Warm corn tortillas. Tomatillo salsa and hot sauce. Pair the tacos with a pot of garlicky black beans, an avocado salad and mangoes for dessert, and you’ve got an incredible dinner for about an hour’s work. Go to.
Quesabirria Tacos
The little puddle of fat floating on top of a pot of birria is pure gold, stained red from chiles, and rich with all the concentrated flavors of the original stew. In other words: Don’t waste it! Instead, spoon the fat off the top of the broth and reserve it for crisping tortillas to make quesabirria tacos, pan-fried until crisp, with cheese smushing out of the edges and browning in the pan. You can enjoy the tacos with salsas or hot sauce, but the birria meat and cooking oil are so flavorful that a little cilantro and onion are all you really need.
Focaccia
Seasoned with little more than olive oil and crunchy sea salt, focaccia is an ancient bread that is unexpectedly easy to make. Once a staple at Caroline Fidanza’s now-closed sandwich shop, Saltie, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, this recipe from the “Saltie: A Cookbook” is perfect on its own, but also serves as a base upon which you can experiment. If you want to alter its flavor, sprinkling some aromatic dry herbs on top of the dough provides deep savory notes. Or decorate it vibrantly with the vegetables and fresh herbs of your choosing for an Instagram-worthy focaccia garden (see Tip).
Cheese Enchiladas
Enchiladas are an essential component of Houston’s ebullient, dynamic foodways. Mexican in origin, while distinctly Tex-Mex at the same time, the dish adapts to its surroundings. Each enchilada recipe is deeply local: The style ubiquitous in Monterrey, Mexico, will be different from those found in San Antonio or El Paso or Mexico City. But from enchilada to enchilada, the common denominator is deliciousness. In “The Enchilada Queen Cookbook,” Sylvia Casares notes, “for Tex-Mex-style cheese enchiladas, yellow cheese, such as Cheddar, is the traditional choice” yielding “the quintessential Tex-Mex enchilada.”
Goose Barbacoa
The beefy nature of goose legs makes them a good choice for this rich, slightly spicy braise, but duck legs work fine, too. The timing here is very forgiving. This recipe cooks on a stovetop, but you could also braise the meat in a slow cooker or an oven set to about 325 degrees. The key is to simmer the legs until the meat pulls easily from the bone. The luscious secret comes at the end, when the warm meat is tossed in melted fat. The end result is highly adaptable: Wrap it in a warm tortilla, serve it alongside rice and beans with some good salsa, or spoon it atop a bed of sturdy greens and eat it as a salad.
Chicken Enchiladas
With the help of rotisserie or roast chicken and easy, premade (or canned) enchilada sauce, these American Southwest-inspired enchiladas are ready in about an hour. Make them vegetarian by substituting the chicken with roasted vegetables, such as summer or winter squash, eggplant or mushrooms. For extra flavor and texture, add some fresh cilantro, or chopped raw onion or jalapeño to the filling before you roll up the enchiladas. Pre-shredded cheese (preferably Cheddar or a Mexican blend) will help get this meal on the table even faster.
Tacos al Pastor
Tacos al pastor, a Mexican street-food staple, are a perfect synthesis of local flavors (pineapple, chiles, annatto), Spanish influence (pork, adobo), and Middle Eastern technique (a spinning, shawarma-style vertical rotisserie). The synthesis comes from Mexico’s history, but perfection comes from the combination of sweet pineapple, spicy meat and fragrant corn. This recipe, from the chef Gabriela Cámara, provides an easy way to make it at home; try boneless chicken thighs if you don’t want pork. Either way, make sure to blot the meat until very dry before cooking it so you get a hard sear that mimics the char of a grill.
Reuben Sandwich
Like many classic dishes, the Reuben sandwich has multiple origin stories: Some accounts trace its origins to the since-shuttered Reuben’s delicatessen in New York City, where Arthur Reuben created a special for one of Charlie Chaplin’s leading ladies in 1914, using ham, turkey, Swiss cheese and coleslaw on rye. Another origin story points to a customer, Reuben Kulakofsky, who was said to have ordered a corned beef and sauerkraut sandwich at Blackstone Hotel, in Omaha, where Bernard Schimmel obliged by rounding it out with Thousand Island dressing, Swiss cheese, rye bread and a hot grill. Today’s Reuben sandwiches feature corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and a healthy smear of Russian dressing between toasted, buttered rye. Homemade dressing has a brighter, fresher flavor than the bottled variety, and comes together in just a few turns of a whisk. To achieve the prized crispy crust and gooey cheese, keep the heat low enough to allow the buttered bread to toast while the cheese melts.
Naan (Indian Flatbread)
In spite of its ancient origins and utter simplicity, the tandoor produces startlingly sophisticated results, including smoky flatbreads that puff like pillows, and roasted meats of uncommon succulence. But you can make naan just as easily in an oven.
Olive Oil Refried Beans
Use whatever variety of beans and chiles you’ve got in your pantry to make this recipe, which is inspired by the silky, lard-fried, pinto bean version available at nearly every Southern Californian taqueria. Eat these however you like, whether alongside rice and greens, smeared onto garlic-rubbed toast or spread onto a warm tortilla and with a perfectly fried egg on top. The overnight soak allows the time for both water and salt to penetrate the beans, cutting down the cooking time and leading to better seasoned, more evenly cooked beans. But if you’re short on time, you can skip the presoak; the beans will just take longer to cook through, and might not cook as evenly, which isn’t the end of the world if you’re mashing them up. You can also skip simmering altogether and use the drained, rinsed beans from two (15-ounce) cans and begin with Step 3.
Red Snapper Tacos With Tomatillo Salsa
These tacos are best served fresh, but can be wrapped in foil and held in a warm oven.