Brunch
939 recipes found
Brussels Sprout Salad With Pomegranate and Pistachios
This autumnal side, inspired by tabbouleh, swaps the usual parsley and tomatoes for shaved brussels sprouts, scallions, chopped fresh mint, juicy pomegranate seeds and roasted pistachios, all tossed together in a tangy sumac-lemon dressing. The traditional bulgur remains, ensuring this salad has enough heft to stand out as a great vegan option at the Thanksgiving table and beyond, though the jeweled bowl is sure to attract omnivores, too. Perfect for potlucks, it can be assembled ahead of time, and, since it’s served at room temperature, it can easily be packed up and carried wherever you might be heading.
Sticky Toffee Loaf Cake
This soft and tender loaf is an ode to sticky toffee pudding, the decadent classic British dessert. Brown sugar date cake is swirled with toffee sauce before baking, and it buckles and absorbs the sauce as it cooks in the oven. A sprinkle of flaky salt pleasantly offsets all that sweetness, as does the toffee-yogurt topping (a simple combination of extra toffee sauce and Greek yogurt), which is served alongside for dolloping onto each slice, making this cake as well-suited for a brunch spread as it is for dessert.
Pumpkin Biscuits With Honey Butter
These moist, buttery, pumpkin-y biscuits are the perfect use for that last bit of pumpkin purée in the can. They boast crunchy tops, soft centers and a flavor that lands somewhere between sweet and savory. They come together in no time at all, with just a bowl and a spoon, and their cheery orange hue makes them a perfect addition to any holiday table. The biscuits are best warm from the oven but can be reheated in a low oven or toaster oven just before serving. Don’t forget the sweet and salty honey butter on the side, which makes these biscuits extra special.
Butter Swim Biscuits
These tender, buttery, crisp buttermilk biscuits satisfy all urgent cravings. You can happily set aside any hesitancy about preparing biscuits because these tangy, fluffy ones come together quickly — no cutting cold butter into flour or rolling out dough. The batter is combined in one bowl and then spread over melted butter, giving the impression of a batter swimming in butter, as the name suggests. While the biscuits bake, they absorb all the buttery goodness and crisp up around the edges. Butter swim biscuits are best served warm and fresh out of the oven but will keep covered at room temperature for up to one day (see Tip).
Cranberry Orange Muffins
Tangy cranberries and zesty orange are a classic pairing, and they both shine in these perfectly domed muffins. Soft and fluffy, the muffins are dotted with a generous amount of bright red cranberries, and topped with an optional glaze packed full of even more orange flavor. You can opt for fresh or frozen cranberries, simply increasing the bake time by a few minutes if using frozen berries. This recipe makes a tidy dozen, and they keep well on the counter for a few days, or can be stored in the freezer in an airtight container for up to one month.
Pickle Biscuits
These flaky, fluffy biscuits have a surprise ingredient: pickles. Not just because pickles make everything better—though yes, they do—but because the acidity of the brine helps make the biscuits incredibly tender. Cut, stack and flatten the dough three times for flaky layers that look like the pages of a good book. Eat these warm from the oven alongside hearty stews, slow-cooked meats and barbecue, or open them up and top with thinly sliced ham and a dollop of mustard.
Sausage and Peppers Frittata
This is a quick breakfast twist on the classic Italian-American sausage, peppers and onions sandwich. Here, the sausage, peppers and onions are joined by potatoes and sautéed up in a skillet. The sausage is crispy, the peppers and onions are spicy and sweet, and the potatoes are soft and pillowy. Dried fennel seeds join the party, adding depth of flavor as they heat up in the pan. (They are especially important if you leave the sausage out altogether for a vegetarian option). Finally, just the right amount of eggs beaten with Parmesan turn the classic sandwich into a simple yet hearty frittata that is a crowd pleaser for all ages.
Bissara (Creamy Fava Bean Purée)
Bissara is a comforting Moroccan dish made primarily with dried, split fava beans or dried split peas. Often enjoyed as a warming winter meal, it features a creamy, smooth texture and is typically seasoned with garlic, cumin, paprika and olive oil. It can be served as a dip, with bread, or thinned into a hearty soup. A staple in Moroccan cuisine and a popular street food, bissara is celebrated for its simplicity, satisfyingly smooth texture and rich, savory flavors.
Doughnut Shop-Style Apple Fritters
The joy of eating these doughnuts comes as much from the flavor of the apple and cinnamon in each bite as from the texture – the crunch of the sugar-glazed fried exterior and the soft, pillowy pull-apart pieces of a buttery, yeasted doughnut. One doughnut-shop secret to the perfect apple fritter: use a lot of cinnamon. It is going to seem like a mistake, but fried doughnuts (see Tip) require a lot more apple, cinnamon and salt for the flavor to punch through than if they were baked. The second trick, which achieves that crispy but melt in your mouth texture: chop the dough. It might seem a bit fussy but they don’t have to be exact cuts, you just need 1/2-inch pieces. The texture will be like monkey bread but in an amazing apple fritter doughnut.
Peanut Butter-Banana Bread With Chocolate Chips
Peanut butter and bananas make a delightful sandwich. Why not put them together in a loaf? The peanut butter gives the banana bread a pleasant savory edge. Be sure to use sweetened, conventional peanut butter, but the texture — chunky or smooth — is up to you. The chocolate chunks already give this bread a dessert vibe, but if you’d like to go all out, finish the cooled loaf with this salted caramel glaze (stirring in a tablespoon of peanut butter along with the sugar).
Giant Jam Bun
A cross between a tender scone, an almond-flavored jam cake, and a swirly cinnamon bun, this plush confection makes a sweet breakfast or teatime treat. You can use any flavor of jam here, just be sure it’s thick and rich with pieces of fruit, and don’t use jelly, which will liquify and leak out from the pastry layers while in the oven. Though this is best eaten the day it’s baked, it’s nearly as good a day or two later; store it in a sealed container at room temperature. This recipe was adapted from Erin Gardner’s giant cinnamon roll scone.
Apple Bread
This towering loaf is packed with applesauce and chopped apples, plus lots of cinnamon and nutmeg. Enjoy a slice with a cup of tea in the afternoon or turn it into dessert with a scoop of ice cream or whipped cream. Use tart, firm baking apples (such as Mutsu, Cortland, Braeburn, Northern Spy and Stayman Winesap) in this cake for best results. The bread is best enjoyed the day it is baked, but will stay soft and delicious for a few days when stored in an airtight container or bag at room temperature.
Cardamom Coffee Banana Bread
Adding cardamom to coffee is a well-loved practice throughout the Middle East and one that plays off each ingredient's traits. Sweet, floral cardamom mellows the acidity of coffee while coffee’s inherent bitterness keeps the peppery, menthol-like notes of the spice from overpowering. Here, the couple transforms a humble banana bread, perfuming it with extra warmth, while chopped dark chocolate adds richness. An optional coffee drizzle ensures this loaf is eye-catching but if you’d rather keep things simpler, sprinkle it with coarse turbinado sugar before baking to lend a touch of sparkle as well as pleasant crunch.
Sour Cream Pancakes With Cardamom Apples
Sweetened and sauced by buttery, sautéed cardamom apples and a two-ingredient maple-sour cream blend, these pancakes are a delicious way to ring in autumn. The pancakes are even special on their own, moist and light thanks to the addition of sour cream. Mixing the flour and the sour cream together before gently folding in the eggs makes for a fluffier pancake. The floral sweetness of the caramelized cardamom apples is a perfect contrast to the tang of the maple sour cream. This recipe can be easily doubled to feed a crowd or scaled down to feed just two.
Pumpkin Cardamom Crumb Muffins
This take on the classic pumpkin muffin happily makes room for cardamom in the pumpkin spice mix, which adds an extra layer of warm, peppery flavor. A small amount of cardamom is added to the muffin batter, but it’s in the buttery crumb topping where the cardamom really shines: Melted butter and sugar are combined with cardamom and cinnamon to make a spicy, crunchy crumb topping that enhances every bite. These muffins make a perfect fall breakfast treat with a cup of coffee and a cardigan.
Coffee Tonic
A simple variation on the espresso tonic (that first appeared in 2007 at Koppi Roasters in Helsingborg, Sweden), the coffee tonic relies on a smooth pour of cold brew coffee for its caffeinated topper. Choose a quality dry tonic and, for the prettiest float, add the ice and tonic water to the glass first before gently pouring the brew overtop. If your coffee palate leans sweet, add a splash of simple syrup or maple syrup. If you don’t have limes in the house, no need to run out. Simply swap for a slice or peel of another citrus, such as orange, lemon or grapefruit.
Smoked Salmon and Avocado Toast With Carrot Salad
This toast makes for a perfect solo lunch. A thick slice of sourdough is toasted and topped with smashed avocado, capers and salty slivers of smoked salmon. Rounding out these ingredients is the real star of the show: a tall pile of shaved carrot salad tossed in vinegar and olive oil. Sweet, salty and briny, the raw carrot salad offers a nice textural contrast to the rest of the toast. Like most toasts, this one is best eaten right away.
Potato Pete’s Potato Scones
These scones are surprisingly decadent for a recipe devised in wartime Britain as a way to stretch rations of flour and butter. As adapted by the historian Eleanor Barnett from a 1940s pamphlet produced and published by the Ministry of Food, it uses up leftover mashed potatoes and lets you get by with about half the amounts of flour and butter that a typical scone recipe might require. There’s less of a rise, since potatoes lack gluten and thus can’t create the long, elastic strands of protein that trap air and bring buoyancy. But the extra starch gives the scones softness and a delightfully tender crumb. Out of a limited batch of ingredients, you 12 scones, enough to create 6 scone sandwiches with your choice of filling: a sweet slather of cocoa powder, sugar, butter and a dash of milk, evoking cake frosting, or a quick savory slaw of shredded cabbage and carrots, livened up by onion chutney.
Banana Muffins
The quintessential breakfast on-the-go, these banana muffins are tender, light and just sweet enough. A pinch of cinnamon is all they need but 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts, chocolate or even candied ginger wouldn’t hurt. Starting the oven at 425 degrees gives the muffins a boost right at the start. The water in the batter (from the bananas and sour cream) turns to steam quickly and the muffins puff up and create a nice dome. Lowering the heat to 350 degrees then allows them to cook through more gradually. Just don’t forget to turn the oven down right before you pop the muffins in.
Easy Blueberry Cream Scones
All you need is a bowl, fork and baking sheet to make these scones, which end up crisp on the outside and tender within. The recipe doesn’t include the added step of cutting butter into flour, which yields the kind of sturdier, breadier scones found in bakeries and requires extra tools, skills and time. Instead, it’s a streamlined version of cream scones, where the dough is often rolled or patted flat then cut into rounds or wedges. Dropping the batter onto the baking sheet in mounds not only makes these easier to throw together, it also ensures the scones stay soft, as does a short rest in the refrigerator. Folding in berries make these lovely for breakfast or brunch, while stirring in currants gives them a classic tea time feel. They’re rich enough to enjoy on their own, but they also taste great slathered with jam and clotted cream or butter.
Sheet-Pan Lemon-Ricotta Pancakes
Reminiscent of an Italian lemon cheesecake, lemon-ricotta pancakes are a brunch menu favorite. This recipe spares you the task of standing at the stove flipping pancakes, instead employing a sheet pan and the oven, which makes this recipe ideal for effortless entertaining. Whipping the egg whites helps keep the pancakes light and fluffy, so the ricotta can add flavor without extra weight. A splash of almond extract and lemon zest are the perfect pair for brightness and a fantastic oomph of flavor. The large-format pancake feeds a crowd and tastes just as good hot, at room temperature or served as leftovers the next day. While it bakes, make the (optional) lemon whipped cream, a simple confection that turns this easy dish into a show-stopper.
Baked Sweet Corn Tamal
This baked tamal uses the husks, silks and kernels from fresh corn to infuse maximum corn flavor into a golden, butter-rich loaf. Out of the oven, the inside of this tamal is custardy soft, gradually firming up into a delicious, sliceable delicacy as it sits. Inspired by Michoacan's uchepo, which can have as few as two ingredients, not including salt (sweet corn and baking powder), this recipe celebrates the pure, unadulterated taste of farm-fresh corn that can be served with either sweet or savory toppings. Prepare a spread with Mexican crema, crunchy salt, salsa macha and/or roasted poblano chiles. Or for a sweeter option, top with Greek yogurt, fresh berries and a drizzle of honey. Leftovers can be cubed and fried in butter or olive oil for croutons, or used as a base for a sundae topped with vanilla ice cream and crunchy sea salt. If you want to try your hand at wrapping tamales, try Sweet Corn Tamales which use the same masa and fresh corn husks. These are steamed instead of baked, employing a cooking method that has stood the test of time across cultures and continents.
Smoky Shrimp Saganaki
Inspired by Greek shrimp saganaki, this dish combines wonderfully sweet shrimp, tomatoes and feta with subtly smoky dried Mexican chiles. The aromatics — cherry tomatoes and garlic, plus an assortment of dried and fresh chiles — simmer and confit in oil in the oven, with shrimp and feta added toward the end of cooking, broiling quickly, to create a wonderfully oozy, charred dish. It’s a simple, one-pan weeknight meal that cooks in just 30 minutes. This recipe allows flexibility in your choice of chiles; whichever you choose, the gentle confiting of the chiles releases their flavors, adding nuanced heat to complement the bright and tangy tomatoes and feta. You can switch out the ancho chile for pasilla chile, or dial up the heat with a fruity Scotch bonnet. Enjoy this dish straight from the pan, mopped up with a piece of crusty bread. Any leftovers can be easily turned into a show-stopping pasta sauce, making this recipe a versatile addition to any recipe collection.
Blueberry Corn Muffins
There are corn muffins, and then there are blueberry corn muffins. The simple addition of fruit transforms the bread basket staple into a glorious, slightly tart treat equally suitable for dinner or breakfast (or anything in between). Don’t skip the ten-minute rest in step 2 — it allows the batter to hydrate and creates an A+ dome — but make sure to stir in the blueberries after that, so the juices don’t seep and create a grayish tint. Serve these muffins as a grab-and-go breakfast, alongside a bowl of chili or slathered in honey butter to accompany a barbecue spread.