Cheese
2190 recipes found
Strawberry Pretzel Pie
This is a wonderful but simple summer pie inspired by strawberry pretzel salad, a popular Southern dessert. The classic recipe consists of a crumbled pretzel crust, a whipped cream cheese and Cool Whip filling, and a top layer of strawberry Jell-O. In this fresher adaptation, crushed pretzels form the foundation of an easy shortbread crust, followed by a fluffy cream filling and a pile of fresh strawberries, omitting the use of gelatin. If you’re making this pie in advance — especially with juicy, height-of-season berries — complete Steps 1 to 3, then cloak the filled crust with plastic wrap and chill up to 24 hours. Just before serving, toss the berries in sugar and pile them on top.
New Mexican Hot Dish
This is a no-recipe recipe, a recipe without an ingredients list or steps. It invites you to improvise in the kitchen. I’ve been cooking enchiladas con carne ever since Robb Walsh taught me how to make them in the kitchen of his El Real Tex-Mex Cafe in Houston. But I can’t say I make them the way he taught me any longer. First, sauté a pound or so of ground beef in a splash of oil, with a little flour and a pinch of salt, then set it aside. Use the same pan to cook chopped onion, garlic and jalapeño. Return the meat to the pan, and hit it with chile powder, ground cumin and oregano, to taste. Add chopped tomatoes and a little water to loosen everything up. Let it reduce a little. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 425, and grab a casserole dish. You’ll need corn tortillas as well, and grated cheese — I like a mixture of Cheddar and American. Sue me. Enchiladas can be a drag to assemble. So do as the New Mexicans do, and stack rather than roll. I put a little chili in the bottom of the casserole, warm my tortillas in a dry skillet and lay them across the chili as if building the first layer of a lasagna. Then I do that again and again, and finish with the remaining chili and cheese. Bake in the oven until everything’s bubbling. Serve with chopped raw onions, sour cream and salsa on the side. Enchilada casserole, hon. New Mexican hot dish. I’m telling you, you could make it tonight. 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.
No-Bake Cheesecake With Caramelized Pineapple and Coconut
Pockets of jammy caramelized pineapple are a thrilling discovery in this creamy tropics-inspired cheesecake. Coconut milk and lime zest are added to the cream cheese filling, which is set in a crisp gingersnap crust. Caramelize the pineapples ahead, if time permits — the longer they sit in the syrup, the better they’ll taste. Serve the cake sliced in squares, topped with toasted coconut flakes, if desired.
Buffalo Crudités With Blue Cheese Dip
Doused in something spicy, crisp crudités can become habit-forming. Inspired by the Buffalo cucumber salad at Parm in New York, this recipe coats the traditional sidekicks to Buffalo chicken — celery, carrots and other raw vegetables — in the garlic-spiked hot sauce that is traditionally doused on wings. The result is finger food at its finest: crunchy, flavor-packed and begging for beer (and blue cheese). Buffalo chicken wings might be written off as a bar fixture, but they’re a great example of contrasts: hot and cold, spicy and cooling, crisp and juicy. Like kimchi or chile-flecked melon, these crudités accentuate the play between spicy and fresh.
Party Board
This is a no-recipe recipe, a recipe without an ingredients list or steps. It invites you to improvise in the kitchen. You don’t need a recipe for a party board, which is a fine dinner for a Wednesday night. You don’t even need a no-recipe recipe. You need only what cheese is in the refrigerator, sliced or wedged or cubed, along with cured meats — I like rolled mortadella, spread inside with a little mayonnaise and dotted with pickled jalapeño — and a little bread or pile of crackers. Maybe add to the board some cherry tomatoes, halved and tossed in olive oil and good vinegar with salt and pepper? You could stuff them with mozzarella, if you have the time. Or celery, cut into batons? Carrots, likewise? Raw or roasted peppers, sliced? The chef Gabrielle Hamilton calls the assemblage a snack tray. In the name of romance, she once stacked Pringles on one, with a ramekin of Castelvetrano olives. Her swain, now her wife, Ashley Merriman, responded with “pepperoni cut as thin as fish scales and shingled just as neatly.” You could go with Jarlsberg, Triscuits and vodka sodas. Or smoked salmon, shaved asparagus, some crème fraîche with chives, dill and tarragon. A party board is what you make of it. 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.
Kale Salad With Cranberries, Pecans and Blue Cheese
This is a no-recipe recipe, a recipe without an ingredients list or steps. It invites you to improvise in the kitchen. How about a kale salad? (Stick with me, please.) Just make a mustardy vinaigrette that’ll stand up to the greens — mustard, olive oil, a splash of lemon juice, salt and pepper — then drizzle it over clean, chopped kale with a host of big-flavored mix-ins that wink at whatever season you’re in without being dorky about it: dried cranberries or currants, say; pecans toasted with maple syrup and a pinch of cayenne; some crumbled blue cheese; a spray of croutons. Sweet, salty, spicy, sour. That and a chilled glass of red wine? Why don’t we eat salads for dinner more often? 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.
Corn Salad With Tomatoes, Feta and Mint
Fresh raw corn shucked from the cob is ideal here. The juice from the tomatoes delivers just the right amount of acidity, so there’s no need for vinegar. Eat this as is, by the bowl, or toss it with cooked rice or beans for a more filling meal — you’ll want to add oil and vinegar accordingly. In midsummer, with peak-season produce, there is nothing better.
Cacio e Pepe Cheese Puffs
Ina Garten’s 12th cookbook, “Modern Comfort Food,” was published in October 2020. As always, she seemed to have her finger on the culinary zeitgeist: Comfort was the order of the day. These puffs, which she adapted from the Brooklyn chef Missy Robbins, combine the richness of classic gougères with the bite of black pepper and Parmesan.
Grilled Romaine
Lettuces do nicely on the grill, softening slightly at their centers and charring beautifully at their tips. Their bitterness is a fine counterpart to the sweet spiciness of a lot of grilled foods. In this recipe, the dressing is Caesar-like. Mustard and mayonnaise serve as emulsifiers, while anchovies, garlic and vinegar provide a welcome kick. Make sure to paint the dressing into the crevices between the leaves, so that while the lettuce caramelizes slightly on the exterior, there is still warm creaminess within.
Florentine Dip
A good dip transcends time — especially one with fresh herbs, which makes this 1959 recipe from Craig Claiborne stand out amid other recipes from the convenience food era of the 1940s and ’50s. Studded with capers, garlic and anchovies, the dip comes together quickly, then sits in the refrigerator, ready to buy you time should your guests arrive early while the rest of the meal runs late.
Juicy Lucy Burger
This Minneapolis staple is smart and simple: Sealing a slice of cheese inside two thin burger patties allows the burger to develop a serious char while the inside stays moist thanks to its molten core. There’s debate over whether the burger originated at 5-8 Club or Matt’s Bar; both have drawn locals and tourists alike since the 1950s. The Juicy Lucy method takes some practice — you’ll need to make sure the edges of the stacked patties are properly sealed so that the melted cheese gushes out with every bite instead of making a mess in the skillet — but the results far outweigh the challenge. Because the ingredient list is short (an unassuming bun, a smattering of pickles and a pile of caramelized onions), you’ll need to season with abandon. You may be tempted to use an expensive craft cheese, but sliced American cheese is the only way to go for tradition and meltability.
Charred Scallion Dip With Lemon and Herbs
This creamy scallion dip could be the cooler cousin of ranch dressing or sour cream and onion dip. Grilled scallions add smokiness, while fresh chives and raw scallions lend brightness to the tangy, herb-flecked dip. If you don’t have a grill or grill pan, you can broil the scallions in your oven. Once assembled, the dip benefits from chilling to round out the flavors. At least an hour works, but it's better after a day. It needs nothing more than potato chips alongside, but it’s also great with crudités, crackers, grilled vegetables, fried chicken or slathered on sandwiches.
Saffron Pistachio Blondies
Saffron and pistachio, a combination known to many on the Indian subcontinent as kesar pista, is a classic flavoring in South Asian, Iranian and other desserts — and for good reason. The buttery richness of pistachios brings out the floral flavor in saffron. Kesar pista shines in other sweets like this nutty twist on a blondie. Seth Byrum, my partner and an avid home baker, suggested enriching the base with white chocolate, which feels reminiscent of khoya, the richly flavored milk solids in several South Asian confections. The radiantly golden frosting lets the saffron do the talking. Garnish the top with pistachios to mimic the top of more traditional South Asian sweets, like shrikhand.
Sweet-and-Spicy Grilled Vegetables With Burrata
A colorful platter of soft, grilled vegetables in a sweet-and-spicy sauce can be the centerpiece of a light summery meal; just add some creamy cheese for richness and crusty bread to round things out. This recipe is extremely adaptable. You mix and match the vegetables, increasing the amounts of your favorites (or the ones you can get your hands on), and skipping anything you don’t have. And if your grill is large enough, you can make several different kinds of vegetables at the same time. Just don’t crowd them so they cook evenly.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie
This spin on an icebox pie, with its chocolaty press-in graham cracker crust and airy no-bake peanut butter filling, comes with a sheen of fudgy glaze. A splash of coffee accentuates the dark side of the bittersweet chocolate, and salted peanuts scattered on top add crunch. As fun as a candy bar and as creamy as a cheesecake, this layered dessert looks and feels special but is simple enough for anyone to pull together. And it’s even easier to serve: The whole thing can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.
Grilled Oysters With Harissa-Parmesan Butter
At Cristiano Ristorante in Houma, La., the chef Lindsay Mason ladles a buttery mixture of roasted red peppers, garlic and Parmesan into grilled oysters. This version replaces the roasted peppers with North African harissa, offering the same sweet-savory combination, but with a bit more kick. For more grilled oyster flavor combinations, try this recipe for Grilled Oysters With Lemony Garlic-Herb Butter or this recipe for Grilled Oysters With Buttery Soy-Sake Glaze. The flavored butter can be stored in the refrigerator for several weeks or in the freezer for several months.
Chicago Thin-Crust (Tavern-Style) Pizza With Sausage and Giardiniera
Tavern-style pizza is not particularly difficult compared with other styles, but it does take a good amount of time from start to finish — several days in fact — but it’s largely hands-off. And, on the actual day of baking, you don’t have to deal with stretching or tossing dough, making it perfect for parties or for topping with kids. This recipe is part of our complete recipe for a Chicago thin-crust pizza. View the recipes for the dough, Chicago-style Italian sausage and accompanying sauce.
Buldak Pizza (Korean Fire Chicken Pizza)
Buldak (literally “fire chicken”) is a modern South Korean drinking dish of marinated chicken grilled and bathed in a spicy-sweet sauce flavored with gochujang, soy sauce, sweet rice syrup and hot chile flakes, often served with a topping of broiled, browned, bubbly mozzarella. The sweet-savory-smoky-cheesy combination and beer-friendliness is so reminiscent of barbecue chicken pizza that it’s worth putting the two together. With some tweaking, it works.
Fried Shallot Caesar Salad
The dressing here is great on this salad, but it can find a second (and third, and fourth) life in so many other simple meals. Use it as a dip for grilled asparagus and broccolini; slather it on burgers and BLTs; or combine it 50-50 with Greek yogurt and add chopped dill and black pepper to make a fried shallot Ranch dressing for dipping crudités (or chicken wings). Add it to a roast beef sandwich (or just serve it with the roast beef). It’s a great party dip for chips (or anything you’d serve French onion dip with). This recipe calls for making the mayo from scratch, but you can use store-bought mayo as the base to make it even easier.
Butternut Squash, Leek and Za’atar Pie
This comforting pie makes a great vegetarian centerpiece, ideal for a celebration. It benefits from being assembled the day before, receiving a good amount of time to set in the fridge and thus involving a lot less work on the day you plan to enjoy it. You can also bake the whole thing a few hours in advance, then just reheat it in the oven for 20 minutes, if you like. Use any extra pastry trim to cut out fun, festive shapes like holly leaves or stars to personalize your pie. Serve this alongside roasted veggies or a big leafy salad.
Thin but Juicy Chargrilled Burgers
The key to cooking a thin, modestly sized burger on the grill is to use the highest heat possible, and to cook the meat most of the way through on one side before flipping it and briefly cooking the second side. This technique allows you to get a nice dark crust on that first side without the risk of overcooking. To form thin patties that hold together on the grill, massage the ground beef briefly — which is a cardinal sin with many other styles of burgers, but a necessity here for cohesion. This allows you to flatten the patty out extra-thin and wide to account for shrinking as the meat cooks.
Brown-Butter Butter Beans With Lemon and Pesto
These roasted beans are treated in much the same way as toasted gnocchi, and yield similar results: They’re nicely browned on the surface, then coated in an unctuous, lemony, buttery sauce. Make sure to have your pesto and warm brown-butter sauce ready to pour onto the beans right when they come out of the oven, so that the beans remain crispy and the sauce nice and loose. For a vegetarian version, you can swap out the anchovies for some briny capers and leave out the Parmesan. The whole experience is quite rich, so serve these with some lightly cooked leafy greens.
Spiced Squash and Phyllo Pie
This savory vegetable pie is modeled after the classic Moroccan b’stilla, usually made with squab, pigeon or chicken. It isn’t traditional, of course, but this vegetarian version is quite delicious, flaky, buttery and fragrant with spices. A diced preserved lemon adds perfume and sharpness, but you can also use a regular lemon. B’stilla normally has a layer of scrambled egg, but here, it’s replaced with a mixture of thick yogurt and feta. As with the original, everything is encased in golden, crisp buttered phyllo, sprinkled with confectioners’ sugar and cinnamon and served piping hot.
Bean and Cheese Burritos
Mexican refried beans are a cinch to make at home on a weeknight thanks to some staple pantry items and a few basic fresh ingredients. Buttery canned pinto beans are perfect in this dish, breaking down into a creamy, silky mixture. (Black beans would also work great.) While the beans are often fried in lard or bacon drippings, this vegetarian version builds flavor with caramelized onion, bell pepper, garlic and smoked paprika instead. Pico de gallo adds a touch of tang to counter the rich beans. Pan-frying the wrapped burritos guarantees a golden, irresistibly crispy exterior and an interior that oozes with melted cheese.