Dinner
8856 recipes found

Miniature Home-Cured 'Ham'
My version of Southern biscuits and ham exposes me as a Yankee impostor, since it's not made with real country ham. It is, instead, a much smaller brine-cured pork tenderloin, easy to cure and cook (though it does take some advance planning). Serve with tender, hot biscuits, sweet butter and mustard.

Egg Drop Soup
This soup is very easy to make and very delicious. It is in fact so easy to make that it really is the sort of thing you can summon the will to cook even when you arrive home from work hungry. I originally made it out of nostalgia for a soup I had in college that endows its eater with good soup manners. I think it would work just as nicely with beef broth.

Mushroom Bourguignon
Meaty mushrooms simmered with pearl onions, wine and carrots make for a rich, wintry Bourguignon-style stew. The quality of the stock here makes a big difference, so if you’re not using homemade, buy a good brand. If you’re a meat eater, beef broth adds a familiar brawny character to this dish, but mushroom or vegetable broth work just well, especially because the whole dish is rounded out with a tamari for depth. For the best flavor, use as many kinds of mushrooms as you can get, and let them really brown when searing; that caramelization adds a lot of depth to the sauce. Maitake mushrooms give this a brisketlike texture, in a very good way.

Pasta e Patate (Pasta and Potato Soup)
Pasta e patate is a fortifying, soothing Italian soup made for blustery days. The starchy combination of pasta and potatoes makes for a rich and satisfying broth. Avoid the temptation to use chicken or vegetable broth instead of water, and be assured that the pancetta, Parmesan rind, olive oil and starchy potatoes all add ample flavor and body to the humble soup. (In southern Italy, tomatoes are also added for a red version of the dish.) If you use bacon instead of the pancetta, be mindful that the results will be smokier and saltier.

Mushroom-Butternut Squash Strata
This golden-topped strata has a savory mushroom and butternut squash filling, which gives it a complex, earthy flavor. Mozzarella adds mild richness, while the Parmesan gives everything a hit of salt and depth. You’ll need to let the strata sit in the fridge for at least eight hours (and preferably overnight) before baking. This allows the bread to soak up all the custard. Then, run it under the broiler after baking so the edges become crunchy and pleasingly singed. It’s a lovely main dish for a celebratory brunch or meatless supper, or a hearty side dish with roast chicken or fish for dinner.

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.

Stuffed Standing Rib Roast
A juicy, beautifully pink rib roast is one of the most impressive dishes imaginable for a holiday spread. (It's also one of the most expensive. Invest in a digital, oven-safe thermometer and there will be no reason to worry you're overcooking it.) This recipe elevates the classic by adding a stuffing of spinach, sausage and mushrooms that is most appropriate for use with the lean beef of grass-fed steers.

Roast Turkey With Orange and Sage
The butter, massaged under the bird's skin, does a lot to help keep the breast meat moist, and the juice and wine in the pan below the bird create a deliciously steamy environment for the roasting. The combination leads to an interesting outcome: a bird that crisps up nicely not at the beginning of cooking, but at the end. The sweet-savory drippings make for excellent gravy.

Porchetta Pork Chops
Here's a more manageable version of the traditional Italian recipe for whole roast pig seasoned with a garlic, rosemary and fennel. This one comes together so quickly, you can make it on a whim.

Turkey BBQ Sandwiches With Pickles and Slaw
Most turkey sandwiches are best made with slices of white meat stacked neatly between two slices of bread. Not this one. With a saucy, spicy filling piled onto a hamburger bun, it’s perfect for dark meat and any scraps you may have leftover from the carcass. The cabbage slaw adds crispness and tang to the soft turkey, and bread-and-butter pickles give the sandwich a touch of sweetness. If you don’t have leftover turkey in your refrigerator, this recipe works just as well with the meat torn off a rotisserie chicken.

Honey-Cured, Hickory-Smoked Shoulder Ham
A true ham, weighing 15 to 20 pounds, comes from a hog’s hindquarters. It’s a formidable piece of meat, requiring several weeks of curing and 24 hours or more of smoking. A shoulder ham (sometimes called picnic ham) has a similarly magisterial appearance and profound umami flavors, but in a size that will fit in your refrigerator and can be cured and smoked inside a week. When possible, buy a heritage pork breed, like Berkshire or Duroc, preferably from a local farmer or butcher.

Creamed Greens Potpie
This one-skillet, vegetarian pot pie trades the traditional chicken filling for creamy, garlicky greens. Hearty greens turn silky in a mixture of heavy cream, garlic, shallot, thyme and Parmesan under a lid of flaky puff pastry. Using store-bought puff pastry in place of homemade pie crust ensures a perfect result every time. It also steers pot pie into the weeknight-possible category. Greens and heavy cream require a good amount of salt to taste like their best selves, so taste and season well when the recipe says to do so.

Caramelized Onion Galette
This rich, autumnal galette takes its inspiration from the flavors of French onion soup. Seasoned with Gruyère and lots of cracked black pepper, the galette dough takes the place of the crostini, and the caramelized onion filling is fortified with beef broth and sherry. The dish is great for entertaining — it can be prepared in advance — but requires a little bit of patience: You’ll need to let the dough rest for at least four hours, which allows the flour to hydrate and will make the dough less crumbly to work with. Let the tart rest for about 10 minutes before slicing and serving. Eat it while it’s hot or serve at room temperature alongside a salad or steak.

Mac and Queso Fundido
This recipe, adapted from “Chicano Eats: Recipes From My Mexican-American Kitchen” (Harper Design, 2020) by Esteban Castillo, is less dip than it is pasta — a smoky, spicy version of the best boxed macaroni and cheese you’ve ever had. Make a very simple roux, to which you add smoked paprika and three types of grated cheese (mozzarella, Mexican cheese blend and Parmesan). Stir in the noodles until they are glossy and coated. You could stop there or take it over the top by finishing the dish with crumbled, cooked chorizo and sautéed mushrooms.

Red Peas Soup
This hearty soup, a favorite of Jamaican restaurants and home cooks alike, can easily pass as a stew. In fact, think of it as a chili alternative, just as thick and spicy. The dumplings are easy, and cook in the soup, but they’re entirely optional. Other versions of this soup may call for salted pig tails, but here, they’re swapped out for smoked turkey necks. Either one adds a deep smokiness. Cock-flavored soup mix, such as one from Grace, gives this soup yet another layer of flavor; you can find it in the international aisle of most supermarkets.

Crispy Mushroom Focaccia
In this recipe, the secret to achieving crispy, not soggy, mushrooms is roasting them twice: first, alone on a sheet pan until they’re just tender and their moisture reduced, then again on top of a soft and fluffy focaccia dough, where they will brown and crisp. For a vegan version, skip the Parmesan and use flaky salt or nutritional yeast instead.

Chili- and Cinnamon-Roasted Butternut Squash
Roasting butternut squash at a high temperature helps the sugars caramelize, bringing out a sweetness that pairs perfectly with fall flavors like cinnamon and cayenne. This recipe plays on the duality of butternut squash – its savory and sweet components. The ground cinnamon complements the caramelization, and the chili powder and cayenne play on the vegetable’s more savory profile. The cayenne also adds a kick, though you can omit it if you prefer to keep this dish’s heat limited to the more subtle chili powder.

Meatballs in Sour Cherry Sauce (Kabab Karaz)
The writer Anissa Helou put this bright and tart Syrian dish on the cover of her cookbook "Feast: Food of the Islamic World," which gathers recipes from across the Muslim diaspora. "If there is a dish that symbolizes the cooking of Aleppo, this has to be it," she writes inside; the recipe is adapted from Maria Gaspard-Samra, a chef who taught cooking classes in Aleppo. These small lamb meatballs are browned — take care not to overcook them — and then simmered in a pool of pitted sour cherries, raw cane sugar and pomegranate molasses. Then they are piled on a bed of pita bread triangles drizzled with butter and dusted with chopped parsley and toasted pine nuts. If you can’t find fresh or frozen sour cherries, use dried, which you can rehydrate by soaking overnight in water.

Grilled Corn and Avocado Salad With Feta Dressing
This lively salad of corn, scallions, jalapeño and avocado tossed with a tangy buttermilk-feta dressing is like summer on a plate. The sweetness of peak-summer corn and the richness of creamy avocado balance out the tartness of the dressing. To choose the perfect corn, make sure that the corn husk is bright green and slightly dewy to the touch, and that the silks peeking out at the top are yellow, not browned. Finally, the corn should be heavy for its size: the heavier the corn, the plumper the kernels.

Turkey Barley Soup
This mellow, velvety soup filled with barley and vegetables is a perfect place for your leftover Thanksgiving turkey. Adapted from Cristiana N. de Carvalho of Massachusetts, it’s savory, herby and very warming on a cold winter evening. If you want to make your own stock from the turkey bones, the soup will be even richer. But store-bought stock works just as well and makes this straightforward recipe quick to put together. Brown rice makes an excellent barley substitute, though you may have to add a few minutes to the cooking time.

Warak Dawali (Stuffed Grape Leaves)
Stuffed grape leaves are so prevalent across the Arab world and the Mediterranean that it can seem like there are as many variations as there are families. This recipe is for traditional Levantine versions existing in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, which generally have a warmly spiced beef and rice filling, are rich from being cooked with either meat at the bottom of the pot or chicken broth, and involve stuffed grape leaves that are rolled fairly thin and long. It’s a hallmark of any celebratory or holiday table, and perfect served with a side of plain yogurt. Though they are time-consuming, warak dawali are a very fun project to embark on with family or friends, and leftovers store wonderfully, up to 3 days in the fridge or a couple of months in the freezer.

Vegan Poblano Macaroni and Cheese
Making this plant-based dish might become a new holiday tradition in your house — and the recipe is fast and easy enough to become part of your weeknight rotation as well. It’s not your average macaroni and cheese as it has no actual cheese, but its creamy cashew sauce, stained green from smoky fire-roasted poblano chiles, is guaranteed to turn heads. The end result is sure to be piled high on everyone’s plates. To get vegetarian recipes like this one delivered to your inbox, sign up for The Veggie newsletter.

Chicken Stew With Okra and Tomatoes
Tender chicken, stewed tomatoes and spices that warm without too much heat: This stew is exactly what you want on a cold day. Okra is cooked over high heat with the holy trinity (onion, bell pepper and celery) to draw out its moisture and reduce any possibility of sliminess. Make sure to use bone-in chicken thighs: They take a little longer to cook, but they give this stew heft and flavor that you wouldn’t get from boneless. This recipe calls for ripe plum tomatoes, but if you can’t find good ones, use a 15-ounce can of whole peeled tomatoes instead.

Samgyeopsal
This pork belly dish is less a recipe and more a road map to dinner. A chill way to have Korean barbecue at home, samgyeopsal, or “three-layer meat,” refers to pork belly’s fat cap and the two leaner layers of meat below it, one light and one dark. Crisp slivers of pork are wrapped in various lettuces and dabbed with doenjang honey and punchy slivers of raw garlic. The lightly peppered, vinegared freshness of pa muchim, an all-occasion scallion salad often served with the grilled meats at Korean barbecue restaurants, is a welcome accompaniment to rich foods like fried or rotisserie-style chickens, pan-seared pork chops, and grilled bulgogi, galbi and samgyeopsal. Don’t skip the sesame oil dipping sauce; its nuttiness lets the pork belly shine.