Dinner
8856 recipes found
Sweet-Corn Salad
Here's a recipe for sweet-corn salad designed to preserve the dignity of the solitary diner. The salad itself requires minimal cooking, which means the small amount of time you spend on it can all be attentive and quite personal. It amounts to simple cutting of kernels from the last of the season's corn cobs, and warming them in good olive oil with garlic, some scallions and a bit of chopped fresh vegetables, then finishing it all with chopped herbs. If corn season has ended, tender butter beans from a can, drained and rinsed, make a perfect substitute. Served with a wedge of good cheese and a thick cut of bread, the salad becomes part of a simple but complete meal, to be eaten in your own good company.
Pineapple Fried Rice
“It’s a whole balanced meal inside a tropical fruit,” writes Pepper Teigen about this pineapple fried rice recipe in her book “The Pepper Thai Cookbook” (Clarkson Potter, 2021). This is fried rice, which means in place of the bacon and chicken, you can use shrimp, beef or whatever vegetables you have languishing in your crisper drawer. The one thing you shouldn’t skip are the assertive seasonings, which merit a party: The full 2 tablespoons of curry powder and 1 teaspoon of ground white pepper are what make this dish tingle and trot with a hot, addictive savoriness.
Grilled Garlic Bread
A quick and easy, but delicious side for summer dinners. Hot, smoky garlic bread is equally friendly to a juicy steak, a whole fish or a Caprese salad. Any loaf that is not too thick can be used, but whole grain stands up better to the oil-garlic-fire treatment. You may doubt that using garlic cloves with the papery skins on will work, but the rough surface of the toasted bread rubs them right off.
Sweet Potato-Corn Cakes With Pistachio-Yogurt Sauce
Sweet potato and sweet corn are combined with curry leaves and spices in these savory cakes, meant to be served alongside a creamy pistachio-yogurt sauce. For best results, you’ll want to get as much liquid out of the ingredients: Salting the sweet potatoes helps, as does using fresh eggs. (If your eggs are a bit old, place them in a fine-mesh sieve over a small bowl to drain the watery part.) And don’t skip blanching pistachios to get rid of their skins, or they’ll retain their bitterness. These cakes are best eaten straight off the pan, paired with plain rice, or tucked into sandwiches drizzled with the pistachio-yogurt sauce, but leftovers can be reheated in the oven.
Lamb Chops Scottadito With Crispy Kale
The word scottadito means burned fingers in Italian; these lamb chops are best eaten with one's fingers soon after they come off the grill. The recipe comes from Rachael Ray, who serves these at her homes in upstate New York and Manhattan. The lamb chops are best if they marinate for several hours, but turn out just fine with an hour or two under the anchovy and garlic paste. Ms. Ray's method for preparing kale produces crispy leaves; key elements are the lightest spray of oil, and baking racks to get them really crisp. They need to be made in batches, but a hot oven makes the job quick, and they can also be done a little bit ahead of time and served at room temperature. Don’t skip grilling the lemon: the slightly charred, acidic flavor adds an essential layer.
Home/Made Mushroom Lasagna
Monica Byrne, with her partner, Leisah Swenson, runs a tiny restaurant in Red Hook, Brooklyn, called Home/Made. A plurality of words that appear on the Home/Made menu: “cheese,” “smoked,” “bacon,” “caramelized.” Three of those four appear in Byrne’s lasagna, leaving out only bacon, which would be a fine addition. She layers smoked mozzarella over a painting of rich, garlicky béchamel and sheets of pasta, then radicchio roasted into sweetness and tossed in sauce. Sautéed mushrooms add heft and loamy funkiness, and a mixture of Fontina and Gruyère add zing.
Korean Spicy Chicken Stew (Dakdori Tang)
This recipe, from the Brooklyn chef Sohui Kim, is an ideal one-pot weeknight meal, as everything — chicken included — is thrown into the pot. Soy sauce, fiery gochugaru (Korean dried red-pepper flakes), fish sauce and radish kimchi give this stew a deeply funky, satisfying flavor. During the summer, Ms. Kim grills a few of the chicken pieces (see note) and tosses them into the sauce to braise with the sauce. The kimchi called for here is not cabbage kimchi, it is kkakdugi, sometimes listed as cubed radish kimchi or cubed moo radish kimchi, available at Korean grocery stores.
Eventide Fish Chowder
Clam chowder is the New England classic everyone knows, but fish chowder is also popular — and a lot easier to make. This recipe comes from Eventide, in Portland, Maine, a combination of a seafood shack, an oyster bar and a modern farm-to-table restaurant with Japanese influences. Dashi, the Japanese fish stock, has an oceanic taste that is perfect here, and the instant kind is easy to buy online and keep on hand.
Roast Chicken With Peppers, Focaccia and Basil Aioli
Surrounded by caramelized peppers, focaccia croutons — some crisp, some soaked with vinegar and chicken jus — and a bright basil aioli, this roast chicken dish is filled with delights that can only be earned through home-cooking and family-style eating. The deliciousness of this recipe relies on layering flavor and encouraging pan juices. Marinate the chicken and peppers generously, seasoning at various stages. Next, place some focaccia underneath the chicken to roast in schmaltz, and tuck smaller shards of the bread like a wreath around the edge of the dish, where they will crisp. If your dish runs dry during cooking, add a splash more vinegar. The basil aioli is crucial, though it doesn’t need to be homemade: Use the best store-bought version you can find and spruce it up with the basil, lemon and garlic paste.
Herbed White Bean and Sausage Stew
Here’s a meaty, cold-weather stew laden with white beans, sweet Italian sausage, rosemary, thyme, cumin and garlic. It is deeply flavored and complex, but quite easy to make. Pan-fry the sausages in a bit of olive oil, then sauté the vegetables with cumin and tomato paste in the drippings. Add plenty of water and the dried beans that, wait for it, you did not have to soak. Simmer until the house is fragrant and the windows fog up (about 2 hours).
Roasted Cauliflower Salad With Halloumi and Lemon
Inspired by Mediterranean and Moroccan dishes, this tangy, earthy roasted cauliflower salad is a satisfying vegetarian meal. Spiced cauliflower, salty halloumi, peppery arugula, buttery avocado and a honey-lemon vinaigrette fill it with contrasting textures, temperatures and flavors. There’s lots of room for substitutions or additions: Swap in orange zest and juice for the preserved lemon, smashed green olives for the avocado or kale for the arugula. If looking to bulk it up, you could toss in some seared shrimp, roasted chicken, pearl couscous or whole grains.
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.
Coq au Vin With Prunes
The standard coq au vin, even when it is made with shortcuts, is a hearty dish, what with its bacon, garlic, deep red wine and enrichment of butter. But the one I like best is made with prunes: it's darker, richer, fuller, the kind of recipe one adores and makes repeatedly. The prunes melt into the wine and become barely recognizable, bringing even more depth, not only of color but of flavor. Despite its relative ease of preparation, this becomes a serious dish, the kind that demands plenty of bread so that you can linger over the juices. Feel free to play with variations here: sauté some sliced button mushrooms, a dozen or more peeled pearl onions or whole cloves of garlic (but don't omit the chopped onions) in the skillet after you've cooked the bacon.
Sheet-Pan Roasted Chicken With Pears and Arugula
In this hearty sheet-pan meal, thick pear wedges and chicken thighs seasoned with earthy, warming spices are roasted until soft and tender. During the last five minutes, crunchy sunflower seeds are scattered on the pan to sizzle in the pan juices, gaining a salty flavor that balances out the sweetness of the pears. A final topping of arugula soaks up any lingering juices and turns this into a full-on meal. Using firm, not-quite-ripe pears prevents them from becoming mushy and falling apart during the cooking process. Swap baby spinach for the arugula and sherry vinegar for the lemon juice, depending on what you have on hand. Serve any leftovers on a bed of fresh arugula, dressed with lemon and olive oil.
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.
Braised Lemon-Saffron Chicken and Potatoes
In this comforting braise, bone-in chicken and potatoes slowly cook in a lively lemon-saffron bath until the meat is fall-off-the-bone tender and the potatoes are soft and full of flavor. Most of the work in this one-pot dinner happens in the oven, so you can rest or multitask as it cooks. Serve it with rice and spoon the pan juices over top, or with toasted pita to soak up the rich, lemony broth. The whole peppercorns taste delicious and soften in both texture and flavor during the cooking process, but if they are too strong for you, leave them out or crack them before cooking. Leftovers are even better the next day, on top of a salad or tucked into a sandwich.
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.
Thai Larb Gai (Chicken With Lime, Chili and Fresh Herbs)
Larb gai is a dish of browned ground chicken, mint, basil and red onions dressed with lime juice and ground red chiles that's popular in Laos and Isan, neighboring rural sections of Thailand. (The dish is sometimes spelled laab, lob or lop.) It's perfect hot weather food: spicy, crunchy and light, but rich in flavors and contrasts. Traditionally, this dish is made with a roasted rice powder that's prepared by toasting raw rice in a wok, then grounding it to a powder, but you can find premade roasted rice powder at Asian markets. Whatever you do, don't skip it — it adds a nuttiness that's essential to the authentic flavor of the dish.
Baked Rajma (Punjabi-Style Red Beans With Cream)
Punjabi-style rajma, or red beans, in a thick, spicy tomato gravy is comforting, quick and comes together with what you have in the pantry. This one-pan baked version is inspired by it, but deviates from tradition in several ways. First, it lets the oven do the work of reducing the sauce. When the dish comes out, scatter with cilantro, if you’ve got it, and some quick-pickled onion. The key is to take your time with the base, letting the onion mixture cook out properly, so the final sauce is mellow and deeply flavored. But you can try the same technique with different beans, from chickpeas to cannellini. Eating the dish with a side of yogurt or a glug of cream is common, but it’s also a treat with a little melted cheese, the edges browned in the pan. Use what you’ve got. Serve the rajma over rice, ideally, but if you’re in a pinch, a side of hot flour tortillas or even buttered toast will make it into a delicious meal.
Texas Chili
Chili tastes are highly personal, often inflexible and loaded with preconceptions — the political party of culinary offerings. “I don’t disagree with anyone’s chili,” Robb Walsh, a Texas food historian, the author of “The Tex-Mex Cookbook” and a restaurateur, told The Times. “If you are making a one-pot meal and you want to put beans in it, that’s fine. If chili is part of your cuisine, like Tex-Mex, there are other things you will want to do." This recipe is an amalgam of styles, with coffee and chocolate for complexity, hot sauce for kick and beans just because.
Twice-Cooked Mock Tandoori Chicken
The chicken recipe here, a kind of mock tandoori chicken, mitigates the bane of chicken grilling (or, for that matter, broiling), the roaring flame-up. By braising the chicken first, you effectively remove just about all the surface fat, practically eliminating the risk of setting the pieces on fire. This same treatment would work nicely with fatty lamb, like chunks of shoulder or even shanks, which without the initial braising would be just about impossible to grill.
Green Goddess Salmon With Potatoes and Snap Peas
A sheet pan and a broiler are the secret to many easy weeknight meals. In this particularly vibrant dish, they impart a complex grill-like flavor to salmon and potatoes, which are broiled simultaneously on the same sheet pan. While they cook, you’ll blend together a lively green goddess dressing of fresh herbs, yogurt, mayonnaise, garlic and anchovies. When the oven timer chimes, toss the roasted potatoes with raw cucumbers and snap peas. Serve alongside the just-flaky salmon and dollop with the verdant dressing. The crunchy vegetables, warm potatoes, tender fish and creamy dressing make for an unexpected though delightful combination. (For the dressing, tarragon, dill, parsley or cilantro will provide a familiar flavor to this classic sauce, but mint or arugula will work, too.)
Grilled Chicken Skewers With Tarragon and Yogurt
These grilled chicken skewers are gently spiced with a ginger-and-cumin yogurt marinade, which makes the meat exceedingly tender and cooks to fragrant curds. As they grill, the skewers are gilded with a tarragon-mint baste that tastes distinctly Persian. Restraint and a very hot grill are both key to getting a good char: Don’t move the skewers until the yogurt is burnished and the meat releases from the grates. Color is flavor. Catch any juices that run out of the cooked skewers with warm pita bread. Leftovers make excellent chicken salad.
Cannellini-Bean Pasta With Beurre Blanc
This recipe, like so many great straightforward, inexpensive go-tos, starts with little more than a can of beans — then transforms it into a luxurious meal. Jack Monroe, the British food writer, uses a classic beurre blanc to do that work, simmering a splash of wine, vinegar and butter together, then tipping it into a pot of boiling beans and pasta, letting the liquid reduce to a starchy, nearly creamy consistency. If you think of beurre blanc as fancy and fussy, this simple, unexpected use for it may change your mind. You can also build on the basic recipe, adding a bunch of chopped chard or mustard greens in with the sauce, or covering the top with torn herbs.