Dinner
8856 recipes found
Suon Kho (Pork Ribs in Savory Caramel Sauce)
A richness permeates these ribs, which are first marinated, then grilled until charred and finally simmered in a bittersweet caramel sauce. They become so dark and savory that some people mistake them for beef. For Tet festivities in northern Vietnam, pigs are often slaughtered to celebrate the Lunar New Year, and this preparation is among the best ways to use the ribs. It reheats and freezes well, a perfect make-ahead dish for the holiday since it’s a time when everyone is supposed to relax rather than work hard in the kitchen. Pair the ribs with a side of dua hanh to cut their richness, and serve with rice and stir-fried greens to round out the meal.
Slow-Cooker Cauliflower, Potato and White Bean Soup
This creamy vegetarian soup is built on humble winter staples, but the addition of sour cream and chives make it feel special. (Crumble a few sour-cream-and-onion chips on top to take the theme all of the way.) It takes just a few minutes to throw the ingredients into the slow cooker, and the rest of the recipe almost entirely hands-off, making it very doable on a weekday. Use an immersion blender, if you have one, to purée it to a silky smooth consistency, but a potato masher works well for a textured, chunky soup. To get vegetarian recipes like this one delivered to your inbox, sign up for The Veggie newsletter.
Miso Fish Chowder
This twist on New England clam chowder features a lighter broth that gets its depth from caramelized miso and smoky bacon, and its briny seafood flavor from bottled clam juice. New potatoes are in season during summer months and have tender, thin skins, but peeled Yukon Golds are a great alternative. To ensure flaky, tender fish, it is gently poached in the broth during the last five minutes of cooking. For a meatless chowder, simply omit the bacon and add a few pinches of smoked paprika in its place.
Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie
French green lentils (Puy lentils) make a hearty base for this vegetarian shepherd’s pie. They may be slighter harder to find than other lentils, but they’re worth the extra effort. Unlike brown or red lentils, green lentils retain their shape and texture after cooking, which means they stand up well to a long simmer and this rich potato topping. Store-bought vegetable stock can vary greatly so be sure to buy one with a pleasant flavor that isn’t too sweet. (Note: Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese contains rennet, so it is not vegetarian. Use a vegetarian Parmesan or leave it out. If you leave it out, be sure to season the potatoes well with salt and pepper.)
Matzo Lasagna
In this browned baked dish, matzo crackers replace the usual pasta for a rich, ricotta-filled lasagna that’s Passover-friendly and relatively easy. In this version, the ricotta is flecked with basil, and the marinara sauce gently spiced with garlic and a touch of red-pepper flakes. Feel free to use the recipe as a template to create your own combinations — adding vegetables, other herbs and other cheeses as you like. The heady tomato sauce and bubbling, golden mozzarella on top can frame whatever other ingredients you’d like to add. You can assemble the matzo lasagna the day before you bake it (store it in the fridge); just add a few minutes onto the baking time. If you are using handmade shmurah matzo, soak the sheets for 5 minutes in water before layering them. Supermarket matzo, which is lighter and more airy, does not need to be soaked.
Vegetarian Kofta Curry
Kofta curry — a saucy dish of gently spiced meatballs — is often made with meat. But this one, based on my grandfather’s, swaps in a mash of beans. Bound with bread crumbs and seasoned with ginger, garlic, green chile and herbs, it’s a variation full of flavor and texture. Have it with some flatbread and some sliced cucumber in yogurt, or spooned over a bowl of rice. It’s also delicious in a sandwich the next day. Note: To make it with lamb, as in his original version, substitute 1 1/2 pounds ground lamb for the beans. Soak the bread crumbs in 1/2 cup whole milk first, then squeeze out any extra liquid before adding them to the mixing bowl.
Olive Oil-Roasted Chicken With Caramelized Carrots
Think of this as a weeknight chicken confit, cooked low and slow in plenty of olive oil along with sweet carrots and tangy lemon slices. Save that leftover oil and use it to roast vegetables, fry eggs, jump-start a pasta sauce or, of course, cook more chicken.
Galbi (Korean-Style Short Ribs)
This dish, known as galbi, is a fine thing to eat in a restaurant, but it also makes for a wonderful and easy meal at home. If you buy English-style short ribs, which are cut along the bone, you must butterfly the meat into a thin, long strip. If the ribs you buy are flanken-style, in which a band saw is used to cut across the ribs, creating half-inch slices of beef dotted with three little bones, rinse them under cold water before seasoning to remove any bone fragments. It’s a good idea to let the ribs marinate for at least two hours to allow the seasoning to penetrate; marinating overnight is even better.
Pasta With Mushrooms, Fried Eggs and Herbs
This fall-inspired, earthy pasta uses a combination of mushrooms for depth of flavor and is topped with a runny egg, which silkens up the sauce. Supermarkets these days generally have a good selection of different varieties such as cremini and shiitake, but if your standard white-button mushroom is all that’s available, this dish will still be a winner. If you’re not feeling pasta, the mushrooms are equally good served on top of creamy polenta or on their own. Red wine not optional.
Shrimp and White Beans With Fennel and Pancetta
This quick, one-pan meal relies heavily on pantry staples. Browning pancetta or bacon adds richness to the tomato sauce, but skip it if you like. Anise-flavored fennel and seeds are incorporated into the soffrito, which plays nicely with the sweetness of the shrimp and the creaminess of the beans. But if you don’t like them, leave them out. Serve the dish in deep bowls with thick slices of garlic-rubbed toast, finish the dish with a flurry of fresh herbs, and pair it with a glass of something red, light and bright.
Smashed Chicken Burgers With Cheddar and Parsley
These fresh, flavorful chicken burgers have a crunchy exterior, a tender interior and a healthy slathering of limey Dijon mayonnaise. They’re paired with salad that’s prepared using leftover burger ingredients, and a little avocado and lettuce. Serve the burgers between lightly toasted buns, as the recipe suggests, or skip the bread and enjoy them without for a lighter dinner.
Tomato-Ginger Chicken and Rice Soup
Chicken and rice soup is meant to be gentle, and this one is. But it’s also subtly spicy from fried ginger, and a little sweet from tomatoes used twice: in paste form to build a caramelized base and in fresh, bright bursts. The final additions of fish sauce, lime and sesame or chile oil make the soup reminiscent of sizzling rice soup and tom yum, and allow you to adjust how robust you need the soup to be. Add less for a calming, mild soup and more if you need something powerful and pungent to clear your mind and congestion.
Veal Glaze
Chicken Yassa
Popular across West Africa, chicken yassa coaxes deep flavor from a handful of simple ingredients: smoky grilled chicken, sweet caramelized onions, tangy lime, bright ginger and spicy Scotch bonnet chile. This version comes from “The Fonio Cookbook” by chef Pierre Thiam (Lake Isle Press, 2019). Mr. Thiam, who was born and raised in Dakar, is the chef and owner of Teranga, a West African restaurant in Harlem. His recipe calls for bone-in chicken legs, but, in southern Senegal, where the dish originated, you might be served other chicken parts, fish yassa or even lamb yassa. The cooking method is flexible: The chicken develops the best smoky char when grilled, but will still be delicious seared in a grill pan or cast-iron skillet.
Fresh Egg Pasta
This adaptable pasta recipe will work with whatever flour you’ve got in the pantry. Using the “00” gives the silkiest, softest pasta while bread flour will give you more of a satisfying chew, and all-purpose lands you squarely in the middle. Because flour absorbs liquid differently depending on its age and the humidity in the air, consider these amounts as a guide and not as the law. Use your judgment. If the dough seems too wet and sticky to work with, add a bit more flour; if it seems too dry to come together into a smooth, satiny ball, add a bit more oil. The pasta is wonderful cooked right away, but you could dry it for future use instead. Let it hang in strands over the backs of your kitchen chairs or on a washing line if you have one. Or you can curl handfuls of pasta into loose nests and let them dry out on the sheet trays, uncovered.
Broccoli and Cheddar Soup
A staple of any fast-casual restaurant, broccoli-cheddar soup has somewhat of a cult following on the internet. Thicker than cream of broccoli, this roux-thickened soup can be puréed completely smooth or left chunky and rustic. Either way, be sure to use the sharpest Cheddar available (white or orange work here). It’ll provide richness in addition to a necessary acidity.
Baked German Potato Salad
While all sorts of products, like oysters, were coming by boat from the East to Michigan and the rest of the Midwest during the pioneer period, the European families who settled there generally liked to stick to their traditions. “In the Upper Peninsula, there were the Finlanders, and they had Cornish hens,” said Priscilla Massie, a co-author of the cookbook “Walnut Pickles and Watermelon Cake: A Century of Michigan Cooking.” Then there were the Germans families, who, Ms. Massie said, tended to adopt Thanksgiving first. Their tangy baked potato salad can be found on many tables around the state to this day, made easy by a crop that’s available statewide.
Pasta, Green Beans and Potatoes With Pesto
The most elegant pasta dish that Italian cooks have ever invented is astonishingly simple to make. Here, the magical green sauce is tossed with trenette (or any long pasta you can twirl around a fork), tender slices of potato and barely blanched green beans.
Seared Scallop Pasta With Burst Tomatoes and Herbs
Although usually designated as a “something special” ingredient, scallops make a perfect weeknight dinner because they cook in minutes. To get a good, crisp sear, be patient (it's hard for us, too) and let the pan get quite hot before adding the scallops. Once you do, leave them alone to ensure a deeply golden crust. Toss them with pasta and candy-colored cherry tomatoes that burst and get coaxed into a jammy sauce. Finish with a showering of fresh, tender herbs and a drizzle of olive oil.
Fall Salad With Apples, Cheddar and Crispy Sage
Bubbling sage leaves in olive oil until sizzling provides crisp thrills in this simple, flavorful combination of salty cheese and sweet apples, while the resulting sage-scented oil melds with honey and lemon to create a herbaceous dressing. Mild, leafy butter lettuce helps tie it all together, but slightly bitter chicories like frisée, escarole or endive would work well, too. This salad makes a fun sidekick for main proteins like Buttermilk-Brined Roast Chicken, Porchetta Pork Chops or store-bought sausages or rotisserie chicken.
Pineapple Pork
Evan Funke’s Handmade Tagliatelle Pasta
Evan Funke, a pasta maker and the author of the cookbook “American Sfoglino,” developed an exacting recipe for handmade tagliatelle that practically guarantees success for ambitious home cooks. It takes time to achieve the proper balance between elasticity and extensibility in the dough. If it is too elastic, it won’t stretch to the desired thinness, but if it is too stretchy, it is too hydrated and won’t maintain its shape. Keep at it: The more often you make it, the better it will be. If you find the dough springing back after you roll it out, it may need more time to rest, so let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before resuming, or refrigerate it for up to 24 hours. Because the dough is the result of just two ingredients — flour and eggs — use the freshest eggs you can find.
Sonoran Carne Asada Tacos
If you’re trying to replicate the carne asada experience in Sonora, there are rules to follow: Diezmillo (chuck roll) and palomilla or aguayón (top sirloin) are the traditional meats of choice. The first brings a deep beef flavor and a sturdy chew, while the second has a milder taste and a tender bite. Use one or the other, or a combination. Either way, they need to be sliced to 1/2-inch thickness, grilled over high heat, and seasoned with a generous amount of salt — and only salt — right as they are thrown on the grill. They should be flipped just once, when meat juices rise and start to bubble, allowed to rest covered, and then thinly sliced or diced into bite-size pieces. There is no carne asada just for the meat, though the meat turns out as tasty as can be, but it should end up in a taco that should have trouble closing (with its proper accompaniments of refried beans, guacamole and salsa) and should be eaten in good company.