Dinner
8856 recipes found

Sweet and Sour Cauliflower
Reminiscent of classic sweet and sour dishes served at Chinese American restaurants, cauliflower seamlessly steps in for pork or chicken here. For beautifully burnished florets with crispy edges, the cauliflower is treated to a simple dusting of cornstarch, applied in stages to create a more even coating, and a gentle lick of oil before baking or air-frying. Punchy and tart, this sweet and sour sauce is a keeper. Ketchup is the key ingredient, and it brings sourness, sweetness and umami to a simple blend of garlic, rice vinegar, soy sauce and sugar. Eat with rice, noodles or on top of pan-fried tofu.

Cacio e Pepe Ramen
Ramen noodles bring a bouncy twist to this classic Roman pasta dish. You’ll want the black pepper to be very coarse so that it can infuse the butter and achieve that fruity heat without burning. If you have a pepper mill, make sure to turn it to the coarsest setting. You can also crush the peppercorns using a flat bottomed mug or cast iron pan. If you can’t find fresh ramen noodles (which have the best bounce), you can also use the dried instant ramen noodles that come in a 3-ounce pack, discarding the seasoning packet it comes with.

Pasta al Sugo Finto (Vegetable Ragu)
A hearty vegetarian pasta sauce fortified with vegetables rather than meat, “sugo finto” translates from Italian to “fake sauce” — but this dish is full of real flavor. Popular throughout Tuscany and southern Italy, it is a highlight of cucina povera (an Italian term — and art — referring to frugal cuisine), allowing vegetables to stand in as a nutritious substitute for pricier meat. The base of the dish begins with a traditional soffritto (sautéed onion, carrot and celery). In this version, the addition of mushrooms simulates a meaty texture. Red wine deglazes the pan and adds richness. Chopping the vegetables that form the foundation of the sauce is a meditative task, but you can toss them in a food processor to shred, if preferred, to save time. To elevate this dish for a weekend, add the optional pangrattato topping for a crunchy, nuttier bite. A sprinkle of cheese can also be added before serving.

One-Pot Chicken and Lentils
This one-pot chicken and lentils recipe takes a well-spiced blend of pantry staples plus a handful of fresh ingredients and simmers them together for a throw-in-the-pot meal that is both comforting and filling. It relies on bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, and the role of the skin is essential: First, it forms a protective shield when seared, preventing the chicken from drying out in the bubbling liquid as it simmers, and helps build flavor as its fat renders. (Thank the skin for its service and discard it before serving.) The finishing touch of lime adds a nearly imperceptible sour flavor, similar to some Persian stews, that rounds out the braising liquid, which is best enjoyed with bread or basmati rice.

Date and Honey Kugel
Sweetened with dates and honey, this caramel-scented noodle kugel will be the perfect addition to your Rosh Hashana menu. While many noodle kugels are typically made with sour cream and cottage cheese, this one uses cream cheese and milk in the custard for a creamy and rich result that can easily be made pareve, meaning it uses no meat or dairy products (see Tip). Toss the chewy noodles with the spiced date and honey custard and jammy chopped dates. Bake until the custard is just set and the noodles develop crispy edges. Serve cold, with a hefty drizzle of honey on top.

Sticky, Spicy Tempeh
Crispy tempeh glazed in a spicy-and-sweet soy sauce can anchor many a dinner, whether served over rice and vegetables, rice noodles, lettuce wraps or soup. Tempeh is a fermented vegan protein with a nutty flavor and firm texture that can stand up to assertive seasonings. That could be the fresh sambal in tempe penyet, a famous street food in Indonesia, where tempeh was first made — or this easily memorizable ratio of two parts soy sauce to one part each rice vinegar, brown sugar and chile sauce. Crumbling the tempeh into small, irregular pieces so that it resembles ground meat creates a variety of textures in each bite. To make it a complete meal, stir in spinach, peas or another quick-cooking vegetable with the sauce — or accompany with crispy raw vegetables like thinly sliced cucumbers or radishes on top of rice.

Spicy Cucumbers With Mint, Scallions and Crushed Peanuts
This fine accompaniment to any number of dishes is an (admittedly inauthentic) take on a Southeast Asian favorite, moderately spicy in Vietnam and far more fiery in Thailand. Choose chiles accordingly to match your preference: Thai chiles pack a lot of heat; serrano chiles are strong, but less so; red Fresno chiles have sweet undertones and are the mildest. Also, try to get the best cucumbers you can, with thin skins. The better the cucumber, the better the salad.

Peppered Sea Scallops With Spinach
An easy but elegant full-flavored main course, this dish is best made in fall or winter, when sea scallops are in season. The generously peppered scallops lay on a bed of puréed spinach. The spinach leans on Indian flavors, run through with heady garam masala, turmeric and ginger. Substitute pan-seared fish or shrimp if scallops aren’t your thing. If desired, serve with steamed rice.

Apple Cider Chicken With Apples and Parsnips
In this skillet dinner, seared chicken cutlets are topped with stewed, melt-in-your-mouth, tart Granny Smith apples; earthy, nutty parsnips; and sweet apple cider. The apple cider is used to deglaze the pan, extracting maximum flavor from the seared chicken bits stuck to the bottom of the skillet. Serve with mashed potatoes, olive oil-fried bread or a simple green side salad. To bring more warmth to the dish, don’t hesitate to infuse spices into the simmering apple cider sauce, like cinnamon, black pepper, a dash of cardamom or nutmeg. Depending on the sweetness of the apple cider, you might prefer a little more acidity to brighten each bite, in which case a small splash of apple cider vinegar at the end would be welcome.

Seared Tofu With Kimchi
A simple, meatless weeknight recipe, this tofu and kimchi braise has deep flavors but comes together in just 30 minutes. The two main ingredients are tofu and kimchi. Equally delicious warm or at room temperature, this tofu braise makes a fun addition to meal prep. Serve it with rice, to soak up the delicious kimchi sauce, or tuck the tofu and kimchi into a sandwich. Store-bought kimchi vary in flavor and salt level and the more fermented kimchi will be softer, juicer, and a bit more sour. The recipe can take all levels of fermentation, but adjust seasoning as you see fit, sweetening with sugar or salting with extra soy sauce.

Cabbage Parm
Cabbage confirms its status as one of the vegetable kingdom’s most versatile ingredients in this untraditional yet deeply comforting dish. Roasted at high temperature, the cabbage becomes sweet and smoky, providing a complex vegetarian foundation for the classic parmesan treatment often applied to eggplant or mushrooms. The traditional bread crumbs are replaced with chunky croutons, which deliver a textural crunch — and it’s a good idea to make extra, for soaking up the sauce or even just for snacking. Experiment with different varieties of cabbage; conical Caraflex will deliver a sweeter finish, while savoy, with its looser leaf structure, has a milder flavor and can cook in less time.

Riso al Forno alla Pizzaiola (Pizza Rice)
In Italian, pizzaiolo refers to a person who makes pizza. When a dish is alla pizzaiola, it incorporates the flavors of a typical tomato sauce found on pizza. For this simple preparation, arborio rice is simmered in a tomato sauce and cooked until just al dente. The mixture is then topped with cheese and baked until the cheese is soft and gooey. The result — a riff on pizza in rice form — is hearty comfort food that’s an easy enough lift for a weeknight.

Spiced Vegetable Medley With Almonds and Raisins
This delightful Moroccan dish, often served on Rosh Hashana, incorporates an abundance of traditional harvest foods and is warm with spices (cinnamon, cardamom and coriander). This version is served in Marina Pinto Kaufman's family, from Tangiers and Tetouen as well as Martha’s Vineyard, where she now lives. Traditionally served with chicken couscous, it is somewhat like the Moroccan version of tsimmes, an Eastern European dish incorporating both carrots and sweet potatoes. In Ms. Kaufman's recipe, the vegetables are scooped into long piles, giving children — often picky when it comes to such delicacies — the choice of what they like, while adults can stir them all together to enjoy the spices and the caramelized onions. Great for entertaining, this dish can be prepared the day before serving, so all you have to do is heat it, but you can roll straight through the recipe, enjoying it the day you prepare it, with wonderful results.

Xawaash Braised Lamb Shanks
Deeply flavorful, fork-tender braised lamb shanks don’t require much more than time. This recipe simmers the meat for three hours in a simple broth that’s flavored with garlic, cilantro and xawaash spice. It cooks down into a thick, glossy gravy to coat the succulent meat. This recipe reimages the common way this dish is cooked while maintaining the traditional Somali flavor profile that makes it a familiar classic. Serve over plain white rice or with roasted potatoes and a salad.

Salsa di Noci (Walnut Sauce Pasta)
Simple yet luxurious, this creamy Ligurian sauce makes good use of walnuts, which are grown throughout the Italian countryside. A variant of pesto, it requires few ingredients — walnuts, milk, bread, garlic, cheese and oil — and can be prepared while the pasta cooks. Many methods call for blanching walnuts, some roast the nuts and others don’t call for either (there are also versions that add pine nuts). Here, a quick blanch softens the nuts and gets rid of any bitterness, resulting in a more buttery and creamier sauce. Traditionally paired with “pansotti” (a greens and herb-filled ravioli ), the nutty sauce works well with trofie and all sorts of pasta shapes. Fresh woodsy marjoram is a classic finishing herb for this sauce, but its slightly piney bitterness can be strong; you could try chopped parsley for a lighter alternative.

Honey-Habanero Pork Chops With Carrots
In this sweet-and-spicy skillet dinner, lean boneless pork chops and carrots are glossed in a simple yet impactful trio of honey, habanero chiles and lime. The combination of ingredients is classic throughout the Yucatán, like in cochinita pibil, for a reason. Habanero chiles and honey are hot and sweet, sure, but they’re also upbeat, floral and fruity. Charring the chiles alongside the pork adds a hint of smokiness, while lime zest and juice add even more high notes. Eat on top of grits or mashed potatoes.

Sausage and Peppers One-Pot Pasta
This one-pot pasta is inspired by New England-style sausage with peppers and onions, the kind sold outside Fenway Park: The soft, slightly charred vegetables sit in a tangle on a juicy grilled Italian sausage, served on a roll. Here, the onions and peppers get a quick, hot sauté to brown them. Use loose, raw Italian sausage (either sweet or hot), or use raw sausage in casings and squeeze the meat out of the casings and into the pot. The pickled peppers added at the end give a nice pop of tangy heat, but if you don’t have them in your pantry, just squeeze in the juice of half a lemon instead.
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Easy Weeknight Chicken Pot Pie
A simple, ultra-comforting chicken pot pie with a shatteringly crisp crust? Sign us up.

Corn and Cod Green Curry
In this light, Thai-inspired curry, a trio of sweet ingredients — corn, coconut milk and fish — pair with the fruity and fragrant aromatics of green curry paste, which includes green chiles, lemongrass and galangal. Finishing with lime, basil and thinly sliced bok choy further brightens each bite. (The bok choy is cooked only a bit so that its crunchy stems and silky greens provide contrasting textures.) Instead of fresh corn, you can substitute 5 cups of frozen and unthawed corn kernels. Serve the curry on its own or with rice or rice noodles.

Marsala Chicken Meatballs
Chicken Marsala is an Italian American classic consisting of seared pounded chicken that’s smothered in a sweet-savory Marsala wine mushroom sauce. For more spoon-ability, this crowd-pleasing dinner replaces the thin cutlets with tender chicken meatballs, simmered in a similarly indulgent Marsala sauce. Ground chicken is very lean, so to ensure a perfectly moist bite, Marsala-soaked bread crumbs and extra-virgin olive oil are added to the meatball mixture. For a flavor-packed fond, take the time to brown the onions and mushrooms; the time spent will pay off. This recipe is dairy-free as written, but if you’d like to finish the dish with a few knobs of butter or a splash of heavy cream, the sauce will certainly accommodate the additional richness.

Malaay Qumbe (Coconut Fish Curry)
Variations of coconut fish curry abound up and down the Swahili Coast, so much so that the dish is often broadly referred to as East African fish curry. Although Somalia has the longest coastline in mainland Africa, seafood is not a prominent part of mainstream Somali cuisine. But you’ll find malaay qumbe in coastal Somali towns. This version of coconut fish curry leans heavily on xawaash, a spice blend that is at the heart of Somali cuisine. The mild heat from the xawaash’s black pepper balances beautifully with the sweet, cooling coconut milk and the acidity from the tomatoes. Serve over plain white rice, or soak up the creamy coconut gravy with a flatbread like muufo. Malaay qumbe would also work well on top of soor for a hearty meal of creamy spiced coconut fish and grits.

Slow-Cooker Jalapeño Pulled Pork
This four-ingredient recipe draws inspiration from carnitas, barbecue pulled pork and Vietnamese caramel pork for sticky, sweet and spicy pulled meat. Braising browned pork shoulder in a slow cooker in pickled jalapeño brine and fish sauce tenderizes the meat and adds savory depth. Part of the cooking liquid then simmers with brown sugar and pickled jalapeño slices for a glaze to drape over pull-apart, crispy-edged meat. Eat over rice, tortillas or burger buns.

Chicken Casserole With Mushrooms and Spinach
This casserole is chock full of delicious veggies with a homemade creamy base. Parmesan is mixed throughout the casserole and also melted on top, giving this dish some flair that’s more akin to a creamy risotto. Instead of relying on a condensed soup, this recipe makes a simple cream sauce: Flour is sprinkled on the cooked mushrooms and onions then heavy cream and chicken stock are whisked in just before the Parmesan is folded in. Be sure to season each layer of the casserole — from the spinach to chicken. For a shortcut, the meat from a rotisserie chicken works great here.

Skillet-Braised Chicken With Greens and Olives
Braising chicken and greens together in a skillet does wonderful things to both bird and vegetables. As the chicken cooks, the skin browns, crisps and renders savory fat, which suffuses the greens with flavor. The greens, in turn, make a soft, moist bed on which to cook the chicken, keeping the meat supremely tender. In the end, the silky greens make a rich, mineral contrast to the juicy meat, while lemon juice and olives add brightness and acidity to the mix, giving it a needed jolt. Serve this with crusty bread or mashed potatoes to catch all the juices.