Dinner
8856 recipes found
Oyakodon (Chicken and Egg Rice Bowl)
Oyakodon is pure bliss, combining the ease of lightly poached chicken with the velvety richness of eggs and onions simmered in sauce. In Japanese, oya means parent, while ko translates to child. Consequently, chicken and egg come together in a blend of dashi, mirin and soy sauce. A perfect weekday meal, oyakodon cooks in just under 30 minutes and is delightful alongside pickles and a bowl of miso soup. The chicken and egg bowl is a dream of soulfulness ladled over rice. Leftovers, if you have any, will hold in the refrigerator for a day.
Chicken Galbi Noodle Salad
This weeknight noodle salad is inspired by Korean galbi, short ribs that are seasoned in a garlic-ginger soy sauce marinade sweetened with sugar, onion and grated Asian pear. Fast-cooking ground chicken simmers in a simplified galbi sauce with garlic, ginger, scallions and sesame oil, quickly soaking in all of the aromatics. Allow the chicken to cook for a minute or two after the sauce has been absorbed, which creates crispy, caramelized bits. Don’t skip out on the basil, which instantly brightens the dish. The salad can be made a few hours ahead and is tasty both warm and at room temperature.
Mushroom Piccata
A brilliant combination of fat (butter), acidity (lemon) and salt (capers), tangy piccata sauce makes an excellent dressing for meaty, earthy mushrooms. Piccata refers to the Italian American dish of thinly sliced meat (typically veal or chicken) that’s dredged in flour, browned and served in a sauce of lemon, butter and capers. Though this dish would be delicious with just one type of mushroom, selecting a mix provides a broader range of textures and flavors. Grill them for smoky notes, or simply roast them in the oven for ease on a weeknight. The bright, piquant piccata pan sauce comes together quickly while the mushrooms cook. Leftovers turn into a fantastic salad the next day; simply chop the mushrooms and toss with leafy greens and more olive oil.
Coronation Chicken Salad
Coronation chicken salad is an easy, pantry-friendly dish, loosely based on a posh, classically French chicken recipe that was created to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953. This is the recipe you’d find during its heyday in Britain in the 1980s: a curried chicken salad loaded with dried fruit, mango chutney and sliced almonds, usually served as a sandwich filling or on top of baked potatoes. Debates rage over whether to include diced apricots or golden raisins (also called sultanas), but since each works well with the other flavors, you can use whichever you like. If you want a more intensely golden color, stir in 1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric with the curry. And if you’re starting with leftover cooked chicken or a rotisserie chicken (you’ll need 6 cups), just skip Step 1. For a meatless version, you can try these cauliflower salad sandwiches.
Sheet-Pan Chile Crisp Salmon and Asparagus
A mixture of chile crisp, soy sauce and honey coats salmon bites that roast alongside scallions and asparagus for a quick and colorful weeknight dinner. While the salmon doesn’t need to be cubed, it’s an easy and enjoyable way to eat it; the bite-size pieces can be served over rice, cooked grains or big salads. Much like a grain bowl component, this recipe is versatile, and works as an add-on or base. Finish it as you’d like: Try some gently torn fresh cilantro, toasted sesame seeds, flaky sea salt, lime slices or an extra drizzle of chile crisp.
Cheese-Topped Cauliflower Steaks
Cauliflower “steaks” were all the rage in upscale restaurants a few years ago, but they’re easy to make at home in any number of variations. To get thick slices, you’ll want to invest in a couple of cauliflowers and be prepared to turn the trimmings into soup or use for stir-fry for another meal. Or simply skip the slices and use florets instead. You can serve these with a light marinara sauce, but they are very tasty with no sauce at all.
Spring Salad
Some salads are tossed, while others, like this one, are composed. Feel free to improvise here: A few spinach leaves, watercress, a handful of raw sweet garden peas or fava beans, or thinly sliced raw artichoke can be nice additions. For a true celebration of spring, make sure to gather an assortment of complementary leaves, herbs and vegetables, and arrange them artfully.
Thai-Style Crunchy Vegetable Salad
Inspired by Thai green papaya salad, this vibrant dish boasts a colorful medley of thinly sliced raw veggies; they’re electrified by a lime-and-fish sauce vinaigrette. This recipe builds upon a base of fresh asparagus, which is supercrisp, with a sweet, mildly grassy flavor, and cherry tomatoes. You can combine them with any mix of vegetables that are on hand: Radishes, cucumbers, carrots, snap peas, cabbage and yellow bell peppers are all great additions, each bringing their unique flavor and texture to the party. The just-tossed salad is bright and crunchy, but if you happen to wind up with leftovers, let the vegetables marinate in the dressing overnight and they transform into a pickled side dish that’s delightful in sandwiches or with grilled steak.
One-Pot Tortellini With Meat Sauce
This no-chop, one-pot wonder comes together in 45 minutes with just a handful of pantry staples. Refrigerated or frozen tortellini plump in a meat sauce that’s brawny with hot or sweet Italian sausage and garlic. Finish the dish with a grating of Parmesan, or even a blanket of melted mozzarella, if you would like to turn it into more of a baked pasta.
Tofu Marsala With Asparagus
A vegetarian take on the classic Italian American dish, tofu cutlets stand in for the traditional chicken or veal and pair perfectly with the creamy mushroom sauce. Combining different mushrooms brings intense flavor to the dish; even adding a few shiitakes alongside white button mushrooms will add surprising depth. The cornstarch does two important things here: It helps create a crispy coating on the tofu, which keeps the interior soft, and it helps thicken the pan sauce during the final few minutes of simmering. A final addition of fresh asparagus puts a bright spin on the rich dish.
Stir-Fried Lotus Root
Lotus root has a subtle flavor — mildly sweet, and vaguely reminiscent of fresh corn — but its striking appearance and singular texture distinguish it, with a crunch that is snappier than an undercooked potato but not quite as assertive as jicama. This speedy stir-fry adapted from M Shanghai, a Shanghainese restaurant in Brooklyn, celebrates the root vegetable and its unique texture. May Liu, the restaurant’s owner, wanted lotus root on the menu because it’s a traditional Shanghainese dish. “It’s light, it’s tasty, it’s delicious, it’s unusual. It’s not a dish you can find at every Chinese restaurant,” she said. Simply seasoned with salt, mushroom seasoning and just enough sugar to render its components glossy, the flavor of this dish is subdued, allowing the quiet lotus root to dominate. The ingredients, like mildly spicy bullhorn peppers (sometimes labeled as green long hot peppers), can be found in Asian markets.
Oven Beans
The best way to cook dried beans? In the oven. The even heat keeps the water at a steady bare simmer, which results in beans that are tender all the way through — no hard spots or broken mushy bits — with almost no effort. Because the heat is dry, it also concentrates the inherent flavor of the beans and anything else thrown into the pot. You can simply simmer soaked beans in salted water or you can add aromatic ingredients, such as the garlic and dried chiles. Onion is also nice, and bacon and other cured pork products bring richness.
Pork Bulgogi With Spring Vegetables
In this easy recipe, a deeply flavored Korean bulgogi marinade is paired with sliced pork, which is seared in a skillet with snow peas, radishes and mushrooms. You can use the basic recipe as a template, substituting other proteins like chicken, tofu or, most traditionally, beef for the pork, and whatever quick-cooking vegetables you like: cherry tomatoes, zucchini, broccoli florets are all great options. Don’t worry about browning the pork here. The goal is to sear it long enough to just cook it through, while the sauce condenses and caramelizes, coating the meat and vegetables.
Ginger-Scallion Steamed Fish
Connie Chung wanted to add steamed whole fish — a dish served at the Cantonese banquet meals of her childhood — to the menu at Milu, her restaurant in New York City. But to make it work in a fast-casual setting, she needed to make some changes. She wanted to keep the tender fish heady with soy sauce, ginger and scallions, but it had to hold up during delivery and be easy to eat. She landed on steaming cubed fish with soy sauce and a ginger-scallion stock, a forgiving method that isn’t stinky or splattery and results in deeply seasoned, buttery fish. While any firm fish works in this adaptation, Ms. Chung uses salmon, her mom’s suggestion. At Milu, this dish is served with rice, charred broccoli, a watercress-cilantro salad and a ginger-scallion oil, but would also be great in a nori hand roll, over salad greens or tossed with ramen.
Bengali-Style Mustard Oil Fish
Mustard oil is a key ingredient in many South Asian dishes, but is especially important in Bengali cuisine. Its earthy, astringent flavor can bring complexity to a simple cooked vegetable, pickle or tadka. This weeknight dish is inspired by bhetki paturi, a mustard oil-coated fish that gets cooked in a banana leaf. In this recipe, foil is a stand-in for banana leaf (though feel free to use the leaf if you have one!), steaming the fish gently and infusing it with flavor. Coconut and mustard oil are a stellar combination here, as the sweetness of the coconut tempers the bitterness of the mustard oil and seeds. The juices that pool around the cooked fish are especially delicious; be sure to spoon those over the cooked rice.
Citrus-Glazed Turnips
A sleeper-hit vegetable side dish on a predominantly seafood-rich menu, these sweet and tangy turnips are a loud statement for this idea: At a restaurant, order the unexpected thing. Get the salmon dinner at a brick-oven pizza joint; take a chance on the oatmeal cream pie at an oyster bar. More often than not you’ll be rewarded for your transgression. This dish, birthed by Nicole Cabrera Mills, the chef de cuisine of Pêche Seafood Grill, in New Orleans, is an unassuming celebration of the underappreciated turnip, which gets a lovely lacquer of citruses, chiles and butter.
Slow Cooker Italian Wedding Soup
Italian wedding soup has many variations, but it is characterized by a rich broth, hearty greens and bite-sized meatballs. It’s a beloved part of the Italian-American canon, derived from minestra maritata, or married soup, which is not a soup served at weddings, but meaning that meat and vegetables are joined together. For this easy slow cooker version, instead of taking the time to make meatballs, use loose Italian sausage rolled into balls. (If you can’t find loose sausage, buy it in casings and then just cut the casings open, discard them and use the meat inside.) Italian wedding soup often features a small pasta, like couscous or ditalini, which makes for a heartier, less brothy soup. If you are using the optional pasta, use 7 cups of broth instead of 6.
Tahini Ramen Salad
A breeze to make on busy weeknights, this fresh, colorful ramen salad is equally tasty at room temperature or chilled — which means it’s particularly picnic-friendly. Chickpeas add creamy texture, contrasting the crisp bite of vibrant veggies. Use your favorite combination: Yellow bell peppers, cucumbers, snap peas, radishes, celery, asparagus and cabbage are all great options. You can make the salad an hour ahead and let the savory tahini-garlic sauce soak into the noodles (at room temperature); just give it a quick toss before serving so that everything is evenly coated in the luscious sauce. If chilled, pull the salad from the refrigerator 10 minutes before serving to allow the sauce to soften, then give it a nice mix.
Roast Tarragon-Cognac Chicken
The sophisticated, French flavors of brandy, butter and tarragon season this golden-skinned roast chicken, adding panache to what is otherwise an easy and straightforward recipe, adapted from Christiane Baumgartner via her daughter, Florence Chapgier, a reader. Serve it with mashed potatoes or polenta, a soft bed to absorb all the heady, buttery juices. And if you’re not a tarragon fan, fresh thyme makes an excellent, milder substitute.
Miso-Honey Chicken and Asparagus
This quick and easy sheet-pan meal is broiled instead of baked, which chars the marinade slightly on the chicken, browns the asparagus for maximum flavor and cuts the cooking time to around 10 minutes. The miso-honey mixture packs a punch, with lots of garlic, ginger and as much hot sauce as you like. It doubles as a marinade for the chicken and a sauce to spoon over the chicken and asparagus once cooked. Make sure to arrange the chicken thighs in a single layer, so they cook and char evenly, and keep an eye on the pan, as some broilers have hot spots. Feel free to substitute broccolini for the asparagus, and serve with steamed rice, if desired.
Harissa-Honey Pork Tenderloin
For juicy pork tenderloin with a sweet, smoky and spicy glaze, coat it with honey and harissa before searing and roasting it. The two-ingredient coating caramelizes and chars in spots, developing a sticky glaze that’s much more complex than the work that went into it. Because pork tenderloin is such a lean meat, it’s easy to overcook, despite good instructions and intentions. If you find the sliced pork is not as juicy as you’d like, stir together a little more harissa and honey and spoon it on top. Eat the pork with yogurt sauce or a juicy citrus or tomato salad.
Bò Né (Steak and Eggs)
Bò né (which translates from Vietnamese to “dodging beef”) is often served for breakfast, but is delicious any time of day: The meal consists of sizzled beef (bò) and fried eggs, with a smattering of pâté and butter dashed across a crisp baguette. Bò né is generally served alongside a salad plate, and offered on roadsides throughout Vietnam, and in Vietnamese restaurants all over the globe. You can partake in each component individually, or fill your baguette to make a sandwich, or figure out a third way that works best for you; there are as many routes to eat bò né as there are diners, and each of them is flawless. Purchasing the pâté and butter from your local Vietnamese market or diner would be ideal (just ask if they sell it by the pound), but whatever you can find will be solid. And if you’re short on time, simply seasoning the beef with salt and black pepper also works.
Honey Baked Chicken Drumsticks
The oven does most of the work in this surprisingly hands-off chicken feast. Floral ground ginger lends a deeper, mellower heat than fresh and pairs well with honey, which reduces with the schmaltzy pan juices to create a sticky glaze. The oil in the marinade helps the chicken and vegetables start browning, while the butter finishes the pan sauce. A shower of raw scallions, thrown on right at the end, perfumes and enlivens the savory-sweet drumsticks and burnished vegetables, which taste just right alongside cooked white rice, noodles or bread.
Basmati Rice
How to cook rice to its perfect texture is an art: too much water and it’s gloppy; too little, and it’s dry and brittle. If it’s cooked for too long, it smushes together; not enough time and it’s grainy and hard. Different types of rice require different cooking methods, too. This recipe, specifically for long-grain basmati rice, boils it down to a science. The rice-to-water ratio used here is 1 cup rice to 1 1/2 cups water, but thoroughly drained rice, heat levels, cook time and resting time can all impact results. Even the size of the pot matters; you’ll want to select a small one in which the water level rises an inch above the rice level. Follow the steps exactly and cooking long-grain basmati rice is no longer an experiment but a formula.