Lunch
2781 recipes found
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Turkey Club Sandwich
A perfect club sandwich requires careful consideration of every possible detail: the bread, the thinness of the bacon and poultry, and squeezing in just the right amount of filling so each mouthful is delicious yet manageable.
Chicken Quesadillas
Ever the reliable 10-minute snack or meal, chicken quesadillas are not hard to make, but a few pointers ensure they’re as gooey, crispy and delicious as possible: Start with cool, shredded chicken so it doesn’t make the tortilla soggy. Toss the chicken and cheese together for even distribution, and add a smidgen of chili powder to the filling for spunk. Cook the quesadilla over moderate heat, so the cheese melts just as the tortilla’s toasted.
Green Goddess Chicken Salad Sandwiches
Avocado forms the base of creamy green goddess dressing in this everyday chicken salad recipe. Made with lots of green herbs, capers and scallions, it’s tangy, vinegary and luxuriously creamy without the addition of any dairy or mayonnaise. Feel free to substitute other tender herbs you have on hand — chervil, chives and tarragon would all nod to classic green goddess dressing. For the chicken, you can roast bone-in, skin-on breasts, use leftover chicken or purchase a rotisserie chicken. Breast meat is more traditional for a chicken salad, but if you love thighs, by all means use them here. Pile the chicken salad onto toasted bread with lettuce and tomato for a standout sandwich, or eat it straight from the bowl with salted crackers or pita chips.
Crispy Tuna Cakes
These tuna cakes grow crackly on the outside, but stay velvety on the inside thanks to creamy cannellini beans. They’re served alongside a crisp wedge salad with a briny ranch dressing that is studded with olives. It might seem to produce a lot of dressing, but it’s just enough for smothering the iceberg and dunking the tuna cakes. Best of all, this dish makes use of pantry staples, like canned tuna, beans and olives, so you can make it even when the fridge is looking bare.
Slow-Cooker Masala Dal
This recipe, which is adapted from “Classic Indian Cooking” by Julie Sahni (William Morrow, 1980), a treasury of foolproof recipes for home cooks. Masala dal is a staple of Indian cuisine and one that has infinite variations, but the basic technique is to simmer legumes until tender, then finish with a swirl of a tadka, ghee or other fat that’s infused with aromatics like onions, cumin seeds and chile. In the original recipe, the dal is boiled on the stovetop, but in this adaptation, the split peas are cooked in the slow cooker, which works beautifully, and has the advantage of making the timing a bit easier, as you can throw the peas into the slow cooker in the morning, and they will hold well until dinnertime. The success of this dish hinges on two key steps: First, be sure to beat the legumes to a creamy purée with a whisk before adding the tadka. Second, cook the onions on a higher heat and until darker in color than you might think: Ms. Sahni calls this technique “brown frying,” and it is not the same as making French caramelized onions, which are cooked lower and slower. As in cooking caramel candy, the last five minutes are critical: Stir the onions constantly and be aware they can burn quickly. Serve dal with basmati rice or Indian flatbreads such as naan.
Easy Burritos
Saucy and savory with just ground beef, beans and cheese, this easy recipe is inspired by Los Angeles-style burritos, which restaurant critic Jonathan Gold once summarized as “the rough equivalent of a hardhat’s lunch pail, a method of constructing a filling, portable meal from a tortilla, last night’s beans and a spoonful of stew if there was one.” This burrito’s filling eschews guacamole, sour cream, rice and raw vegetables which means it freezes well for up to 3 months. The seared ground beef is simply spiced, but feel free to swap in a stewed meat like birria or tinga de pollo or make it vegetarian with just beans and cheese.
Sheet-Pan Red Curry Chicken With Butternut Squash
In this sweet and spicy, sheet-pan chicken dinner, boneless chicken thighs are coated in Thai red curry paste and roasted in a hot oven so the paste’s blend of chiles and aromatics toast and char. Cubes of butternut squash caramelize alongside, and you might marvel that the results taste richer than expected. Both the chicken and squash are seasoned with fish sauce instead of salt, which doesn’t make them fishy but rather accentuates their savoriness and inherent deliciousness. Herbs, lime and fresh chile perk up the deeply roasted flavors; serve with rice, or a crunchy raw vegetable salad like this one.
Cauliflower Cheese
Cauliflower cheese is classic British comfort food. In its simplest form, the vegetable is cloaked with white sauce (béchamel) and Cheddar, then baked until bubbly. It may be served as a side dish but is often the main course for a frugal lunch or supper.
Poke Bowl
A vibrant mix of sushi-grade fish, sticky rice, crunchy vegetables and creamy avocado drizzled with spicy sriracha mayo, a poke bowl is just as much fun to look at as it is to eat. Poke, which roughly translates “to cut crosswise into pieces” in Hawaiian, was born out of a no-waste scenario. While the exact timeframe is uncertain, Polynesians inhabiting what is now the Hawaiian Islands chopped leftover cuts of their daily catch into bite-sized pieces and seasoned them with salt and other ingredients. In the late 1800s, Japanese immigrants added soy sauce and rice to the dish. Eventually, poke made its way to the mainland and evolved into a customizable dish: The toppings listed here are just suggestions, so feel free to get as creative as you like, just make sure there is a balance of flavors and textures. Fresh fish is the star and should be sushi-grade and marinated for at least 1 hour. For a vegetarian version, try marinating cubed, firm avocado, and bulk up on the other ingredients. In the time that it takes to marinate, you can prepare the rice, or make use of leftover rice (you’ll need about 4 cups cooked). Don’t skip the spicy mayo to bring it all together.
Cheesy Frittata
Random leftovers or wilted vegetables in your fridge won’t go to waste when you use this easy frittata formula. First, whisk eggs with salt and allow them to sit while you prepare your mix-ins. This gives the salt time to uncoil some of those egg proteins so they cook up tender and creamy. Next, sauté or warm through any quick-cooking or cooked ingredients, like tender vegetables, cooked grains or shredded rotisserie chicken. Then stir in the beaten eggs and cook into large curds. Top everything with cheese and quickly broil to set the top and melt the cheese. Get creative with the ingredient combos: Try cooking the frittata in bacon fat, filling it with leftover French fries and topping with Cheddar. Stir the eggs into a mix of wilted herbs and spinach, and top with feta for a spanakopita feel. The possibilities are endless.
Tangy Romaine Salad With Habanero-Avocado Dressing
Tender lettuce, juicy sweet oranges, pungent radishes and crunchy cucumbers get a lush treatment with this creamy, tangy, rich, addictingly spicy dressing that leaves a luxuriously rich and full mouthfeel after each bite. The habanero becomes sweeter and its flavors more bold as it roasts, imparting zesty, peppy flavor, feisty bite and a hint of rustic smoke to the creamy avocado dressing. This dressing works well on any green salad — but is so good you might even want to pour it onto a bowl and eat with a spoon.
Broccoli With Sizzled Nuts and Dates
Broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables, like cabbage and brussels sprouts, can handle some char. Blackening makes them sweet and caramelized rather than bitter and burnt. The key is to cook the vegetables hot and fast, so the pieces develop color without becoming mushy and they’re crackly at the edges while still crisp-tender at the cores. Make sure your broccoli florets are thoroughly dried before cooking by taking them for a ride in a salad spinner. (Water will slow down the browning, resulting in florets that steam instead of char.) A topping of toasted nuts, sticky dates, bright lemon and bites of peppercorn adds complexity to this humble vegetable.
Salmon Patties
Pan-seared and flavored with smoked paprika, mustard, lemon juice and scallions, these simple patties transform canned salmon into a quick, delicious and economical dinner. Any variety of salmon, such as sockeye or pink, will work here, but be sure to choose one that’s labeled boneless and skinless. Serve them on their own, or with homemade tartar sauce on the side. Wrap leftover patties in foil and freeze for up to 1 month. To reheat, unwrap and place on a sheet pan, then bake at 350 degrees until heated through, about 15 minutes.
Butter Pilaf
This simple butter pilaf is a delicious alternative to your basic stovetop rice, without much additional work. A pilaf consists of grains that are toasted in fat before cooking in a liquid. The step of cooking in fat is called parching, and it prevents the grains from clumping while adding flavor from both the toasting and the fat itself. Pilaf can be made with almost any grain, fat and liquid, and is supremely versatile. For extra flavor, swap out the water for broth or dashi. Level it up with aromatics, like chopped onion or garlic, sweated (gently cooked) in the fat before parching the rice. Add spices, like turmeric or paprika, to toast along with the grains of rice. Stir in quick-cooking meat, like diced chicken or peeled shrimp, and vegetables, such as peas or cauliflower, after adding the water to steam along with the rice. Toss in herbs, like a spring of thyme or a bay leaf, to perfume the grains.
Spaghetti Stir-Fry With Chicken
This is nowhere near a traditional Chinese stir-fry or Italian spaghetti dish. Instead, it’s a recipe my amu (the Bengali term for mother) made by combining staples from her pantry and fridge to reflect the flavors of our favorite takeout without the need for specific noodles or a wok. By using frozen mixed vegetables, there’s only minimal prep and knife work required. The chicken, aromatics and vegetables cook while the pasta boils, so it all comes together quickly. Serve it just out of the pot for a hot meal, or eat it cold the next day, straight out of the fridge.
Sweet Chile Grain Bowl With Tofu
You can use any kind of cooked grain as the base of this colorful, deeply flavored tofu and cabbage bowl. The grains, vegetables and tofu add texture, heft and protein, but the real star is the pungent sauce, a mix of chile crisp, garlic and soy sauce sweetened with ketchup. Brushed onto the tofu and cabbage before roasting, the sauce caramelizes and mellows. Drizzled on top of the bowl right at the end, it stays bright and snappy. Fresh cherry tomatoes tossed with more chile crisp make a juicy, spicy garnish, but you can leave them out if you don’t have any on hand.
Hamachi Sashimi With Ginger Ponzu
At Tiffany’s in the small town of Wailuku in central Maui, hamachi sashimi comes with a sauce so good, diners keep spooning it up long after the fish is gone. Bright and briny at once, it draws from the cuisines of island nations across the Pacific, combining elements of Japanese ponzu and fina’denne’, a CHamoru condiment from Guam that is a blend of shoyu (soy sauce), vinegar or citrus, onions and chiles. The chef Sheldon Simeon adds sweet local onions and ginger in lieu of chiles, for a gentler kick, plus shiso for “effervescence,” he says. To finish, he simmers lemon peel and olive oil over low heat, then strains out the peel so just the olive oil is left, only now sun-possessed. Drizzled at the very end, it gives the fish the vividness of lemon without curing it.
Ozoni (New Year Mochi Soup)
Typically consumed just once a year on New Year's Day, this brothy soup is comforting and nourishing. It’s also said to bring good luck and good fortune to those who eat it. Ozoni is highly customizable, but it must always contain pieces of chewy mochi. The rice cakes are traditionally pounded by hand, but are now sold already prepared and are easy to find in Japanese markets around the New Year. This Japanese American version from the chef Chris Ono includes pork belly that simmers in a mix of dashi, soy sauce, sake and ginger until tender. To balance that richness, he serves this soup with lots of mizuna leaves, which can easily be substituted with spinach. For those who believe pork is unlucky at New Year's, it can easily be left out or substituted with chicken.
Açaí Bowl
The star of this refreshing and vibrant bowl is the açaí berry, a small, round fruit native to the Amazon rainforest. When picked from the palm on which it grows, the fruit is bitter with hints of chocolate, and slightly tangy; by the time the berries reach supermarkets (açaí is widely available nowadays), they have been pitted and turned into a frozen purée. Simply thaw the packets for a couple minutes and combine with milk and a handful of other frozen fruits in a high-powered blender for a quick breakfast or dessert. Be mindful not to thin it out too much — the consistency should be thicker than a smoothie so you can eat it with a spoon. Top açaí bowls as you like, with a variety of fruits, nuts, granola and honey.
Wanja Jeon (Pan-Fried Meat and Tofu Patties)
These celebratory meat-and-tofu jeon — a variety of Korean pan-fried fritters, patties and savory pancakes — are peak party food. This brilliant recipe from Daniel Harthausen, the chef and owner of Young Mother, a pop-up restaurant in Richmond, Va., calls for a touch of baking soda in the meat mixture to give the patties a little lightness and lift. Unlike most traditional jeon recipes, these start on the stovetop and finish cooking in the oven, which means you can take your time assembling them in advance, then bake them off right before serving. Enjoy these meaty delights with Mr. Harthausen’s special dipping sauce (see Tip), a simple herb salad dressed with some of that sauce, as well as rice and kimchi.
Dwaeji Bulgogi (Spicy Pork Bulgogi)
In this chile-fragrant variation of the Korean grilled beef dish bulgogi, a quick but impactful marinade tenderizes thin slices of pork. Sweet and spicy dwaeji bulgogi, known to some as jeyuk bokkeum, can be both a weeknight staple for the family and a crowd pleaser for a gathering, not least because you can marinate the meat in advance and cook it whenever you’re ready to eat. Wrapping the juicy red pork in grassy, aromatic perilla leaves (a mint-family herb that you can find in Korean grocery stores) is a beautiful eating experience, but lettuces such as red leaf, romaine and butter lettuce work as well. A side of white rice helps sop up the saucy, flavorful pork.
Lumpia
Shatteringly crisp and stuffed with juicy pork filling, Shanghai lumpia are a popular Filipino dish similar to fried spring rolls. Pork is the traditional filling, but they can also be made with a combination of pork and shrimp, ground beef or chicken. If you have one, use a food processor to finely mince the vegetables, and for a pleasant crunch, drop in a big handful of water chestnuts or jicama. Rolling the lumpia into a cigar-like shape takes a little bit of practice, but don’t overstuff them, wrap them tightly so the oil doesn't seep in and keep at it. You can prepare a large batch and freeze (see Tip) until ready to fry. Serve lumpia with store-bought sweet chili sauce for dipping.
Egg Salad
This classic, deli-style egg salad requires only a few kitchen staples and the time it takes it to hard-boil and peel eggs. Seasoned simply with mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper, it makes for a delicious sandwich piled on toasted bread, or a quick snack with crackers. Chop the hard-boiled eggs finely for a smooth, creamy texture, or coarsely for larger pieces of egg in each bite. This basic recipe can be dressed up with whatever green herbs you have on hand, or add a handful of finely chopped celery for some crunch. Use this simple method for cooking eggs to the hard-boiled stage and running them under cool water if using right away.
Cucumber Pomegranate Salad
Cucumber pomegranate salad is an early fall love story that confidently leaps into winter. Crisp and sweet Persian cucumbers are a welcome companion to ruby-red, tart pomegranate seeds, the jewels of cooler months. Tossed with red onion and both dried and fresh mint, this colorful and tangy salad enlivens a meal and your taste buds. There’s no need to prepare the dressing separately; drizzle and sprinkle everything directly on. The juice from the pomegranate seeds mingling with the lime juice makes for a pink-hued dressing that is worthy of slurping directly from a spoon.