Lunch
2842 recipes found
Crispy Sour Cream and Onion Wings
These crisp, flavorful wings have all the goodness of classic sour cream and onion potato chips — including leaving your fingers caked with tasty seasoning. The creamy, tangy dipping sauce is a perfect foil for the crackly skin and can be doubled to use as a dip for crudités or chips. It’s a common misconception that crunchy chicken wings can be obtained only by deep-frying, but this recipe subverts that notion with the use of a pantry ingredient: baking powder. Using baking powder helps with browning and results in all the crackle with none of the hassle. For best results, avoid using expired baking powder.
Sausage Smash Burgers
The delightful characteristics of a beef smash burger — thin, quick-cooking patties with a superbly caramelized ragged edge — are applied here to Italian-style sausage. (The stress relief from smashing food is yet another smash burger perk.) Mayo smeared on soft brioche buns along with a tangle of sautéed sweet peppers and onions top the patties, making this a bit like the sausage and peppers of the burger world. Optional oregano adds a fresh herbal accent. Each bite is savory, rich, sweet and smashingly craveable. These sandwiches are delicious all by themselves, but if you’d like a side, serve with a green salad or French fries.
Double Celery Salad
This dish employs two kinds of celery: the tender hearts of branch celery and so-called knob celery, also known as celery root or celeriac. It’s a nice salad in winter, for a change of pace. A bed of spicy watercress, arugula or mizuna lends even more of a green hue to this dish.
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Malaysian Fish Head Curry Recipe
South Indian and Malaysian cuisines come together in this spicy vermillion curry that's simmered with fish heads, eggplant, and okra.
The Commerce Inn Patty Melt
Patty melts have very few components: sliced bread, beef patties, caramelized onions and cheese. Vary them slightly and it’s possible the sandwich you end up with won’t be a patty melt anymore. Rita Sodi and Jody Williams, the chefs and owners of The Commerce Inn in New York City, put Dijon mayonnaise inside their patty melts, and it works. The mayo makes the sandwich juicier, the mustard helps cut through the fat, and the result is still, undeniably, a patty melt.
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As-sam (Bornean Bamboo-Cooked Rice With Chicken)
Imbued with the fragrance of ginger, lemongrass, and pandan, this Bornean rice dish is hearty and satisfying.
Waldorf Salad
Crunchy, creamy, sweet and sour, this classic salad has only slightly evolved from the original recipe that was first published in 1896. Oscar Tschirky, the chef at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, developed the recipe using just three ingredients — apples, celery and mayonnaise — and this one closely mirrors that version. Besides the three staples, walnuts and grapes provide additional texture, and a splash of lemon juice brightens up the creamy dressing. Feel free to improvise, adding other crunchy ingredients like chopped raw broccoli, sunflower seeds, raisins or sliced pitted dates. This salad can be made a few hours in advance and stored in the refrigerator before serving. Serve as a side salad, or add cooked chicken to the mix for a satisfying lunch.
Coconut Black Bean Soup
Earthy black bean soup gets a plush makeover with the addition of canned coconut milk, which lends richness and a sweet, mellow flavor. Whole cumin seeds and tomato paste add depth, while jalapeño contributes both brightness and heat to the pot. You can purée the soup until it’s velvety smooth, or leave it a little chunky. Either way, it makes for a satisfying and hearty weeknight meal.
Parmesan Braised Beans With Olives
At the Manhattan restaurant Ci Siamo, the chef Hillary Sterling serves these dynamic beans topped with a tinsel of fried rosemary and sage, a shower of salty cheese, and a flourish of olive oil and black pepper. For a dish so luxe in flavor, it’s surprising how everyday its ingredients are. At the restaurant, Ms. Sterling uses at least four different types of beans (such as flageolet, scarlet runner, small white, tiger’s eye and Tarbais), but at home, any mix of white, brown and black that you prefer will be beyond delicious. With crusty bread and a glass of wine, these beans can be enjoyed as a meal on their own.
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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.