Lunch
2782 recipes found
Warm Roasted Carrot and Barley Salad
There is something very exciting about transforming a simple bunch of carrots into a deeply flavorful and satisfying weeknight meal. Carrots are given a lot of love here: Leaving the skin on adds texture, slicing them into thin batons ensures that they cook quickly and evenly, and drizzling them with honey right out of the oven amplifies their natural sweetness. A sprinkle of lemon zest adds brightness. Ras el hanout, a North African spice blend, means “head of the shop” in Arabic as it was often one of the best mixes a vendor had to offer. Its fragrant blend of coriander, cumin, ginger, clove and turmeric brings warmth and richness to the tahini. The perfect chew of pearl barley is so gratifying in this dish, but for even more flavor, cook your barley in stock.
Maple-Baked Salmon
Salmon baked at a low temperature until medium-rare delivers a silky texture that tastes special enough to make it a festive centerpiece. This easy dish works any night of the week, since it comes together in less than half an hour. Maple syrup sweetens the glaze, which gets a savory pop from whole mustard seeds in Dijon. Even though salmon is naturally fatty, a dollop of mayonnaise adds extra richness while thickening the glaze to help it seal onto the fish. The herbaceous aroma of cilantro stems baked into the sauce brightens the dish, as do tender leaves scattered on top. Fill out your feast with any combination of steamed rice, roasted potatoes, green beans or salad.
Pumpkin Soup
This recipe turns canned pumpkin purée into a sublimely creamy, aromatic soup that makes for an elegant first course or a satisfying lunch on a cold day. While the combination of pumpkin and fall spices can easily veer in the direction of dessert, the addition of fresh rosemary, garlic, caramelized onions and curry powder plants this soup firmly in the savory camp. Finally, to make this recipe vegan, substitute olive oil for the butter, full-fat coconut milk for the heavy cream, and vegetable broth for the chicken broth. If time and availability allow, consider roasting your own sugar pumpkin for this recipe: The soup will have a deeper, more complex flavor (see Tip).
Herby Tomato Salad With Tamarind-Maple Dressing
Collect the juiciest, ripest tomatoes you can find for this salad (the sweeter and fruitier, the better), which is amplified by an herby, piquant dressing. Start with cilantro, scallions, and Thai basil; perilla leaves lend a grassy, aniseed note. You can find them at Asian grocery stores or greenmarkets, but, if they’re unavailable, substitute shiso or mint. Tamarind is very sour, too tart to enjoy on its own, but paired with a sweetener, such as maple syrup, honey or brown sugar, it sings with citrusy, smokey notes. Don’t be afraid to add more maple, chile, salt or vinegar until you strike that harmonious sweet-sour balance. And, two final notes: If you’re looking for a heartier salad, add 2 cups of cooked grains, like farro or quinoa, and feel free to use store-bought crispy fried shallots if tight on time.
Smacked Cucumber ‘Quick Kimchi’
This is not a traditional kimchi, but it approximates the flavor profile, bypassing a lengthier fermentation and instead relying on vinegar. Considered a muchim in Korean — which can refer to any number of “seasoned” or “dressed” salads or other preparations — this dish is best eaten right away, or at least within 24 hours, while cucumber’s characteristic crunch is still intact. The smacking step creates craggy edges that help better absorb the spicy, funky dressing, so don’t skip it. If you can, place a bowl under the colander in Step 1 to catch the cucumber brine; it tastes fabulous in a martini. Enjoy this as a side salad alongside any grilled main dish, especially steak, or any type of barbecue. For a vegetarian option, you can swap out the fish sauce for soy sauce.
Summer Shrimp Scampi With Tomatoes and Corn
Shrimp get along well with garlic, butter and lemon, and so do tomatoes and corn. Combine them, and you get a summery shrimp scampi that comes together in one skillet. A searing hot pan helps the tomatoes blister and the corn caramelize before they are coated in a garlic-lemon butter sauce. This is a meal in and of itself, but if you want to serve it with pasta or bread, they’d be welcome additions.
Slow-Roasted Beef
With the aid of a digital thermometer and plenty of hands-off time, this recipe makes the best of an inexpensive beef roast, which really shines when thinly sliced and reused in flavor-packed dishes over the next week. Though the recipe suggests a 2- to 3-pound roast, it will work for one of any size. (Just be aware that the timing will change accordingly.) As the beef rests in the fridge, it will initially darken in color and may later turn brown or gray; this is due to the oxidation of muscle pigments and is expected. Once you start cooking, always rely on your thermometer, not your timer. To test for doneness without a thermometer, insert a thin metal skewer all the way through the meat and hold it there for 10 seconds. Rapidly remove the skewer and touch it to the skin under your lower lip. It will feel like a hot bath water at rare.
Gravlax With Herb Butter
I think of making my own gravlax — the Nordic sugar-salt cured salmon — as the gentle, blue-square cooking analog of an intermediate ski trail: It’s mostly easy, but requires some experience. While butchering a whole salmon and cold smoking what you’ve butchered are also exhilarating milestones in the life of an advancing home cook (both a little farther up the mountain and a little steeper on the run down), buying a nice fillet and burying it in salt, sugar and a carpet of chopped fresh dill for a few days is a great confidence-building day on the slopes, so to speak. The cured gravlax will last a solid five days once sliced, in the refrigerator. If a whole side of salmon is more than you need at once, the rest freezes very satisfactorily.
One-Pot Pasta With Ricotta and Lemon
This elegant, bright pasta dish comes together in about the same amount of time it takes to boil noodles and heat up a jar of store-bought marinara. The no-cook sauce is a 50-50 mix of ricotta and Parmesan, with the zest and juice of one lemon thrown in. That’s it. To make it more filling, add peas, asparagus or spinach in the last few minutes of the pasta boiling, or stir in fresh arugula or watercress with the sauce in Step 3. It’s a weeknight and for-company keeper any way you stir it.
Chicken Ragù Hand Pies
Leftover chicken ragù — or really any savory filling that is not too liquid — can be tucked inside this tender dough to make baked hand pies. They can be frozen before or after baking, then tucked into lunches and eaten at room temperature. A couple of rounds of prepared pie dough from the grocery store would make a quick and easy substitution.
Tagliatelle With Prosciutto and Butter
Like cacio e pepe, this prosciutto-studded pasta — coated in emulsified butter, starchy pasta cooking water and Parmesan — requires repetition to master, but it's not at all difficult. Adapted from Evan Funke’s pasta cookbook, “American Sfoglino,” this dish comes together with just a few ingredients, but you’ll need to work fast: Add the pasta, pasta water and cheese to the butter and prosciutto quickly, then stir vigorously while gently jostling the pan back and forth with the other hand. Serve immediately, as the pasta can lose its luster within minutes as it soaks up the sauce.
Pan-Seared Gyoza
Gyoza are plump, Japanese dumplings typically filled with a mixture of ground pork, cabbage, chives, ginger and garlic. They originated as a spin-off of Chinese jiaozi, but they differ in many ways, particularly in how they are wrapped: Gyoza have very thin wrappers sealed with signature pleats, while Chinese jiaozi have thick wrappers that vary in how they are sealed. Throughout Japan, you can find gyoza steamed, pan-fried and deep-fried, and in recent years, lattice-edged dumplings have become popular. Made by pouring a slurry of flour and water into the pan with the dumplings, the water evaporates and the batter creates a crisp, lacy net. This pan-fried version is adapted from “The Gaijin Cookbook: Japanese Recipes from a Chef, Father, Eater, and Lifelong Outsider,” a collection of Japanese recipes from the chef Ivan Orkin, an owner of two ramen shops in New York. (Instructions for creating a lattice are below the recipe.)
Spiced Olive Oil Cake With Orange Glaze
This golden cake makes a persuasive case for baking with olive oil; it is fragrant, peppery and not overly sweet, with an orange glaze that brings all the flavors together. The recipe is from Lior Lev Sercarz, a high-end spice vendor in New York City who says that oil is even better than butter, the favorite of American bakers, at amplifying flavors like citrus and spice. See Tip for his instructions on using whole spices.
Corn, Bacon and Cheddar Pie With Pickled Jalapeños
Corn kernels make this quiche-like pie juicy-sweet. Bacon, jalapeño and quick-pickled onions make it deeply savory, and a custard of sour cream, eggs and Cheddar adds a delightfully gooey texture. A touch of cornmeal in the dough makes the crust extra crunchy, and its corn flavor echoes the filling. You can bake this in the height of corn season with fresh kernels, or in the depths of winter with frozen. It will be just as richly satisfying any time of the year.
New Shrimp Louie (Poached Shrimp Salad)
In this spirit of classics like shrimp Louie or niçoise salad, this is a fairly basic, highly customizable salad-for-dinner deal, in which the nonnegotiables are fresh seafood (shrimp or salmon), crunchy lettuce (romaine or Little Gems) and tons of lemon (which comes in a tangy vinaigrette made with shallot and tarragon). From there, you can add any number of raw or lightly blanched vegetables, like shaved radish, sliced avocado or blanched green beans. To make things easy and efficient, the shrimp, eggs and green beans can all be cooked in the same pot of boiling water, so it’s not much of a fuss.
Spiced Chickpea Salad With Tahini and Pita Chips
This main-course salad has all the fresh flavors of a great falafel sandwich — tahini, mint, paprika, cucumber, cumin, garlic — plus the crunch of pita and the satisfying heft of chickpeas. The vegetarian cookbook writer Hetty McKinnon created this recipe, and the amount of olive oil she calls for might seem excessive. Don’t hold back: After cooking the chickpeas, the oil becomes part of the garlicky, paprika-warmed dressing for the finished dish. You could make her recipe even easier by using salad greens instead of cooked greens as the base.
Konbi’s Egg Salad Sandwich
This famous egg salad sandwich comes from Konbi, the tiny Los Angeles cafe run by the co-chefs Akira Akuto and Nick Montgomery. It’s not always the case that sensational, Instagram-famous dishes are carefully calibrated to taste so good, but this one breaks the mold: It’s as pretty as it is delicious. The egg salad is brightened with a touch of rice wine vinegar and mustard and bound with Kewpie mayonnaise. When making it at home, be careful not to undercook the eggs or you’ll cross that fine line between jammy and runny. At the heart of the sandwich is a perfect hard-boiled egg, and we suggest cooking a couple extra in case they break or you have trouble peeling them. Extra eggs, still warm, with a touch of salt and pepper, make for a great snack while you're assembling.
Ginger-Cauliflower Soup
This simple soup, steeped with ginger and lemongrass, features a bright relish of lime zest, fresh ginger and scallions. The topping offsets the subtle, sensible cauliflower, and the soup is deceptively luxurious thanks to the addition of potato, which adds a natural creaminess. Serve with a crusty sourdough loaf or some thick slices of buttered toast.
Classic Baked Macaroni and Cheese
Think Stouffer's without the freezer. While it can be enjoyed straight from the pot, this macaroni and cheese has a slightly looser sauce than the stovetop variety to allow for thickening in the oven. Bread crumbs, while optional, make it truly spectacular.
Fabrizia Lanza’s Sicilian Pizza (Sfincione)
Palermo, the capital of Sicily, is street-food paradise, and among its many offerings is sfincione, a hearty pizza that’s baked in a rimmed sheet pan, allowing the dough to rise to a chewy thickness, and cut into large square slices. Sfincione is smeared with a frugal tomato sauce enhanced with umami from sheep’s milk cheese, onions and anchovy, along with olive oil and a handful of bread crumbs to make the cheese go further. When baked, the top is juicy, while the bottom is crisp from the generously oiled pan. Despite its origins as a street food, it is the perfect pizza to make at home. This easy and authentic recipe is from Fabrizia Lanza, proprietor of the Anna Tasca Lanza Cooking School, on the family’s country estate near Palermo.
Migas Breakfast Tacos
Tortilla chips in tacos may seem like overkill, but they’re not. Set into scrambled eggs that are loaded with onions and poblanos, they soften and enrich the mix while keeping some crispiness. A slice of avocado on top — along with melted cheese — adds a nice creaminess to the mix. These tacos work well with red or green salsa, so use your favorite. While these would impress at a weekend brunch, they also come together quickly on weekday mornings, and can be wrapped in foil to be eaten out of hand.
Couscous Salad With Turmeric, Chickpeas and Tomato
Turmeric highlights the golden hue of couscous while adding a welcome bit of flavor. The grains are paired with tomatoes, which have been left to sit in red wine and vinegar, infusing them with flavor and making the dressing even more juicy for the couscous-chickpea mix. If you want the onion to be nice and crisp and to take its raw edge off, put the slices in a bowl of ice and water before you cook the couscous. Drain them right before tossing them in. You can add even more crunch by topping the salad with sliced celery or chiles, if you like your food spicy. Either thinly sliced fresh chiles, such as fresno or jalapeños, or preserved ones, like peppadews or hot cherry, work well.
Roasted Eggplant and Buffalo Mozzarella Pizza
In Italy, when high-quality buffalo mozzarella is used to top a pizza, it’s often added after baking instead of before. The heat of the just-cooked pizza softens but doesn’t melt the cheese, which retains its milky, sweet flavor and stays supple instead of becoming stretchy. Here, the cheese crowns a pizza topped with tomato, roasted eggplant, chile flakes and fresh basil leaves. If you can’t get good buffalo mozzarella, substitute dollops of fresh ricotta. Or, you could experiment with burrata, draining it first. Save the cream, mix it with olive oil and salt, then use it to top ripe tomatoes instead of dressing. And if you are in a rush, substitute store-bought pizza dough.
Creamy Weeknight Macaroni and Cheese
Just as quick as the boxed variety, this creamy macaroni and cheese skirts the traditional butter and flour roux with assistance from cream cheese. While the cream cheese adds an important lusciousness, it doesn’t do the macaroni and cheese any favors when it comes to its flavor, so it’s important to use the sharpest, tangiest Cheddar you can get your hands on. For perfectly coated noodles, make sure to cook the pasta in the sauce for a minute or two.