Lunch
2782 recipes found
Curried Squash Soup With Frizzled Leeks
Turkey Burgers
Turkey burgers are much leaner than hamburgers, but they can be dry and dull. Moisten them by adding ketchup and a bit of grated onion to the ground turkey — or mayonnaise and a bit of mustard. The idea is to emphasize condiments, and keep the turkey moist.
Jerk Chicken
Done right, jerk chicken is one of the great barbecue traditions of the world, up there with Texas brisket and Chinese char siu. It is Jamaica to the bone, aromatic and smoky, sweet but insistently hot. All of its traditional ingredients grow in the island’s lush green interior: fresh ginger, thyme and scallions; Scotch bonnet peppers; and the sweet wood of the allspice tree, which burns to a fragrant smoke. “It’s not a sauce, it’s a procedure,” Jerome Williams, a Jamaican-born Brooklyn resident, told The Times in 2008 on a Sunday in Prospect Park, where families arrive as early as 6 a.m. for lakeside grilling spots, a few of which are actually authorized by the parks department. “It has to be hot, but it cannot only be hot, or you get no joy from it.” This recipe delivers that joy.
Red Lentil Soup
This is a lentil soup that defies expectations of what lentil soup can be. Based on a Turkish lentil soup, mercimek corbasi, it is light, spicy and a bold red color (no murky brown here): a revelatory dish that takes less than an hour to make. The cooking is painless. Sauté onion and garlic in oil, then stir in tomato paste, cumin and chile powder and cook a few minutes more to intensify flavor. Add broth, water, red lentils (which cook faster than their green or black counterparts) and diced carrot, and simmer for 30 minutes. Purée half the mixture and return it to the pot for a soup that strikes the balance between chunky and pleasingly smooth. A hit of lemon juice adds an up note that offsets the deep cumin and chile flavors.
Baked Feta With Honey
A drizzle of honey and a blast of heat transform a standard block of crumbly feta into an unexpectedly luscious, creamy spread for pita and vegetables. This, with a hunk of crusty bread and a glass of chilled white wine, is the perfect warm weather supper. If you can't get your hands on thyme honey, the regular sort will do just fine.
Spiced and Herbed Millet
Millet is an underused grain associated with rough-hewn, well-meaning vegetarianism: although we all think it might be good for us, we doubt it will be one of life's true pleasures. But when it is tossed in a little oil, well-seasoned and simmered in broth, it produces a toothsome graininess, not as nutty as bulgur but more interesting than couscous. Leftovers make a great grain salad the next day: think tabbouleh and add masses of freshly chopped herbs, a judicious amount of good olive oil and a spritz of lemon juice.
Spice-Rubbed Lamb Skewers With Herb-Yogurt Sauce
Rice-and-Egg Soup
This meal in a bowl is pure midwinter comfort. Loosely adapted from the Japanese dish zousui, beaten eggs are poured into a pot of hot stock and rice, where they set into soft, custardlike strands. You can use any kind of stock and any kind of rice, although the starchier the rice, the thicker the soup will be. You can also add cooked vegetables or pieces of meat for a heartier dish.
Creamy Macaroni and Cheese
There are two schools of thought about macaroni and cheese: Some like it crusty and extra-cheesy (here’s our recipe), while others prefer it smooth and creamy. But most people are delighted by any homemade macaroni and cheese. It is light years ahead of the boxed versions. This creamy version has one powerful advantage for the cook: There’s no need to preboil the pasta. It cooks in the oven, absorbing the liquid from the dairy products.
Baked Mac and Cheese
Macaroni and cheese may seem an easy proposition. Noodles, cheese. But the secret to this creamy dish with a crunchy and crisp top is American cheese. This is no place for fancy cheeses or fancy noodles. Leave the whole-wheat penne and artisanal orecchiette in the cupboard and bring on the elbow pasta.
Blood-Orange Salad
Garganelli Pasta With Fava Beans
Wild Mushroom Quesadillas
You don't have to use wild mushrooms, of course, but if you can get chanterelles — oh man. It takes a bit of time at the stove, but when the quesadilla is done, you have a great handheld food that is, among other things, very kid friendly.
Coconut and Tapioca Soup
Butternut Squash Stock And Soup
Oxtail Soup
Pam Panyasiri served a version of this simple soup at her beloved restaurant, Pam Real Thai Food, in Midtown until it closed in 2001. It is not a staple of Thai menus, but it should be: it would make a French chef bow down in reverence. There is almost nothing to it: oxtails, boiled in seasoned water until very soft, then finished with chili, lime juice, scallion and cilantro, and usually crisp-fried onions or shallots.
Prosciutto, Havarti and Apple Sandwich
Here is an easy sandwich with a great balance of salt and sweet, as strong a candidate for school lunch as an office brown bag. The night before, assemble your ingredients and grill the sandwich for about five minutes, then put it in a sandwich bag, and place in the fridge. By noon the next day: luncheon excellence.
Tuna Salad Composée
This recipe is a far departure from the mayonnaise-based tuna concoctions that Americans expect. Tuna (packed in olive oil, please) is mixed with peppers, fresh herbs and nuts and dressed in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice and two types of mustard. It can sit in the fridge for up to three days, making it excellent picnic food or just a departure from the usual sad desk sandwich.
Chris Gesualdi’s Sloppy Joes
Some foods are memory triggers, meals that send you back to long-forgotten moments in your life. The sloppy Joe sandwich is one such time machine. This version is an adaptation of one developed by Chris Gesualdi, the chef at TriBakery in Manhattan. It's a tribute to the one his mother, Rose, used to make for him as a child, and it is perfect: a sweet and spicy hill of thick sautéed ground beef spilling out of a toasted homemade kaiser roll. He tops his with melted cheddar, and that can't be a bad thing. All in all, it is a terrific antidote to adulthood.
Cold Soba Noodles With Dipping Sauce
In Japan, where it gets plenty hot in the summer, cold soba noodles, served with a dipping sauce, are a common snack or light meal. Soba are brown noodles, made from wheat and buckwheat, and the sauce is based on dashi, the omnipresent Japanese stock. You would recognize the smell of dashi in an instant, even if you have never knowingly eaten it. It's a brilliant concoction based on kelp, a seaweed, and dried bonito flakes. It is also among the fastest and easiest stocks you can make, and its two main ingredients – which you can buy in any store specializing in Asian foods – keep indefinitely in your pantry. I would encourage you to try making it, though you can also use chicken stock (or instant dashi, which is sold in the same stores).
L'Espinasse's Gazpacho
The Brasserie's Gazpacho
Easy Shrimp Pad Thai