Lunch
2848 recipes found
Cauliflower Parmesan
Think of cauliflower Parmesan as the winter analogue to eggplant Parmesan. This fried cauliflower is worth making all on its own, with golden, crisp florets that are impossible to stop eating. But they’re even better when given the parm treatment — baked with marinara sauce, mozzarella and grated Parmesan cheese until bubbling and browned. If you’re not a cauliflower fan, this recipe also works with broccoli.
Lentil Salad With Roasted Vegetables
This lentil salad looks and tastes bright, thanks to a combination of tangerine juice, sherry vinegar and colorful caramelized roasted root vegetables. It works either as a main course, served with good bread and butter, or as side dish with roasted meat or fish. For the maximum visual impact, use both golden and red beets. Vegetarians can feel free to leave out the bacon. Leftovers will keep for at least five days, though try to pack it up without the radicchio, which gets soggy in the fridge.
Tortilla Soup With Roasted Cauliflower 'Rice'
This is not exactly authentic, but I wanted to add a vegetable to my tortilla soup, to make it more of a dinner in a bowl, so I decided to shave cauliflower, toss the ricelike pieces with oil and chili powder, and roast it. I loved the addition of the spicy roasted cauliflower to each bowl of soup, along with the tortilla crisps that I toasted in the microwave rather than frying. You can make this soup even more substantial by adding eggs (see the variation that follows the recipe).
Noodle Bowl With Soba, Enoki Mushrooms, Sugar Snap Peas and Tofu
Fresh enoki mushrooms are small thin-stemmed mushrooms with a small cap. They are widely available now in supermarkets and very nice in a noodle bowl. A noodle bowl makes for a comforting, filling winter meal and is easily put together. The broth only requires 20 minutes; make it your go-to vegetarian broth because it freezes well. I have found sliced dried shiitake mushrooms in specialty stores, and dried shiitakes in the Asian foods aisle of my local supermarket.
Orange-Scented Winter Squash and Carrot Soup
I was looking around for new approaches to winter squash and found a wonderful looking recipe in “Plenty More,” the latest collection from Yotam Ottolenghi, for roasted butternut squash with buckwheat polenta. The squash was seasoned with allspice, cardamom, and orange peel, among other things, and I was inspired to try these seasonings in a soup. I tied the spices, herbs and orange peel into a cheesecloth bag and simmered them in the soup to great effect. The essence of orange is especially appealing.
Minestrone With Giant White Beans and Winter Squash
The inspiration for this minestrone was a bag of Rancho Gordo Royal Corona beans that I have had in my pantry for a while. Royal Coronas are large white European runner beans that are similar to Greek gigandes but bigger, richer and sturdier. They are about twice the size of a lima bean and, unlike many other large white beans, the skin doesn’t slip off when you soak them. If you substitute limas I would not soak the beans, but if you use the Royal Coronas, do soak them to shorten the cooking time. The beans are downright meaty and the soup is a hearty one. I didn’t even feel the need to add pasta or rice to this substantial minestrone.
Chard Stalk, Celeriac and Leek Soup
Hold onto your chard stalks! Recently I came upon a recipe in a Provençal cookbook for a gratin made with chard stalks and celeriac. I used the combination for a purée, which I served at Thanksgiving dinner to great acclaim. I took the same idea and made it into a blended soup, this time adding a potato and a bunch of leeks for added flavor and body. The soup is incredibly satisfying, but quite light.
Banana Croque-Monsieur
Seared Broccoli and Potato Soup
This is not your average broccoli soup. Instead of merely boiling the broccoli to cook it, here, the florets are seared until deeply browned on one side while remaining bright green on the other. This gives the soup a layer of caramelized flavor while also preserving the fresh green taste of the broccoli itself. It’s a technique inspired by Andrew Feinberg of Franny’s restaurant in Brooklyn, who also uses it for zucchini soup. In this version, we’ve added potato for body, chile flakes for spice and lemon zest to heighten the citrus tang at the end.
Bacon and Gruyère Green Bean Casserole
This version pays tribute to the classic green bean casserole but upgrades its components. The cream of mushroom soup is replaced with crème fraîche and sautéed mushrooms; bacon and Gruyère are added to the mix; fresh green beans stand in for frozen (though you could use frozen in a pinch); and bread crumbs swap in for the Ritz crackers.
Aioli With Roasted Vegetables
In Provence, the garlic-infused mayonnaise called aioli is typically served with a platter of raw and boiled vegetables and sometimes fish. With its intense creamy texture and deep garlic flavor, it turns a humble meal into a spectacular one. In this recipe, an assortment of colorful roasted vegetables stand in for the raw and boiled ones. It makes a very elegant side dish to an entrée of roasted fish or meat, or can be the main event of a vegetable-focused meal. The aioli can be made up to three days ahead and stored in the refrigerator. The vegetables are best roasted right before serving.
Rigatoni and Cauliflower al Forno
Cauliflower is perhaps the least appreciated member of the large family of cruciferous vegetables, no doubt due to memories of encountering it boiled, flabby and timidly seasoned, if seasoned at all. When cooked properly, it is a delight. Cauliflower can stand up to rather bold seasoning, in fact. In this recipe, it gets garlic, sage, red pepper and capers. And it is browned in olive oil, which further enhances the flavor. If you want a terrific side vegetable, just serve the sautéed cauliflower and skip the rigatoni. But combining the cauliflower with large-format pasta, pecorino cheese and bread crumbs, then baking it until crisply golden, makes for a splendid meal.
Sweet and Spicy Roast Chicken
A chile-flecked, honey-imbued marinade spiked with fresh citrus juice gives this chicken its fiery, syrupy character. Dates and carrots give the sauce texture and additional sweetness while a garnish of fresh herbs and pistachio nuts lends freshness and crunch. It’s dinner party food at its most flavorful and convenient; its honey marinade makes it a particularly wonderful main course for Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. The ingredients can be assembled up to 24 hours in advance, then all you need to do is pop it in the oven just before your guests arrive, and garnish it at the last minute. Serve it with couscous, polenta, rice or another soft grain to soak up the sauce.
Chacarero -The Chilean National Lunch Solution
Although the most traditional Chilean dish is probably empanadas, more popular and more widely available are chacareros, a type of sandwich that Chileans eat for breakfast, lunch, or any other time they feel a bit peckish. Chileans buy these sandwiches – the most famous ones are the chacarero, the barros luco (meat and cheese) and the barros jarpa (ham and cheese) – in schoperías, little corner restaurants. They use 'French' bread for these, often in the form of buns, but you can use baguettes, hamburger buns or similar. As for most South American recipes, the important ingredient is the meat - everything else is decoration, mostly.
Green Beans With Lemon Vinaigrette
Grab-and-go offerings of picnicky food are almost universally mediocre and exasperatingly expensive. Resist the temptation to outsource and make your own. This recipe is built to last. You can make it a day or two ahead of time, or leave it out on the counter if you're going to eat these green beans within a few hours of making it.
Green Beans With Lemon Vinaigrette
Grab-and-go offerings of picnicky food are almost universally mediocre and exasperatingly expensive. Resist the temptation to outsource and make your own. This recipe is built to last. You can make it a day or two ahead of time, or leave it out on the counter if you're going to eat these green beans within a few hours of making it.
Summer Tacos with Corn, Green Beans and Tomatillo Salsa
Another way to use the versatile green bean in summer cooking. Cut into one-inch lengths and add to a mix of corn, chiles and green tomatillo salsa. Green beans are such a reliable and versatile summer vegetable. I serve them on their own, of course, but I also throw them into various pasta dishes and salads, and here I’ve used them in a taco filling. Cook the beans first, just until tender, then cut them into one-inch lengths and add to this sweet and spicy mix of corn, chiles and green tomatillo salsa.
Diner-Style Burgers
This is the traditional, griddled hamburger of diners and takeaway spots, smashed thin and cooked crisp on its edges. It is best to cook in a heavy, cast-iron skillet slicked with oil or fat, and not on a grill. For meat, ask a butcher for coarse-ground chuck steak, with at least a 20 percent fat content, or grind your own. Keep it in the refrigerator until you are ready to cook, and try not to handle it with your fingers — use an ice-cream scoop or spoon instead. Plop down a few ounces in the pan, smash it with a spatula, salt it, let it go crisp and flip. Add cheese and get your bun toasted. The process moves quickly.
Asparagus Soup With Ricotta Crostini
In this puréed vegetable soup, asparagus and leeks are thickened with rice, which adds both body and a slightly nubby texture to the bowl. Little is wasted in the preparation; asparagus ends and leek tops that might otherwise be thrown away are simmered into a delicate broth that serves as the foundation for the other flavors. You can skip the ricotta crostini but some kind of crunchy contrast – plain buttered toast, breadsticks or crackers – makes a nice counterpart on the side.
Quinoa Salad With Roasted Carrots and Frizzled Leeks
This quinoa salad, filled with soft roasted carrots, currants and a pomegranate molasses-spiked dressing, makes enough to feed a crowd, though you can easily halve the recipe for a smaller group. You can make it with any color quinoa you come across – it comes in shades of tan (called white), rusty red and brownish black. Just don’t mix them together in one pot because they all have slightly different cooking times. As for the pomegranate molasses, it's available in specialty shops and online, but if you don’t have it, substitute a good quality balsamic vinegar spiked with a little honey if you like. You can toss together the quinoa, dressing and carrots the day before serving, but don’t add the arugula until the last minute to keep it as fresh and crisp as possible.
White Pizza
This is a pizza reimagining of the classic Roman pasta dish cacio e pepe, pasta served with only cheese and black pepper. It came to The Times from the kitchens of Roberta’s restaurant in Brooklyn, a pizzeria and lifestyle collective that occupies a number of buildings and lots in a far corner of the Bushwick neighborhood. Cream slicks the dough, and a mixture of mozzarella and tangy taleggio tops it. A shocking amount of freshly ground black pepper follows that application and, after the pizza is cooked, a shower of grated Parmesan. A drizzle of honey over the top would not be blasphemy.
Roberta’s Pizza Dough
This recipe, adapted from Roberta’s, the pizza and hipster haute-cuisine utopia in Bushwick, Brooklyn, provides a delicate, extraordinarily flavorful dough that will last in the refrigerator for up to a week. It rewards close attention to weight rather than volume in the matter of the ingredients, and asks for a mixture of finely ground Italian pizza flour (designated “00” on the bags and available in some supermarkets, many specialty groceries and always online) and regular all-purpose flour. As ever with breads, rise time will depend on the temperature and humidity of your kitchen and refrigerator. Our Greatest Pizza Recipes
Black Rice and Lentil Salad on Spinach
Black rice is inky, as black as squid ink, and glistens against a bed of spinach. The pigments provide anthocyanins, flavonoids that are high in antioxidants. I was inspired to cook the rice with lentils by a pilaf that I ate recently at the “Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives” conference at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley. In addition to the familiar green or black lentils, I’ve thrown in uncooked split red lentils, which contribute their own soft salmon color and crunch; they are soaked for a few hours to soften them, and that’s all they need. Prepare the ingredients for the salad while the rice and lentils are cooking. The cooked rice and lentils will keep for 3 or 4 days in the refrigerator.
Apple and Bitter Lettuces Salad
You can use a mix of lettuces for this salad, and you can also add some milder lettuce. My favorite combination is endive, radicchio and arugula. It is a simple salad with wonderful contrasts. Dice the apples small.