Lunch
2851 recipes found

Slow-Cooker Corn Chowder
The rich flavor of this lightly creamy chowder comes from slow-simmered corn cobs. After the kernels are removed, the cobs go into the slow cooker along with the potatoes and aromatics, where they infuse the broth as it slow-cooks. The corn kernels are added at the very end, so that they retain their fresh, poppy sweetness. Canned green chiles lend mild heat and tons of mellow, peppery flavor to go along with the sharper jalapeño. (If you come across fire-roasted canned green chiles, snap those up.) The miso adds a sweet-savory note that reinforces the corn flavor; but if you don’t have it on hand, add about two additional teaspoons of salt.

Slow-Cooker Mulligatawny Soup
This soup is the result of British colonizers’ encounters with rasam, a souplike dish from Tamil Nadu, a region in southern India, that’s often made with lentils. “Milagu tannir,” or pepper water, evolved into mulligatawny when the British made it thick, chunky and meaty. In her book “From Curries to Kabobs,” the author Madhur Jaffrey wrote that mulligatawny was “an essential part of my childhood,” as she ate it at the homes of Anglo-Indian friends and in hotels on vacation. Mulligatawny now bears no resemblance to rasam and has many variations; it is a dish that was invented and modified for colonizers’ palates, and thus it has few rules. Ms. Jaffrey noted that “some curry powder has to be included for a true East-West flavor,” as curry powder is more British than Indian. This slow-cooker version is thickened with masoor dal and coconut cream, and enriched with chicken thighs and tart apple.

Slow Cooker Creamy Chicken Soup With Lemon, Rice and Dill
This lightly creamy and incredibly comforting soup is all about the almost-austere interplay of chicken, broth, white rice and lemon. It's also a great way to use up leftover rice: Any variety will work. Tempering the yolks (slowly whisking hot broth into them) ensures that they will emulsify and thicken the soup, and not scramble. Use a half cup of lemon juice for an assertively tart soup, but, for a gentler effect, use the smaller amount. If you prefer, you can use an equivalent weight of chicken legs instead of thighs.

Coleslaw With Miso Dressing
Red cabbage is especially pretty in this dish, but green cabbage, napa or savoy would work just as well, so use whatever you like. This recipe makes a generous amount of dressing so that you can dress the slaw to your liking. Start by tossing the cabbage with half the miso mixture, then add more until it's dressed to your idea of perfection. Whatever you don’t use can be tossed with other salad greens, drizzled over rice, or used as a dip for crunchy cucumbers, snap peas or carrots.

Grilled or Oven-Roasted Santa Maria Tri-Tip
You might need to ask your butcher (assuming you have one) or even a store meat manager to order in a tri-tip roast. Two pounds is a good size, but if you come across a larger one, by all means grab it as the extra meat makes amazing sandwiches. The trick is to carve the tri-tip against the grain, which can change directions in this cut. So before you rub it and roast it, take a look at the raw meat and see which direction the long strands of muscle fiber are running on each part of the roast. After the roast has been cooked, and it has rested for 15 minutes or so, slice the roast in two at the place where the fibers change direction. Carve each piece separately.

Grilled Corn, Asparagus and Spring Onion Salad
In this cookout perfect salad, corn, asparagus and spring onions benefit from the deep flavors of the grill. Their outer layers get a rustic char, their full sweetness is released, and they go from raw to cooked while maintaining a crunchy bite. Still warm, they’re doused in one of Mexico’s most fun ways to dress grilled vegetables or potato chips, an easy-to-eat sauce where umami, citrus and heat converge. The mixture is typically referred to as salsa preparada, meaning you simply mix these sauces together to “prepare” your food. You may wonder if the soy, Worcestershire and Maggi sauces compete, but each has a different character of sazón, which is whisked with plenty of fresh squeezed lime juice and a punch of chile oil. If more heat is desired, you can add a splash of your favorite hot sauce. This salad is great solo as an appetizer, but it is even better served right next to grilled meats.

Gochujang Burger With Spicy Slaw
This may be the perfect all-purpose sauce — BBQ, marinade, dressing — for your summer cookouts. Tangy and sweet rice vinegar cuts through the spicy richness of gochujang, and toasted sesame seed oil amps up the smokiness you get from the grill. The sauce does double duty in this recipe: It’s used to flavor the pork bulgogi-inspired patties, and it’s used as a dressing for the cucumber, sprout and carrot slaw. These burgers can also be made indoors in a large cast-iron or heavy skillet over medium-high heat.

Slow-Cooker Goan Pork Vindaloo
In 1510, when the Portuguese invaded Goa, a region on the west coast of India, they brought with them a dish called carne de vinha d’alho, a sailors’ preserve of pork stored in wine vinegar and garlic. Goan cooks reimagined the dish with local ingredients, like cinnamon, black pepper and coconut palm vinegar, and it came to be called vindaloo. Chiles are always included, but the dish is not traditionally superhot. In this version, the pork benefits from slow cooking in the vinegar and spices, making marination unnecessary. The blender does double duty: It purées the aromatics and grinds the whole spices at the same time.

Very Green Coleslaw With Grilled Poblanos
Either you hate coleslaw or it’s a must for your cookout plate. As a condiment, it makes sauce-drenched chicken or pork taste even better, balancing out any spice. The grilled poblanos are what make the difference in this dish, which is adapted from the cookbook “Watermelon and Red Birds” by Nicole Taylor. It does wonders for a barbecue staple.

Pickleback Slaw
Those artisanal pickles from the farmers’ market sure are expensive, so don’t throw out the juice in which they’re pickled. You can serve the stuff as a shot to accompany a glass of whiskey and a cold beer, as the New York chef Zakary Pelaccio has done, or you can whisk it into the dressing used for coleslaw, as is done here. Don’t have any? Never fear: a few tablespoons of relish from the market will offer a similar effect.

Grilled Vegetables With Spicy Italian Neonata
Summer squash, bell peppers, eggplant and greens are the stars of this greenmarket grill party. The spicy vibrant finishing sauce is inspired by Calabrian neonata, a preserved condiment made with hot peppers and baby fish. The condiment is often drizzled onto pasta, pizza or grilled bread. Here, briny anchovies, salami and olives season the sauce with salty, meaty notes to contrast with the spicy pickled cherry peppers and cool, crunchy celery. The fiery, tangy dressing, which can be made a few hours ahead, provides a lively boost for the smoky, tender veggies. Leftover neonata keeps for a week and makes a great sandwich topping the next day.

Korean Cheeseburgers With Sesame-Cucumber Pickles
These double-stacked cheeseburgers bring all the savory-sweet flavors of grilled Korean barbecue. A garlicky scallion marinade helps build flavor three different ways: stirred into burger mix, brushed on the patties to form a glaze, and combined with mayonnaise to create a special sauce. The burgers are formed into thin patties, set on a baking sheet and broiled for maximum caramelization and weeknight ease. Roasted sesame oil rounds out tangy pickles and bolsters the burger with extra umami.

Sheet-Pan Gochujang Shrimp and Green Beans
Say hello to your broiler, that super-intense direct heat source in your oven that, like a grill, crisps food fast. (It’s either in the top of your oven or in the pull-out drawer below.) While it heats, toss shrimp and green beans in a fiery sauce of gochujang (a Korean fermented chile paste), soy sauce and honey, then broil for mere minutes. Just five minutes! The shrimp and green beans emerge with blistered outsides and snappy insides, reminiscent of Sichuan dry-fried green beans, while the sauce and the caramelized char make quick work of building deep, addictive flavors. Serve with rice, noodles or lettuce leaves. To make it vegetarian, swap shrimp for quick-cooking vegetables, edamame or well-drained tofu.

Burger Plate
Inspired by German Hamburg steak and other patties of the world, including Danish frikadeller, Japanese hambagu and Korean hambak steak, this lunch-counter meal of ground beef is seasoned with Worcestershire sauce, nutmeg and grated onion. The rest is mere assembly, arraying fresh, crunchy accoutrements to accompany the tender burgers: Tomatoes lend juiciness, dill pickles provide zing and sweet raw onions cut through the richness of the meat. Though you could sandwich all of these ingredients between two slices of toasted bread, eating them as a casual plate lunch lets you appreciate each part separately. If you’d like, replace the ground beef with a plant-based ground meat substitute.

Lemon-Tahini Slaw
This vegan recipe fulfills the need for a creamy slaw that can sit out in the sun. Instead of dairy and raw egg yolks, this slaw is slicked with tahini and mustard. Capers, lemon zest and scallions are smashed into a coarse paste, then massaged into the cabbage to lend umami and a salty punch. Snap peas and radishes add crunch, but feel free to swap in celery, jicama, fennel or other vegetables. This is a decidedly savory slaw; if you want some sweetness, add honey to the dressing, to taste. The slaw can sit out — poolside, deskside, at a picnic — for up to 3 hours, and it keeps for 3 days in the fridge.

Broiled Turmeric Salmon With Corn and Green Beans
This meal marries charred flavors with bright summer vegetables, and no grill is required. Broiling salmon skin side up creates crispy skin without drying out the delicate flesh. Alongside your salmon, blister green beans and corn, then toss them with lime juice, raw corn and red onion for a balance of crunchy and tender, sweet and scorched. Turmeric and red-pepper flakes bring earthiness alongside the sweetness of the fish, corn and green beans, but garam masala, cumin or jerk seasoning would also work well.

Peanut Butter-Glazed Salmon and Green Beans
This fast and fun weeknight meal reveals an unexpected use for peanut butter, transforming it into a savory five-ingredient sauce. The pantry favorite is combined with tangy lemon juice, fragrant ginger and toasted sesame oil to create a rich, supernutty glaze that pairs well with fatty salmon. Here the salmon is roasted on a rack of green beans, but a bed of broccoli florets would be an excellent alternative. The sweet-salty glaze can be made a day ahead and brought to room temperature before using.

Stracciatella With Spinach
This light, classic Roman soup may be all you want to eat for a few days after Thanksgiving. It’s traditionally made with chicken stock, but why not use turkey stock instead?

Leek or Spinach Soufflé Pudding
When a soufflé is cooked slowly, as this one is, in a water bath, it often has the word ‘‘pudding’’ appended to it. I like the word, so I don’t mind the practice, but this soufflé is airy and closer to its Webster’s etymology — ‘‘a murmuring or blowing sound’’ — than the appendage suggests. It has less flour than a regular soufflé. It needs less scaffolding. This soufflé is equally good with either vegetable; it can be made hours ahead and will rise again upon reheating.

Gruyère and Chive Soufflé
This soufflé is as classic as they come, with beaten egg whites folded into a rich, cheese laden béchamel for flavor and stability. Gruyère is the traditional cheese used for soufflé, but a good aged Cheddar would also work nicely. This makes a great lunch or brunch dish. This recipe is part of The New Essentials of French Cooking, a guide to definitive dishes every modern cook should master.

Spring Chicken Miso Soup
Soup is welcome all year round, but it goes without saying a springtime soup veers lighter, even if the weather is still cool. Fresh green vegetables, like young leeks, peas and spinach, should play a major role. This delicate yet flavorful soup re-works the comforting chicken-noodle concept with a Japanese-inspired ingredient list.

Lemon Soufflé
This soufflé, adapted from Mark Bittman's famous tome, "How to Cook Everything," is rich, fluffy and very easy. You can also make orange or Grand Marnier variations. If you want to make individual soufflés, use a little more butter and grease four 1 1/2- to 2-cup ramekins.

Salt and Pepper Shrimp Rolls
Inspired by jiao yan xia, the classic Chinese dish of head-on, fried shrimp finished with a Sichuan or white pepper salt seasoning, these shrimp rolls celebrate the flavors of salt and pepper. Peeled shrimp are seasoned, breaded with cornstarch and fried until super crunchy, then sprinkled with a black pepper-salt. Once cooked, they’re tucked into toasted rolls smeared with a zingy garlic mayo. Fresh cilantro, sliced chile and a squeeze of fresh lime brighten the hearty sandwich. Store any leftover pepper-salt in an airtight container and use it as a seasoning for roasted meats and vegetables.

Brown Sugar-Cured Salmon
This grilled and smoked salmon recipe by the food writer Betty Fussell calls for curing the fish for several hours with salt, brown sugar and spices before smoking it over indirect heat on your grill. While the fatty fish absorbs the smoke beautifully, the fish can also be successfully cooked in a grill pan, or under the broiler. The salt and sugar cure, laced with sweet spices, both flavors the fish and firms up its flesh, giving it a meaty, silky texture. Serve it with a crisp salad for a light supper, or with rice for something more substantial.