Main Course
8665 recipes found
Tacos With Spicy Tofu, Tomatoes and Chard
In these tacos, tofu stands in for meat in a vegan picadillo, cooked in a modified salsa ranchera. I’ve never been one for meat “substitutes,” and I normally don’t advocate using tofu in anything other than Asian dishes. But I find this pretty irresistible, a sort of vegan picadillo. You can make it spicier by adding more chiles, milder by using less. The tofu is cooked in a modified salsa ranchera; being tofu, it absorbs the sweet and spicy flavors of the tomatoes and chiles. I used firm tofu and mashed it with the back of my spoon. Silken tofu is also a good choice, though then you will have something more akin to Mexican scrambled eggs.
Smoky Lentil Stew With Leeks and Potatoes
Rustic with deep flavor, this stew improves after a day in the fridge. Make the whole recipe, and eat it over several days — or freeze it for later. If you can’t get small Spanish Pardina lentils or French lentilles du Puy, use any size green or brown lentil. (Carnivores may want to add chorizo or jamón.) The stew is rather brothy at first, but thickens upon sitting. Thin with a little water when reheating, as necessary. For optimum results, be sure to use fruity, zesty-tasting extra virgin olive oil — it really makes a difference.
Spring Tofu Soup
This versatile (coincidentally vegan) soup can be customized with most quick-cooking vegetables — thinly sliced asparagus could easily be thinly sliced turnips or radishes — and whatever tofu you have access to. If tofu isn’t your thing, this soup would also be a great place to add any leftover chicken to warm through or shrimp to cook in the broth. The lemon at the end will breathe a lot of much-needed life into this broth built mostly from pantry staples, but a splash of rice wine vinegar would also do the trick.
Vegan Tantanmen With Pan-Fried Tofu
Tantanmen is the Japanese version of dan dan noodles, a Sichuan dish of noodles and pork bathed in a spicy sesame broth. Chinese or Japanese sesame pastes, which are made from roasted sesame seeds and yield a more robust flavor than tahini, are traditionally used in this dish. (But tahini works too; it will produce a mellower, creamier result.) For those who keep doubanjiang, or Chinese fermented bean paste, on hand, add a teaspoon or two to your soup base for even deeper flavor. Slices of pan-fried tofu make this dish feel more substantial, but if you are looking for a shortcut, crumble it up and pan-fry it alongside the mushrooms. For non-vegans, add a jammy egg.
Tomato and White Bean Soup With Lots of Garlic
This recipe makes the most out of just a handful of pantry ingredients, like canned white beans, a can of tomatoes and a full head of garlic. The soup owes its surprisingly rich and complex flavor to how the garlic is cooked: By smashing the cloves, you end up with different sizes and pieces of garlic. These cook irregularly, which means you’ll taste the full range of garlic’s flavors, from sweet and nutty to almost a little spicy. Simmer the lightly browned garlic with white beans and tomatoes, then blend, and you have a creamy, cozy soup that’s endlessly adaptable: Add aromatics to the simmering pot, or make it spicy with harissa, smoked paprika or chipotle. Top with pesto, croutons, cheese, cooked grains, greens or a fried egg.
Mediterranean Lentil Salad
Here’s a summery lentil salad topped with tomatoes, roasted peppers and feta, garnished with hard-cooked eggs, anchovy fillets and good canned tuna. Studded with olives and sprinkled with oregano, it’s a sort-of niçoise salad by way of Greece, an easy main course suitable for a picnic or a no-fuss make-ahead supper.
Tomato-Lentil Soup With Goat Cheese
You could just make this tomato-rich red lentil soup — it’s earthy and sweet, delicious on its own. But skipping the goat cheese topping would be like eating tomato soup without grilled cheese, and what’s the fun in that? In this recipe, the melty cheese accompaniment happens right in the pot: Once the lentils are soft, top them with slices of herb-and-lemon-sprinkled goat cheese to warm. The cheese forms creamy, tangy puddles throughout your bowl. While this dish is lovely as it is, feel free to top bowls with toasted walnuts or sliced almonds, zhug, rice or leftover root vegetables, eggplant or peppers. It’s also good with pita or crusty bread.
Adasi
A Persian dish of simply cooked lentils, adasi is often eaten as a warming breakfast in Iran, but it can make a comforting lunch or dinner, too. There are many variations, but the core ingredients are the same: lentils, salt and water. This recipe also calls for onion, cumin and turmeric, then simmering until the lentils become soft and creamy. (Don’t be deterred by the long cooking time, as the majority of it is hands off. To help reduce the cooking time, soak the lentils before cooking for two hours or up to overnight.) Garnishes are customizable: Add a pinch of dried oregano or fresh cilantro or parsley, then top with a pat of butter and enjoy as-is, or with a side of hard-boiled eggs or roast vegetables. It’s a wonderful dish to have in the fridge for a quick, nourishing meal any time of day.
Spinach and Tofu Salad
Here’s a spinach salad that takes cues from Japan and is hearty enough to be a main course. Try to find crisp, medium curly-leaf spinach, which will hold up when dressed. (Baby spinach leaves will surely wilt.) Other sturdy greens — such as mizuna, curly endive or Napa cabbage — can stand in for spinach, or you can combine several kinds of greens.
Beet Salad With Coriander-Yogurt Dressing
Disks of succulent roast beets make this salad especially hearty. If your oven is already on, throw in some beets wrapped in foil, and roast them until tender. But if you are pressed for time, grab some store-bought cooked beets. They’ll work just as well. This salad is all about big forkfuls of vegetables; the plump chickpeas, which are suffused with warm coriander and bright orange zest, lend a delightful crunch. It’s all finished with a creamy yogurt dressing you’ll want to drizzle over everything on your plate.
Creamy Vegan Tofu Noodles
There is no need to reserve this recipe exclusively for vegans: This noodle dish will win over any crowd, regardless of dietary dispositions. Here, tofu is blended with garlic, five-spice powder and water for a creamy yet weightless sauce that wraps around each noodle. The same technique can be used to create a lush dairy-free pasta sauce (just add nutritional yeast and fresh herbs) or a ranch-like dip (blitz silken tofu with garlic, onion powder and herbs). For this recipe, be sure to use firm tofu, as it has more body and makes for a heartier sauce. The creamy noodles provide the perfect backdrop for the spicy, punchy black vinegar sauce.
Coconut Red Curry With Tofu
This simple weeknight red curry relies on jarred or canned red curry paste for flavor, which you can find at larger supermarkets and specialty markets. Transfer leftover canned curry paste to a jar, top it with a little oil and store in the refrigerator for up to a month. Or freeze for longer storage. Feel free to substitute other vegetables for the mushrooms and snow peas, though you might have to increase the cooking time slightly if using something dense like carrot or cubed winter squash.
Roasted Butternut Squash With Lentils and Feta
The secret to making winter squash taste even better is to bump up its sweetness by roasting it, then pair it with sweet and sour ingredients, like this pomegranate molasses and honey dressing. Thinly slicing the squash speeds up roasting time, and, if you have access to precooked lentils, feel free to add them here. You can also substitute other soft, creamy cheeses for the feta, such as goat or sheep’s milk cheeses. Olive oil can leave a bitter aftertaste in emulsions, so, if you prefer to avoid it, use a neutral oil like grapeseed. Serve as a fall side, or alongside warm slices of generously buttered sourdough toast as a light meal.
Stir-Fried Rainbow Peppers, Eggplant and Tofu
My method of roasting the eggplant before stir-frying is not at all Chinese, but it allows me to pull off a beautiful, succulent stir-fried eggplant that doesn’t require at least 1/4 cup of oil. The eggplant is already soft when you add it to the wok. Seek out long, light purple Asian eggplant for this.
Brothy Thai Curry With Silken Tofu and Herbs
A jarred red curry paste is the central flavor of this wonderfully restorative and nourishing broth. Coconut milk lends a subtle creaminess, and the cherry tomatoes become bright little jammy bursts. You can use fresh tomatoes when in season, but canned tomatoes do just as well. Ladle the piping hot broth over seasoned tofu pieces and fresh herbs: The delicate silken tofu used here will absorb big flavors from the surrounding liquid.
Mulligatawny Soup
This soup is a British-Indian cuisine hybrid, the result of colonizers’ encounters with rasam — a spiced, soupy dish often enriched with lentils, sometimes served over rice — from Tamil Nadu, a region in southern India. “Milagu tannir,” which means pepper water, was how Tamil people described some versions of rasam; it morphed into mulligatawny when the British made it thick, chunky and meaty. In the cookbook “Classic Indian Cooking,” the author Julie Sahni wrote that she fell in love with mulligatawny when she first encountered it in Germany. “The present version bears no resemblance whatever to the traditional rasam,” she said, adding, “Because of its unorthodox origin, Indian cooks have had a field day exercising their creative genius with it.” This version is thickened with a roux, masoor dal and coconut milk, and bolstered with chicken thighs and tart apple. Curry powder is not a traditional Indian ingredient, but it reflects the dish’s British influence.
Salt and Pepper Tofu
The joy of Chinese salt and pepper tofu is the contrasting crispy-on-the-outside, pillowy-on-the-inside textures. There is no need to press the tofu — a quick pat down with a kitchen towel is all that’s needed — as the moisture actually helps to keep the interior soft and tender. While potato or tapioca starch is often used for a light batter, nothing beats the accessibility and affordability of cornstarch to produce an enviable crunch. There are many versions of salt and pepper seasoning in Chinese cuisine — some contain Sichuan peppercorns or fennel seeds — but in this recipe, a spicy-sweet combination of white pepper, sugar, ground ginger and five-spice powder shines (See Tip).
Caramelized Brussels Sprouts Pasta With Toasted Chickpeas
This fast and satisfying vegetarian weeknight pasta packs in a whole pound of brussels sprouts. The mountain of shredded sprouts may seem like a lot, but like spinach, it will cook down. As the sprouts soften, they caramelize and naturally sweeten, losing any hints of bitterness. Chickpeas are toasted in olive oil until deep golden brown, crispy in spots and super toasty. They bring a nutty, earthy flavor to the dish, complementing the tangy capers and lemony sauce. Leftovers are tasty enjoyed cold like pasta salad, added to a frittata, or sautéed in olive oil until golden and topped with a fried egg.
Maash Ki Daal
Commonly made in Punjab on both sides of the Pakistan-India border, maash ki daal has a delightfully chewy texture. The liquid to lentils ratio, heat and timing in its preparation result in a dry, al dente daal. Kashmiri red chile powder adds a kick, and Thai green chiles add a fresh, bright and crunchy heat. Garam masala takes these layers of heat to the next level. Lemon juice, ginger and cilantro provide enough relief until the next bite. Although it’s served most commonly with roti, store-bought pita or even rice will do just fine.
Lentil Soup With Smoked Sausage and Apples
Flavored with apple, sausage and mustard, this slightly creamy lentil soup strikes a nice balance between delicate and hearty. Small green lentils, or French lentils or lentils du Puy, are khaki-colored legumes that have a peppery flavor and keep their shape when cooked instead, which gives this soup an appealing texture. You can also use black lentils or easier-to-find brown lentils, but keep in mind that brown lentils will fall apart as they cook, creating a thicker stew. This soup takes only a few minutes to throw together, and most of the time is spent in hands-off simmering time, putting it within reach for a weeknight. It’s never necessary to soak lentils, as they cook relatively quickly. (You can find a slow cooker version of this recipe here.)
Ash Reshteh (Persian Greens, Bean and Noodle Soup)
Ash reshteh’s flavor is defined by two uniquely Persian ingredients: reshteh and kashk. The soup, served during the festivities leading up to Nowruz, the Persian New Year, wouldn’t be the same without the soup noodles called reshteh, which are saltier and starchier than Italian noodles — though you could substitute linguine in a pinch. Kashk, a form of drained yogurt or whey, is saltier and more sour than Greek yogurt or sour cream. More like feta than yogurt, liquid kashk gives ash its distinct, satisfying flavor. If you can’t find liquid kashk, buy it powdered and hydrate it with warm water to the consistency of sour cream. Look for both items at a Middle Eastern grocery.
Spicy Shrimp and Chickpea Salad
This warm salad of garlicky shrimp and herby chickpeas comes together in just 15 minutes and requires very little effort. Canned chickpeas, Fresno chiles, parsley and red onion get a quick marinade in a creamy citrus dressing while the shrimp cooks in a little garlic and olive oil. Fresno chile adds a little heat, but if you’re sensitive to spice, you can remove the membranes and seeds before adding the chile to the salad. Make the dish your own by adding arugula, or swap the parsley for cilantro or the shrimp for scallops. Serve warm with a hunk of crusty bread, and enjoy leftovers straight from the fridge the next day with a squeeze of lime or lemon juice.
Vegetable Tofu Curry
This one-pot vegetarian meal comes together quickly and leftovers keep for days. Creamy coconut milk is made up of fat and liquid from pressed coconut meat and this recipe delivers its full range of flavors. When you melt the solids from a can of coconut milk and keep cooking until the liquid evaporates, the oil eventually separates out and delivers toasty nuttiness. Here, onion — any kind — tenderizes in that tasty fat, and curry powder becomes more fragrant in it. Tofu soaks up the curry sauce while vegetables steam over the mixture, then everything gets stirred together. Experiment with whatever vegetables you have on hand, cooking them until tender.
Indian Butter Chickpeas
A vegetarian riff on Indian butter chicken, this fragrant stew is spiced with cinnamon, garam masala and fresh ginger, and is rich and creamy from the coconut milk. You could add cubed tofu here for a soft textural contrast, or cubed seitan for a chewy one. Or serve it as it is, over rice to catch every last drop of the glorious sauce. You won’t want to leave any behind.