Main Course
8665 recipes found
Lentils Diavolo
Lentils, like beans, soak up whatever flavors they’re cooked in. Here, it’s a chile oil made with both dried and fresh chiles, so it’s devilishly spiced — not just spicy. Simmer the lentils in the potent oil and some tomato paste until they’re glossy and tender, rich and spicy as you’d expect from a diavolo-style sauce. (Add more water if you’re after more of a quasi-chili.) Eat the lentils with a spray of lemon juice, parsley and-or bread crumbs on toast, grains, pasta, a sweet potato, bitter greens or all on their own. The lentils will keep for up to 4 days in the fridge; reheat over low heat or in the microwave loosened with a little water.
Couscous Salad With Turmeric, Chickpea 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.
Korean Meatballs and Noodles
This kalbi meatball recipe, adapted from the cookbook “Koreatown,” is easy and quick enough to consider for midweek dinner. It offers the sweetly peppered, deeply satisfying flavors typical of many Korean dishes, and gives new personality to everyday spaghetti and meatballs. My favorite utensil for making ground meat mixtures, by the way, is an old-fashioned potato masher. The book suggests wrapping the meatballs in lettuce, but I tossed them with noodles in a sauce that exploited the brown bits left in the cooking of the meatballs.
Rice Noodles With Egg Drop Gravy
This recipe is reminiscent of wat tan hor, a Cantonese, Singaporean and Malaysian meat and fresh rice noodle dish that’s topped with a silky egg gravy. Wat tan means “smooth egg” in Cantonese, describing the velvety gravy that smothers the noodles. In this vegetarian riff, pantry-friendly dry rice noodles are used. The silky texture of the sauce is achieved by adding cornstarch slurry, a common technique in Chinese cooking, followed by beaten eggs, which cook the moment they hit the hot gravy and become long, irregular strands. For extra heartiness, add slices of pan-fried tofu or extra vegetables like broccoli or cauliflower.
Turkey Pho
A play on the Vietnamese chicken noodle soup, this clear broth, paired with rice noodles and flavored with charred onions and ginger, star anise, brown sugar and fish sauce, comes served with a platter of fresh garnishes. But this is more than your basic noodle soup: A spritz of lime at the end adds some tang, and mung beans and Thai basil a crunchy bite.
Vegetable Tabbouleh With Chickpeas
This vegetable-packed salad requires no cooking, other than boiling water to soak the bulgur wheat. Sweet tomatoes, crunchy cucumbers and crisp asparagus provide texture, while creamy chickpeas add heft. A tangy shallot-lemon vinaigrette brightens the dish and soaks into the bulgur as it sits, developing more flavor over time. The salad can be made a few hours ahead; for best results, toss the salad with half of the dressing and reserve the remaining half. When ready to serve, toss with the reserved dressing to freshen it up. It’s a satisfying vegetarian main, a great side for roasted meats and fish, or an easy make-ahead picnic dish.
Winter Squash and Rice Soup with Pancetta
Hearty, comforting, sweet and savory, this soup has a brothy rice base that’s great for any season. Inspired by the asparagus, rice and pancetta soup from San Francisco’s Zuni Café, where the late Judy Rodgers first put it on the menu in the springtime, this soup takes equal advantage of seasonal and pantry ingredients. This adaptation turns jasmine rice into a warming, brothy foundation for squash that’s been roasted until caramelized, and bits of salty pancetta. Winter's glut of squash makes this soup ideal for the cooler months of the year, but in the spring, try this with asparagus (and maybe some dill, too) like the original, or in the summer with chopped tomatoes and basil.
Baked Farro With Lentils, Tomato and Feta
This cold-weather comfort food is loaded with bright flavors and delightful textures. Farro and lentils cook in the same amount of time, so you can bake them together in a garlicky tomato sauce to yield silky, tender lentils and chewy, toothsome farro. For an extra nutty flavor, you can toast the farro first. To finish the dish, place large slices of feta on top and broil until the cheese slouches in the center and crisps at the edges, but you can also use mozzarella or Cheddar.
Smoky Roasted Chickpeas With Lemon-Garlic Mayonnaise
This recipe is inspired by the popular Spanish tapa patatas bravas, or papas bravas, crispy potatoes that are typically served with a paprika-stained sauce or a garlic aioli. Here, chickpeas crisped in the oven instead of the fryer are seasoned with smoked paprika and ground cayenne, then swaddled in a garlicky mayonnaise cut with lemon. Eat half a batch of these chickpeas for a great dinner, or eat them over lemon-dressed lettuces or parsley, steamed greens, pasta, toast or a fried egg. You can also roast another vegetable with the chickpeas, like cauliflower, broccoli, potatoes or carrots for a complete one-pan meal.
Dami-yeh Gojeh Nokhod Farangi (Tomato-Egg Rice)
This comforting Iranian dami (rice cooked with vegetables) bridges the transition between spring and summer with early tomatoes and perennial frozen green peas — but tastes great any time of year. Dami-style rice is stickier than other Iranian rice dishes. Delicately scented with turmeric and cinnamon, it is often served with eggs on the side. This version cooks the eggs whole in their shells on top of the rice to make for a one-pot meal.
Lentils With Chorizo, Greens and Yellow Rice
Interpretations of beans and rice — a humble, hearty, filling and delicious meal — are found throughout the world, made with various types of dried bean (sometimes called peas). In many versions, the cooked rice and beans are folded together in the pot. Others, like this one, serve the rice on the side. Here, lentils are cooked Spanish-style, with chorizo and greens for a thick stew. If you want it to be soupier, thin it with a little water or broth, and feel free to omit the sausage to make it vegetarian.
Olive Oil-Braised Chickpeas and Broccoli Rabe
Braising in a pool of olive oil can turn tough ingredients creamy and luxurious without any of your attention. Canned chickpeas turn buttery-soft, and broccoli rabe’s bitterness succumbs to an oil seasoned with garlic, rosemary, chile and fennel seeds. Speaking of that oil, it’s as much a reason to braise as the silky chickpeas and rabe themselves. Soak it all up with crusty bread, or ladle it over pasta, yogurt, feta or mozzarella. The underpinnings of this recipe — chickpeas, vegetables, olive oil and seasonings — also make it great to riff on. Consider simmering chickpeas and olive oil with carrots, harissa and black olives; cherry tomatoes, thyme and lemon slices; or potatoes, shallots and cumin seeds.
Linguine With Chickpeas, Broccoli and Ricotta
The broiler is an unsung kitchen hero because it imparts a flavorful char in half the time that grilling takes. In this 20-minute recipe, kale, broccoli and chickpeas crisp under the broiler while the pasta water boils. Make sure to spread out the vegetables and chickpeas so they have room to caramelize properly instead of steaming (the more crunchy bits, the better). Finish by tossing the pasta and vegetables with a quick sauce of butter, lemon zest and fresh ricotta, a rich and creamy complement to the charred vegetables. Enjoy with crusty bread, good wine and a sense of accomplishment — you just got dinner on the table in under a half hour.
Chickpea Stew With Orzo and Mustard Greens
A complex and colorful chickpea stew, this is rich with vegetables, olive oil and Parmesan cheese. You can vary the vegetables to use what you’ve got. Here, I keep to the basics, adding carrots for sweetness, fennel or celery for depth, cherry tomatoes for looks. Tender greens, wilted into the bubbling mixture at the end, are optional, but they do add a bright, almost herbal note. I particularly love using baby mustard greens, which are pleasantly peppery. But spinach, arugula and kale work well, too.
Red Beans and Rice
Every Monday, you can find a pot of red beans and rice cooking in someone’s kitchen in New Orleans. The food writer and New Orleans bon vivant Pableaux Johnson’s house is no exception. The dish, an easy meal from when people used to reserve Monday to do the wash, was once made with the pork bone left over from Sunday supper. In this version, Mr. Johnson strongly encourages the use of hand-made Louisiana andouille, but smoked sausage will do.
Spicy Pan-Fried Noodles
Garlicky, gingery and as spicy as you dare to make it, this Asian-influenced pan-fried noodle dish comes together in minutes. Most of the ingredients are pantry staples, which means you can make it whenever you need a comforting noodle dish that comes with a bite. If you can’t find the Chinese egg noodles (also called Hong Kong-style noodles), you can make this with rice noodles or soba. The key is to only boil them until they are halfway done. (They should be pliable but still firm in the center.) They will finish cooking when you pan-fry them.
Curry Udon
Japanese curry bricks deserve their place in our pantries as a staple — inexpensive, with a long shelf life, and full of fast flavor. For those without easy access to store-bought curry bricks, you can make your own or opt for this recipe, in which a quick roux is made using a commercial curry powder blend. A Japanese brand like S&B is ideal, though most products labeled “curry powder” will work. If you have curry bricks in your pantry, you can use them and skip to Step 4, but note the package instructions to determine how many bricks to use. This recipe makes a thick, silky broth that clings ardently to the chubby udon noodles. Potatoes, carrots and onions are common ingredients used in Japanese curry, and while the spinach is not traditional, it adds a nice green element; substitute with broccoli, baby bok choy or kale if you prefer.
Rice Noodles With Garlicky Cashew Sauce
This dish is loosely based on an Indo-Chinese garlic noodle dish. Here, a combination of Italian and Chinese condiments like cashews, Parmesan, soy sauce and anchovies create a creamy, umami-rich garlic sauce. This recipe uses rice noodles, but you could use egg noodles, ramen or any type of noodle. Since Parmesan, anchovies and soy sauce tend to fall on the saltier side, taste as you go and season the sauce accordingly. Feel free to reduce the amount of garlic, as it leans toward the generous side. These noodles are best eaten warm as soon as they’re mixed with the sauce.
Pasta With Chickpeas and a Negroni
This is a no-recipe recipe, a recipe without an ingredients list or steps. It invites you to improvise in the kitchen. A drink before dinner? Make a Negroni, then pasta with chickpeas and tomato sauce. First, the Negroni: one part gin, one part sweet vermouth, one part Campari, stirred with ice then strained over ice and garnished with orange peel. Sip! Then peel and chop an onion and sauté it in olive oil with a few cloves of smashed garlic and a spray of salt and pepper. Have another hit of Negroni. When the mixture has just started to brown, add a tablespoon of tomato paste and a 28-ounce can of chopped tomatoes, along with a stick of cinnamon. Stir and simmer away for 10 minutes or so, longer if you can, then add enough cream or half-and-half so that the sauce turns softer in color, running to pink. Meanwhile, boil some salted water and prepare your favorite pasta (I like shells for this application) until it is just al dente. Drain, then toss in a 14-ounce can of drained chickpeas and stir the whole thing into the tomato sauce, topping with chopped parsley and a sprinkle of red-pepper flakes. Finish that Negroni. Eat. Sam Sifton features a no-recipe recipe every Wednesday in his What to Cook newsletter. Sign up to receive it. You can find more no-recipe recipes here.
Avgolemono Rice
This avgolemono rice uses lamb stock because we love its connection to the roast leg of lamb at Easter, but you can happily use chicken stock at any time of year. The rice is cooked “pasta style,” in plenty of boiling salted water and drained when done, which is how we cook rice pretty much all the time now, dodging the sometimes mushy, sometimes waterlogged, sometimes al dente results of the usual cooking method. The egg-lemon sauce is tart and creamy at the same time, a unique richness without any cream or butter, that is killer almost anywhere it lands, from warm asparagus, to gently roasted salmon, to cold poached chicken, to steamed artichokes, even to orzo pasta.
Riso al Forno With Crab and Shrimp
For a casually elegant dinner, this rice casserole fits the bill for a crowd-pleasing main course. It’s generous in the kind of meat you use and its timing: You can use any kind of shellfish, including shrimp or lobster, and you don’t serve it directly from the pot, so there’s no urgency. You can cook the rice and fold in the shellfish up to 2 hours in advance of serving, then top with shrimp and crumbs, and bake.
Instant Pot Tomato-Braised Chickpeas With Tahini
Perfumed with cinnamon, cumin and turmeric, and drizzled with a creamy, garlicky tahini sauce, these tomato-braised chickpeas make for a complex, satisfying meatless meal, especially when served with warm flatbread for dipping into the sauce. If you are starting with soaked and drained chickpeas, reduce the water to about 1 1/2 cups — just enough to cover them — then cook on high pressure for 13 minutes instead of 35.
Baked Rice With Slow-Roasted Tomatoes and Garlic
Baking rice on a bed of tender vegetables has to be one of the most fail-safe ways to prepare it. Here tangy-sweet tomatoes, garlic and shallots are slowly roasted in olive oil with cinnamon and thyme, then baked with basmati rice until everything is fragrant and soft. Adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi’s cookbook, “Ottolenghi Simple,” it makes a spectacular side dish to pan-seared meats or fish, or can be the heart of a vegetarian meal with some crumbled feta and pine nuts sprinkled on top for serving.
Vietnamese Lemongrass Beef and Noodle Salad
Bun bo xao, a zesty stir-fry of marinated beef hot from the wok paired with room temperature rice noodles, makes a satisfying main-course salad year-round. Dressed with a classic Vietnamese dipping sauce and topped with roasted peanuts, the flavors are clean, bright and restorative. Yes, this recipe calls for a lot of ingredients, but the prep is simple, and it’s an easy introduction to Vietnam cooking for the uninitiated.