Main Course
8665 recipes found
Tuna-Salad Sandwich, Julia Child Style
This was one of Julia Child’s favorite dishes for a working lunch. For decades, Julia was on the road more than she was home and, when she returned to her beloved kitchen, she craved simple foods. For Julia, the important ingredients for this sandwich were the tuna (it had to be packed in oil) and the mayo (she preferred Hellmann’s). Her longtime assistant, Stephanie Hersh, said, “The rest was up for grabs.” Make it with capers, cornichons and chopped onion, a squirt of lemon juice and some herbs, serve it open-face on an English muffin or between slices of white bread, and you’ll have Julia’s midday signature.
Kasha With Squash and Pomegranate
This salad works equally well with kasha or freekeh, both of which have a nutty-earthy flavor that serves as a great backdrop for sweet roasted butternut squash and sweet-tart, crunchy pomegranate seeds. Lately I have gotten into the habit of roasting diced butternut squash to keep on hand in the refrigerator for a few days; I usually don’t know in advance what I am going to use it for; then one night it finds its way into a salad like this one, the next night into a risotto, and so on until it is time to roast up another one. Four cups diced squash looks like a lot, but it reduces down to about 1 1/2 cups when you roast it, so you will use it up quickly (I use all of it, for example, in this salad).
Salmon in Parsley Sauce
Parsley is the herb taken for granted. A few sprigs solve the garnish problem. A scattering of chopped leaves enlivens almost any dish with a bright bit of green. But parsley can take a more assertive role, becoming the primary component of a sauce. Here, flat-leaf parsley is combined with capers, scallions and garlic to make a sharp, verdant sauce for salmon. It contrasts perfectly with the richness of the fish.
Mediterranean Fish Chowder With Potatoes and Kale
This brothy fish stew gets extra body and heft from the kale and potatoes, and a hint of the Mediterranean from thyme, parsley and bay leaf. The method is straightforward. First make a mirepoix of onion, celery and carrot. Add garlic, anchovies and parsley, followed by the tomatoes and paste, and finally the potatoes and bouquet garni. Simmer for 30 minutes while the kale is cooked separately, then add the fish. Take care not to overcook the fish — it’s done as soon as it flakes easily when you nudge it with a fork.
Bean Soup With Cabbage, Winter Squash and Farro
Wondering what else you can do with the cabbage and winter squash in that box of delivered produce? Here’s a meal in a bowl, perfect for a cold winter night.
Charred Cauliflower Stew
This vegetarian stew uses two different techniques — grilling (or broiling) and pickling — to coax the maximum amount of flavor from cauliflower. Charring the cauliflower before adding it to your stew delivers smoky depth; quick-pickling some grated cauliflower adds bright spikes of flavor that contrast nicely with everything else in the bowl.
Ande ki Kari (Eggs in Spicy Tomato Sauce)
In this classic Indian dish, adapted from the cookbook author Julie Sahni, hard-cooked eggs are swathed in a spicy tomato gravy fragrant with cardamom, cumin and cinnamon. Since garam masala spice blends vary in their chile content, sample yours before adding it to the sauce, then stir it in to taste. You can make the sauce and hard-cook the eggs a day ahead (store them in the refrigerator), but the eggs are best introduced to the pot just before serving; simply reheat them in the simmering sauce. You can serve the eggs over rice, or with flatbread on the side.
Baked Steel-Cut Oats With Nut Butter
For a simple, filling breakfast, baked steel-cut oatmeal, enriched with almond butter and cinnamon, is a go-to recipe. This version is particularly adaptable: Use peanut butter or almond butter, steel-cut or cracked oats, or any number of warming spices that might be in your cupboard. Then, garnish as you wish.
Corned Beef and Cabbage
The addition of potatoes and carrots makes this corned beef and cabbage recipe not only great on St. Patrick’s Day but a satisfying meal any day. Cure beef brisket in a salty, spiced brine and it becomes savory, tangy and aromatic corned beef. Get a corned beef made from flat-cut brisket, if you can, as it will be easier to slice into neat, uniform slabs. (The point cut has more striations of fat and may fall apart when sliced.) Braise the meat until tender, and add the vegetables toward the end of the braising time so they’ll absorb the beef juices and soften until perfectly crisp-tender. Finish the beef with a simple honey-mustard glaze and a quick broil to caramelize, then serve it with more Dijon mustard and beer. (Here are slow cooker and pressure cooker versions of the recipe.)
Homemade Corned Beef
“The reason to corn your own beef is flavor,” said Michael Ruhlman, a chef and passionate advocate of the process. He wrote about it with Brian Polcyn in their book, “Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing.” “You can achieve tastes that aren’t available in the mass produced versions,” he said. Feel free to experiment with the “pickling spices” called for below — you can customize them, if you like, from a base of coriander seeds, black peppercorns and garlic — but please do not omit the curing salt, which gives the meat immense flavor in addition to a reddish hue. (It’s perfectly safe, Mr. Ruhlman exhorts: “It’s not a chemical additive. Most of the nitrates we eat come in vegetables!”) Finally, if you want a traditional boiled dinner, slide quartered cabbage and some peeled carrots into the braise for the final hour or so of cooking. Or use the meat for Irish tacos.
Blueberry Oatmeal
You can make this oatmeal, which will take on a purple hue once the blueberries begin to burst, on top of the stove or in the microwave. It only takes about 10 minutes on top of the stove (five minutes in the microwave).
Japanese-Style Rice Salad
Whether it’s tender and tasty short-grain, astonishingly fragrant basmati or superchewy red, brown and black varieties, rice is one salad ingredient that does not deteriorate when dressed. It absorbs and thrives on the addition of liquids.
Vegan Catalan-Style Radicchio and White Beans
Roasted Salmon With Ginger-Lime Butter
Wild Pacific salmon is available in spring and summer, and the flavor is phenomenal. It definitely tastes better than farmed salmon and is always a better choice, sustainably speaking. Though it is expensive, think of it as a seasonal treat. Whether you choose wild king salmon, coho or sockeye, take care not to overcook it.
Carrots and Lentils in Olive Oil
This is an adaptation of a Turkish recipe, a sweet and savory combination of lentils, onions and carrots that can be served hot or at room temperature, as a main dish or a side.
Red Cabbage, Cilantro and Walnut Salad
This slaw, a mix of very thinly shredded red cabbage, cilantro, julienned radishes and walnuts, is a perfect sweet-nutty-salty-sour mix. Pair it with dumplings, or other dim sum, and it holds its own.
Mojo Turkey
This recipe nods to what happened when Cuban culture drifted onto the Thanksgiving tables of South Florida, with a bird dressed in a marinade of sour oranges (a mixture of orange and lime juice works as well) mixed with a lot of garlic and oregano. Serve the bird with black beans and white rice on the side — and a Key lime pie for dessert.
Chicken and Rice Soup With Ginger and Turmeric
Many countries have some form of creamy rice porridge in their culinary canon, such as Chinese congee, Filipino lugaw or arroz caldo and Korean juk, to name just a few. Seasonings vary, but all call for simmering a little bit of rice with a lot of liquid until the grains tenderize and break down to create a deeply comforting soup. Ideal for those harboring colds or seeking comfort, this brothy chicken-and-rice soup begins with poaching an entire chicken, which takes time, but guarantees tender meat. The rendered fat creates a rich, flavorful broth, while coriander and turmeric add earthy notes. Fresh cilantro, red chile and ginger brighten the dish.
Tomato Salad With Anchovy Toasts
Tomato salads are the ultimate summertime food. Ripe and sweet, tomatoes need little more than a good vinaigrette dressing. This salad has a niçoise bent, with anchovy toast and black olives.
Shepherd’s Pie
Shepherds are in the business of herding sheep, which makes lamb the most obvious choice for this shepherd's pie recipe, but ground beef is a tasty addition. The combination of ground lamb and ground beef is earthy and robust, and keeps lamb’s gaminess in check. Ground lamb tends to be fatty, so this recipe uses lean ground beef to compensate. If you prefer all beef, be sure to use something with a little more fat (and call it a cottage pie, if you like). And if you prefer all lamb, you may want to skim off some of the extra fat after browning the meat.
Vegetarian Tortilla Soup
This vegetarian version of tortilla soup is no less complex than its chicken counterpart, thanks to plenty of vegetables, spices and a secret ingredient: canned chipotles in adobo. Smoked and dried jalapeños softened in a vinegar-tomato mixture, these little powerhouses do much of the heavy lifting in this vegetarian soup, offering depth and a certain meatiness to an otherwise light and tangy broth.
Savory French Toast With Cherry Tomatoes and Basil
This is a no-recipe recipe, a recipe without an ingredients list or steps. It invites you to improvise in the kitchen. You know a stash of leftover bread makes the best French toast for breakfast, so it stands to reason that a savory version would be equally satisfying for the crew around your dinner table. At least that’s true in my house. Whisk the eggs as you usually would, but omit the sugar and cinnamon, hitting it instead with black pepper, chopped basil and a dash of hot sauce. Slide some slices of old bread in there to soak, then fry the toasts up in butter just as you would at breakfast. Scattering a few handfuls of halved cherry tomatoes into the pan as the bread cooks will yield a fine topping. Those who have doubted will doubt no more. 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.
Vegan Thai Curry Vegetables
Drew Spangler Faulkner, a cooking teacher at L’Academie de Cuisine in Bethesda, Md., makes a Thai green curry that is a kind of comfort food. The sauce, made creamy with coconut milk, and gently spicy with the curry paste, is flavorful yet soothing. The vegetables, which are simply dropped into the sauce, and gently simmered for about 12 minutes, turn out tender, not soggy. It is startlingly simple. She makes her own green curry paste, but the recipe calls for any one of three store bought pastes. Although some green curry pastes contain fish or shrimp paste, she has found three brands which do not: Thai Taste, Maesri and Thai Kitchen.
