Main Course
8665 recipes found
Potato-Cheddar Soup With Quick-Pickled Jalapeños
If cheesy mashed potatoes became a cozy soup, it would be this. It’s rich but not excessive, hearty but not heavy, and spiked with a little chili powder and some garlic to liven it up. The homemade pickled jalapeños give this a bright tang that perks up every creamy bite. Quick and easy to make, the jalapeños are leagues better than anything in a jar, and leftovers are excellent in sandwiches or scrambled into eggs.
Handmade Lasagna Sheets
There’s nothing quite like lasagna made with thin, silky sheets of fresh pasta. The noodles absorb the sauces as the dish bakes, and everything separate becomes one. Each bite will melt in your mouth. When rolling out the dough, sprinkle generously with flour to prevent sticking. And if you can’t cook the pasta right away, make sure to spread flour abundantly between each sheet because the longer it sits, the more it will threaten to stick back together. If after assembling the lasagna you are left with uncooked sheets of pasta, cut them into noodles, toss with flour, and freeze on a baking sheet in a single layer before transferring into a freezer bag. Freeze for up to a month, and to cook, just drop into boiling, salted water.
Baked Alfredo Pasta With Broccoli Rabe and Lemon
One of the great things about baked pastas is that you can get two different textures in one dish. Take the typical pasta Alfredo that's prepared in a skillet: It’s delightfully creamy and lush, but the same, bite after bite. But add a green vegetable to that Alfredo pasta, pile it into a dish, top it with melty cheese and a crunchy bread crumbs, then bake it, and you get a vegetarian dinner that's got it all. If broccoli rabe isn't your thing, you can substitute cut asparagus or broccoli florets.
Potato Nik
After living in what must have seemed like every neighborhood in three boroughs, my mother’s parents, in their old-ish age, settled in Astoria, which is where I spent almost all the Thanksgivings of my childhood. Thanksgiving was always (in my memory) gray and blustery, and my grandmother’s kitchen, steamy. She produced, almost solo, the traditionally ridiculous abundance of food, including my favorite, the potato “nik,” a huge latke fried in chicken fat until really brown, and as crisp as perfectly done shoestring fries. I still make this, and so can you.
Chole (Tangy Chickpeas With Tomatoes and Black Tea)
Chana masala, or chickpeas with spiced tomato gravy, has regional variations all over India; chole is a related, but specifically Punjabi, dish from northern India. It’s ubiquitous at snack shops and often served alongside bhatura, a puffed fried bread. While chole is traditionally made with dried chickpeas, canned chickpeas streamline cooking on a weeknight. Chole has numerous versions, but it is characterized by a rich, tangy flavor from black tea and amchur powder, which is made from green mango.
Lasagna With Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Carrots
A crowd-pleasing dish with endless varieties. If you are ever in doubt about what sort of casserole to make ahead for a crowd, make lasagna. There are so many versions that will please children and grown-ups, lacto-vegetarians and meat eaters. I like to tuck roasted vegetables into the layers of pasta, marinara sauce, Parmesan and ricotta. In this rendition I used brussels sprouts and carrots; the sprouts are slightly bitter and the carrots sweet. I sliced the brussels sprouts about the same width as the carrots and roasted the two together. Before you begin to assemble your lasagna it helps to be organized about the quantities of each element that you will need for the layers. It is very frustrating to get to the last layer of your casserole and not have enough sauce for the top.
Lentil Soup With Chipotles
Chipotles in adobo add a wonderful smoky-spicy element to this lentil soup. Lentils combine well with smoky flavors — that’s why they’re so often cooked with sausage or bacon.
Chickpea Orzo Salad With Harissa-Roasted Eggplant
Where a typical potluck pasta salad is creamy and mayonnaise-rich, this one is vegetable-forward, crunchy and spicy. The heat comes from harissa, a North African paste typically made with red and hot peppers, and spices like coriander, caraway and cumin, which is used to marinate the vegetables and to dress the salad. Offset some of the intensity with mild mozzarella cheese, deeply toasted walnuts and salty bright-green olives, and no one will miss your great aunt’s bowties.
Roasted Carrot and Red Lentil Ragout
Somehow, over the centuries, the word ragout (which in 17th-century France meant anything that stimulated appetite) has come to signify a dish of sturdy consolation. Nearly any simmered food, be it meat, vegetable, fish or fowl, can be called a ragout, although in France, it is generally assumed that the main ingredients will be of a uniform chunk cut into slightly smaller than bite-size pieces. This spicy carrot and lentil ragout can be served first as a main course and later extended with coconut milk or chicken broth to make a soup. Serve it over rice to temper the heat.
Masoor Dal (Spiced Red Lentils)
What I have come to understand is that how food looks as you prepare it can make as much difference to the cook as it does, on the plate, to the person who gets to eat it. When the skies are drab and life feels a little gray, I am absurdly cheered by the fresh brightness of a vibrantly orange dal, a red lentil stew spiced with turmeric, chili and ginger, and colored with sweet potatoes and tomatoes. Just seeing that mixture in the pan lifts my spirits. It helps that a dal is simple to make: a bit of chopping and the stew all but cooks itself. And it can be made in advance and then reheated, always a bonus. This dal makes a wonderful, exuberant partner to broiled salmon, but I love it without meat, too, when I partner it with my “bright rice.”
Any Vegetable Soup
When it comes to stocking the pantry with root vegetables, most people stop with potatoes (regular and sweet), carrots, onions and garlic. And those are excellent to have on hand. But there are loads of other, more neglected roots, like rutabagas, turnips, radishes and celery root, worth having on hand. All root vegetables will keep for months in a cool, dark place, and they come in very handy, whether you want to roast up a bunch with olive oil and spices, or you want to make them into soup. This soup may not be the most beautiful of dishes, but it's hearty and nourishing, and highly adaptable, easily made with just about any root vegetables you have on hand.
Feta-Stuffed Grilled Flatbread
Stuffing flatbread with feta and herbs adds great flavor and an herbal, creamy surprise if you don’t know what’s in them. Feel free to use this recipe as a jumping off point for your own stuffings. The honeyed, whole-wheat-flecked dough works especially well with strong flavors like olives, capers, anchovies and other cheeses. Or skip the stuffing and grill up this dough all by itself. The basil oil makes a great dipping sauce with both stuffed and unstuffed flatbreads.
Portobello Mushroom Cheeseburgers
Large portobello mushrooms are perfect burger material, just the right size for a meaty and satisfying meal. I like them best with Gruyère cheese on top.
Beef and Broccoli
Here is a streamlined, powerfully flavorful recipe for a delivery-food standby: velvety wok-fried beef in a oyster-soy sauce, served in a forest of green. ‘‘It’s diaspora food,’’ the chef Jonathan Wu told me, describing the cooking of Chinese immigrants to the United States and a dish that is almost unknown in China but beloved in America. The recipe is a version of the one Wu’s mother made for dinner when he was growing up outside Hartford, Conn., with a little chile-garlic paste added for zip and, thanks to the Brooklyn chef Dale Talde, a pat of butter swirled into the sauce at the end. This provides a plush gloss that is far better than the traditional cornstarch slurry. It is midweek family cooking at its best.
Swiss Chard Slab Pie
This crowd-pleasing recipe by Justin Chapple comes from Kristin Donnelly's book "Modern Potluck" and makes the most of Swiss chard, using both leaves and stems to fill a vegetarian slab pie with a buttery, peppery crust. That filling, tangy with reduced white wine and bound with sour cream, tastes just as good warm as it does cold, and can feed a crowd any time of day. Note: Wash leaves and stems thoroughly to avoid any traces of grit in the finished pie.
Stuffed Shells Filled With Spinach and Ricotta
These are comforting and easy to put together. You can make them ahead and heat them in the oven when you’re ready for dinner.
Lasagna With Spinach and Wild Mushrooms
Mushrooms enrich this classic spinach lasagna, a family favorite and a great do ahead dish. I like juicy wild mushrooms like maitakes or oyster mushrooms for this. I also prefer bunch spinach to the baby variety, because baby spinach can be a bit stringy when you cook it (however you will be chopping it and blending it into the ricotta here so perhaps that isn’t such an issue). Before you begin to assemble your lasagna it helps to be organized about the quantities of each element that you will need for the layers. It is very frustrating to get to the last layer of your casserole and not have enough sauce for the top.
Pizza on the Grill
Pizzas made on the grill are really more like topped flatbreads. They get plenty of direct heat, so the surfaces brown nicely, but not enough ambient heat, even with the lid closed, for a crumb to develop on the rim of the pizza. Stretch out or roll the dough very thin, with no raised edge, so that the pizzas won’t have a doughy texture. It’s much easier to work with smaller pies, and it’s important that you don’t weigh down your pizzas with ingredients, especially marinara sauce, or they’ll be difficult to get on and off the grill and they’ll be soggy. A thin layer of marinara — 1/4 cup — will be plenty for a 10-inch disk.
French Lentils with Chard
This hearty one-dish vegetarian meal is meant to appeal to families that include a mix of meat-eaters and vegetarians. A great pot of beans or lentils, even when you add to it a bunch of chard from the farmers’ market, costs no more than $4 to make, and it feeds four to six people. This combo of lentils and greens is inspired by a classic preparation for the tasty French Le Puy green lentils that traditionally includes salt pork and/or bacon and sausage. For this vegetarian version, I don’t insist on Le Puy lentils, although I highly recommend them. Meat eaters in the family might want to accompany this with sausage, cooked separately or with the lentils. I recommend topping the lentils with goat cheese or feta.
Cheesy Pan Pizza
This recipe for a crisp, cheesy pan pizza was developed by Charlotte Rutledge, along with her team of test cooks at King Arthur Flour’s rigorous test kitchen in Vermont. It uses a number of simple techniques to achieve maximum texture and flavor. The dough is folded a few times before it goes in the fridge for a long rest, which develops its flavor and airiness. Cooking the pizza in cast iron gets the edges brown and crackling, and layering the cheese and sauce creates an extra cheesy top with no soggy layer. Make it once in its simplest form, then use the model to play around with the fermentation time and toppings.
Spiced Chickpea Stew With Coconut and Turmeric
Spiced chickpeas are crisped in olive oil, then simmered in a garlicky coconut milk for an insanely creamy, basically-good-for-you stew that evokes stews found in South India and parts of the Caribbean. While the chickpeas alone would be good as a side dish, they are further simmered with stock, bolstered with dark, leafy greens of your choosing and finished with a handful of fresh mint. When shopping, be sure to avoid low-fat coconut milk, coconut milk meant for drinking or cream of coconut: All are very different and would not be suitable here.
Whole Roasted Cauliflower With Pistachio Pesto
Whole roasted cauliflower is a sight to behold and never fails to delight, especially when it’s topped with a verdant blend of herbs and pistachios. This version delivers a browned cauliflower that ends up soft enough — custardy almost — to serve with a spoon. And it all comes together in one pan, with water added right to the skillet to steam and soften the cauliflower while it roasts over caramelized onions. Sprinkling some Parmesan on top is a nice way to finish this dish.
Lasagna With Roasted Kabocha Squash and Béchamel
This rich-tasting lasagna is inspired by my favorite northern Italian pumpkin-filled ravioli. It would make a terrific vegetarian item on a Thanksgiving buffet. Making the lasagna is not time-consuming if you use no-boil lasagna noodles. Be sure to season the squash well as you assemble this
Marinated Grilled Vegetables
You’ll always want a batch of these around: From the vegetables you grill to the seasonings you use, this recipe is endlessly adaptable. It also keeps for a few days and has so many applications. After the vegetables come off the grill, they soak in a piquant bath of coarse mustard, shallot and vinegar, though you could adjust flavorings as you wish: Add fresh or dried chile; thyme or rosemary; anchovy or capers; or a protein like feta, cubed salami, tofu or chickpeas. Then, use these deeply flavored vegetables on sandwiches, grilled bread, salads, frittatas, alongside grilled meat or fish, and so on.