Main Course
8665 recipes found
Braised Chicken With Tomato and Potatoes
Long-simmered to a tender, falling-off the-bone state, this braised chicken is fragrant with smoky paprika and cumin. This dish aims to be Spanish chicken in salsa brava, but the addition of ancho chiles, traditionally used in Mexican cooking, lends a bit more heat. Along with a splash of wine and chopped tomato, it is hearty and warming, with a ruddy red sauce. Make the dish a day in advance, if you can; the longer it sits in the sauce, the deeper the flavor will be.
Naengmyeon (Cold Noodles in Chilled Beef Broth)
The secret ingredient to mul naengmyeon, the North Korean cold noodle dish that is now a staple in South Korea and the world, is the mul — water. Whether in the form of dongchimi (radish water kimchi) broth or cold water from your tap or fridge, H2O is a powerful ingredient: When mixed with a rich beef yuksu, the brothy foundation of this dish, then frozen for a couple of hours, it becomes a savory slushy that makes the cold, chewy buckwheat noodles taste even more alchemically divine. This recipe is dense, there’s no doubt about that, but it’s the real deal, and comes from the family behind Olle restaurant in New York City. The main lesson of naengmyeon is that most of the work happens on the front end. Once you have the broth made and the toppings assembled, for the next few days, your meals will be sorted — a bowl of naengmyeon available to you at the drop of a hat, the mere boil of a noodle.
Turkey, Farro and Chickpea Soup
Filled with spices and nubby with grains and beans, this easy soup is a satisfying way to use up as much of your leftover Thanksgiving turkey as you’re willing to spare from future sandwiches. Pearled or semi-pearled farro will soften in about half an hour, but you can use other grains here as long as you adjust the cooking time. White rice will be ready in 15 to 20 minutes, while brown rice and barley need about 45 minutes to an hour. (You might need to add a little water if the liquid level in the pot reduces too much.) And if you want to make this aromatic soup when you don’t have leftover turkey on hand, cooked chicken is a perfect substitute.
Thanksgiving Leftovers Hot Pockets
Wrapping up Thanksgiving leftovers in store-bought pizza dough and baking it all together creates a hand-held pielike treat that’s somewhere between a calzone and one of those Costco chicken bakes. This recipe calls for stuffing, roasted sweet potatoes, turkey and cranberry sauce, but it would work equally well with leftover green bean casserole, mashed potatoes or sweet potatoes, roasted brussels sprouts (chopped or sliced into small pieces) or squash. If it tastes good together on your Thanksgiving plate, it’ll taste good baked into a pocket. You can use homemade, store-bought or canned pizza dough here, but homemade or store-bought will give you the best texture and flavor.
Mongolian Beef
Despite its name, this simple stir-fry of sliced beef coated in a velvety and sweet sesame-soy sauce didn’t originate in Mongolia. Wu Zhaonan, a Chinese comedian who fled Beijing when the communist party took over in 1949, opened a tea shop in Taipei, Taiwan, where he served Beijing-style barbecue in which meat and vegetables are cooked on a high-heat griddle. Political reasons prevented the use of the Chinese city in the name, so he called it Mongolian barbecue instead. (Actual Mongolian barbecue is called khorkhog.) The dish eventually made its way to the United States in the 1960s, where restaurants made use of giant flat-top grills, often a focal point of the dining experience. This rendition of Mongolian beef calls for flank steak and uses soy, sesame oil, brown sugar, mirin and a significant amount of chiles. Serve it over a bowl of steamed jasmine rice to balance out the intense flavors.
Quinoa
Quinoa is a small but mighty seed: Hearty, plump, protein-rich and gluten-free, use it as you might use rice or whole grains in salads and soups, or as a side. A ratio of one part quinoa to one-and-a-half parts water will create quinoa that’s fluffy with enough bite to maintain its shape. It’s important to rinse and dry the quinoa before cooking to remove its naturally occurring bitter, soapy coating. Optionally, you can also toast the quinoa — as with nuts or sesame seeds — to enhance the seeds’ nuttiness. Cooked and cooled quinoa will keep refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
Spicy Roasted Mushrooms With Polenta
Packed full of umami, roasted mushrooms and tomatoes are coated in a fresh, fragrant Sichuan chile oil and served on top of creamy polenta in this midweek dinner hit. The oil can be made ahead, and will continue to develop in flavor. Make extra, as you’ll want to drizzle it over your eggs in the morning. Try using a variety of mushrooms — some oyster mushrooms torn into chunks, or portobellos cut into thick slices — but do make sure to slice them to the same thickness so that they cook evenly as they roast. The mixture is perched on a very simple polenta, but feel free to add butter, milk and cheese to it for a bit of extra indulgence.
One-Pan Pork Tenderloin With Mushrooms
When pork tenderloin roasts with mushrooms in the same skillet, the results are deeply delicious. The pork’s garlic, rosemary and fennel coating mingles with the crisping mushrooms, which grow rich and savory cooking in a knob of butter — exactly what the lean meat needs. Tearing a variety of mushrooms into ragged pieces creates a mix of textures with little effort. To double the recipe, sear the tenderloins and mushrooms in batches in a skillet, then transfer everything to a sheet pan to roast. Serve with couscous and a green salad.
Quinoa Salad
This bright, crunchy and hearty quinoa salad is inspired by the flavors and textures of tabbouleh and Greek salad. Quinoa, cucumbers, bell pepper, olives, lots of parsley and an assertive lemon-garlic dressing make it a filling and protein-rich vegan lunch, or a great side for grilled chicken, seared fish or spiced chickpeas. Feel free to add other briny, creamy, snappy or herbaceous ingredients, such as feta, avocado, torn romaine leaves or fresh mint. The salad will keep for up to 2 days refrigerated; refresh with salt and lemon juice before eating as flavors may become muted in the fridge.
Crispy Ginger Sticky Rice
Inspired by a Chinese classic that translates to “flavorful rice,” this dish lives up to the name. Chewy sticky rice has a natural faint sweetness and here it goes savory with bacon and mushrooms. A heaping mound of ginger sizzles in oil to mellow its sharp, hot bite to a fragrant crisp. Speckled throughout the rice, the ginger offers a tiny crunch and surprising pop of warmth. You can keep the rice warm for an hour on the stovetop or for a few hours longer if you return it to the rice cooker and turn on the warm setting. Stir in the ginger just before serving to keep it crispy. Serve it as stuffing in a Thanksgiving spread, with other dishes for a feast or simply on its own.
Baked Brie and Caramelized Vegetable Pie
A vegetarian centerpiece inspired by baked Brie, this caramelized vegetable pie cuddles creamy, earthy molten cheese with a bevy of autumnal vegetables: roasted butternut squash, seared mushrooms, herbed brussels sprouts and tangy red onions, and enrobes the whole mixture in store-bought puff pastry. It’s significantly less work than this mushroom Wellington, but has a similar ceremonial pomp, with a delightful big reveal. Developed with ease in mind, this savory pie benefits from being prepared in advance: Cook the individual components at your leisure, even a few days in advance, and you’ll need only to assemble the pie and bake it off before dinner. This pie is relatively easy to engineer but it does require some patience. You’ll want to let it rest 30 minutes to 1 hour before cutting, to allow the puff pastry to maintain its structure — and for the cheese to firm up a bit before carving.
Easy Thanksgiving Turkey
Roasting a Thanksgiving turkey can get complicated, but with so many other dishes to prepare, the best approach is to keep it simple and focus on sound technique, such as choosing a smaller bird, then thoroughly seasoning it, roasting it from room temperature so it cooks evenly and letting it rest sufficiently before slicing. It may not produce a burnished, show-stopping whole bird, but the results will be juicy, flavorful and never overcooked. If you need more servings, roast two birds. (Watch Claire make Thanksgiving dinner from start to finish on YouTube.)
Lomo Saltado (Tomato Beef Stir-Fry)
Lomo saltado might be the most well-known and beloved example of Chifa cuisine, a hybrid of Peruvian and Chinese culinary traditions. It’s a quick stir-fry made with marinated beef, juicy tomatoes, sautéed red onion, sweet peppers and potatoes or French fries, all tossed in a chile-and-soy-based sauce. Rice is served alongside to help soak up the bountiful sauce. A fresh, fruity, vibrantly yellow tropical chile called aji amarillo is usually called for, but this recipe calls for aji amarillo paste, which is more widely available. (Serrano chile works here, too.) Lomo saltado often has a subtle smoky flavor from engulfing the steak and sauce with flames in a wok, often with the South American brandy called pisco. This recipe is streamlined for home cooks, but if you’re familiar and comfortable with the technique, you may want to try it out.
Deep-Fried Turkey
Deep frying a turkey can seem daunting, but it is incredibly simple and produces a superior turkey that is unexpectedly juicy and far more forgiving in far less time than conventional roasting. It is equipment heavy, yes. Buying a “rig” — the large pot, propane hub and hooks — is your best bet, because it gives you everything you need to complete the task without much fuss. (Here’s the turkey fryer Wirecutter recommends.) Some contain a thermometer to clip to the pot. If not, you will need one, along with one to check the bird. And yes, there will be a lot of oil left over to contend with (see Tips). But once you accept those two things, the path to a truly delicious turkey is easy. Keys to This Recipe How long does it take to deep fry a turkey? The oil should get to 350 degrees in anywhere from 15 minutes to more than a half-hour, depending on the weather and how strong your propane hub is. Frying in peanut oil is the classic way, but any vegetable oil with a high smoke point can work. When you slowly lower the turkey into the oil (with the propane off!) the temperature will drop. Frying at about 325 is optimum. Start checking the bird’s temperature at about the 30-minute mark. When the temperature of the breast reaches 155 degrees, turn off the propane and then remove the turkey to a sheet pan. The interior will continue to cook. Make sure to let it rest for at least 30 minutes; carving it too soon will release steam which means you will lose all that great moisture that comes with deep frying a turkey. How to set up equipment for deep-frying turkey: To start, find an even place outdoors to set up the frying rig away from any structures. Gravel or cement is great. A level patch of lawn will work. A piece of cardboard or tarp under the propane hub can help catch drips. Have safety equipment including heat-resistant cooking gloves and a fire extinguisher nearby and you’ll be ready to fry.
Sweet Potato Hash With Tofu
Hash, which comes from the French word for “chop,” can be made of any number of meats and proteins that cook and crisp on the stovetop. One of the most common might be corned beef and potato hash, but this recipe is more hands-off: It cooks on a sheet pan. This vegan hash is sweet, smoky and spicy, with cubes of sweet potato, tofu, peppers and onions. The potatoes and tofu are spunky with chili powder and crisp from cornstarch. Serve the dish for breakfast or dinner, with vinegary red onions for crunch, plus your favorite hash toppings.
Butternut Squash and Goat Cheese Galette
This savory galette has a secret layer of herbed goat cheese underneath a pile of sweet butternut squash, savory herbs and smoked paprika. The key is to slice the squash nice and thin, so it has time to bake through as the crust gets golden and crisp. Though you could use store-bought pie crust for this recipe (see Tip), the homemade crust is flakier and tastes much more delicious. If you are making your own crust, make sure to leave some time for it to chill and relax; it will be much easier to roll out and will bake up light and flaky. Serve the galette warm or at room temperature, with a green salad on the side.
Make-Ahead Roast Turkey
Roasting a spatchcocked turkey in a very hot oven, then reheating at a more moderate temperature is the key to success in this make-ahead recipe. The spatchcocked turkey fares far better than a whole bird when reheated. Its flat shape reheats evenly so the breast doesn’t dry out, and it’s easier to fit into both your oven and fridge. And since you reheat at a convenient 350 degrees, you might be able to reheat or bake other dishes in the oven at the same time. Note that it does take about as long to reheat the bird as it does to roast it in the first place (at 450 degrees), which is something to consider if you have flexibility on Thanksgiving Day.
Orange Chicken
In 1987, chef Andy Kao and Andrew Cherng, a founder and chairman of Panda Express, developed orange chicken, a dish of fried chicken pieces coated in a sticky citrus sauce. The top-selling dish was inspired by a Taiwanese fried chicken dish, a Sichuan beef stir-fry with dried tangerine peels and the sweet-and-sour flavors popular in the Jiangsu region of China. In this version, boneless, skinless chicken thighs are coated in cornstarch, deep-fried until crisp, then tossed in a sweet and tangy sauce made with fresh orange juice. Adjust the heat to your preference with crushed red pepper, and serve over a bed of fluffy jasmine rice.
Orzotto Alla Carbonara
This carbonara swaps out spaghetti for smooth, velvety orzo. It’s up to you how much you want to treat this eggy, peppery comfort like pasta or like risotto, where orzo is used like rice (minus all that stirring). For more of a risotto flavor, you could cook a finely diced shallot, maybe even some celery or celery seed, in the guanciale fat before adding the orzo, then add a splash of white wine. This creamy pantry dish is best eaten right off the heat, but it is odd how, even straight out of the fridge, it still stays glossy somehow, like a dreamy pasta salad.
Gumbo
While there are no hard and set rules, it’s generally agreed that roux and the “holy trinity” of celery, onion and green bell pepper are the foundation of gumbo, a pleasantly spicy, thick soup that was declared Louisiana’s official state dish in 2004. From there, gumbo can include a wide range of meat, seafood and vegetables. (Chicken, andouille sausage and shrimp are highlighted in this version.) The roux — a combination of vegetable oil and flour, in this case — takes time and patience, as it needs to be continuously stirred to achieve a deep shade of brown. To break up the work, the roux can be prepared up to a week in advance, and the gumbo can be made the day before eating. (Second-day gumbo has an even deeper flavor.) Filè powder, which is ground sassafras leaves found in the spice aisle or online, is optional, but if using, sprinkle some over each bowl, or stir it into the pot off the heat to thicken and flavor the soup.
Hot and Tangy Buffalo Salmon
Imbued with the hot, sharp flavors of Buffalo wings, this salmon dinner can be ready in the time it takes you to hang your hat, wash up and pour yourself a cold lager. Glossed with a buttery, vinegary hot sauce and bejeweled with crunchy celery and blue cheese, this weeknight fish dish is a straight shot to Nickel City magic.
Turkey Soup
This simple, comforting soup is an easy way to use up leftover Thanksgiving turkey. If you’re feeling up to it, make your own homemade turkey stock, or use store-bought for a quick dinner and a respite after a marathon of holiday cooking. If you happen to have leftover gravy, add a bit at the very end of cooking for a silky richness and deeper flavor. Like many soups, this one freezes well, though you might need to add a splash of broth or water when reheating, as the pasta will continue to absorb the broth as it sits (see Tip).
Coq au Vin Blanc Meatballs
Coq au vin blanc, a creamy, delicate French dish, is very different from the classic coq au vin made with red wine. Turning it into an easy skillet dinner of chicken meatballs in mushroom sauce is the kind of trick that has made Half Baked Harvest a wildly popular recipe site in the last decade. Tieghan Gerard, its creator, is a home cook from a big family who has sold millions of cookbooks. The meatballs are seasoned just with salt and pepper, making them superquick, but the sauce is spiked with enough herbs, white wine and Dijon mustard to give the dish depth. You can easily substitute ground turkey.
Bangers and Mash
The “bangers” in this classic British pub dish get their name from English sausages during World War I. Made with filler ingredients and a high water content, they would often explode, or “bang,” when cooked. The name as well as the appeal of this comforting dish stuck. Any sausages will work here, but pork sausages provide the most flavorful pan drippings for the onion gravy, the rich, brown sauce that really makes bangers and mash special. Serve with steamed peas or roasted broccoli on the side.