Main Course
8665 recipes found
Manicotti
Manicotti are very large ridged pasta tubes that are stuffed and baked. The filling is a tasty combination of cheeses, often with the addition of ground meat or vegetables. In this simple weeknight version, the pasta is stuffed with a three-cheese filling flavored with garlic and nutmeg. Ricotta adds creaminess, mozzarella melts and binds, and Parmigiano-Reggiano adds nutty flavor and salinity. For ease and speed, this recipe suggests the use of store-bought marinara sauce. If you’d like to add some greens to the dish, thaw a 10-ounce package of frozen spinach, squeeze out all the water, then finely chop the spinach and add it to the filling before stuffing the manicotti.
Spicy Peanut and Pumpkin Soup
This recipe is a promise of warmth on those cool autumn nights. Habanero chiles and peanuts both feature heavily in Nigerian cuisine, and this soup is an adaptation of a long-simmered stew common to much of West Africa. Don’t be afraid of a chile with seeds: The fragrant oils from these peppers are worth every bite. The peanut butter and coconut milk mellow the warmth of the chile to a gentle, lingering heat, but you can also take the chile out before the soup is puréed. An optional spoon of honey to the soup will round out the flavors, and a dollop of crème fraîche or yogurt will further temper the heat. Serve with a baguette or sourdough bread for dipping.
San Francisco-Style Vietnamese American Garlic Noodles
These noodles, adapted from the cookbook "The Wok" by J. Kenji López-Alt, and based on the noodle dish originally created and served by Helene An at San Francisco’s Thanh Long restaurant, are extraordinarily simple and delicious on their own, but that doesn’t mean you can’t fancy them up a bit. They go very well with seafood, and some raw, shell-on shrimp stir-fried along with the garlic right from the start would be an excellent addition. Recently, I’ve taken to adding a few spoonfuls of tarako or mentaiko — Japanese salted pollock roe. Sushi-style flying fish roe (tobiko) or salmon roe (ikura) would also be a great addition, as would chunks of crab or lobster meat, or even Western-style caviar (if you’re feeling flush).
New Mexico Breakfast Burritos
The breakfast burrito is to New Mexico what the bagel is to New York, or the loco moco is to Hawaii; they are an important part of the state's culture. While you can find variations of the burrito in New Mexico and beyond, the non-negotiables are flour tortillas, scrambled eggs and New Mexico green chiles, a red chile sauce or both. (This variation is called “Christmas”). While wrapping eggs and other fillings in a tortilla likely goes back thousands of years, the breakfast burrito earned its place in New Mexican cuisine in the 1970s, when it was served handheld at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, and smothered with cheese and sauce at Tia Sophia’s, a restaurant in Santa Fe. To fit bacon, sausage, carne adovada or another protein, use less potato.
Bacon, Egg and Cheese Sandwich
For Millie Peartree, a chef and lifelong New Yorker, the bacon, egg and cheese “is everything you need: salty, crunchy, creamy, filling.” Because the iconic New York sandwich (which is also known as a “baconeggandcheese” or “B.E.C.” when you’re in a hurry), is made at thousands of carts and bodegas in all five boroughs, many locals wouldn’t think to cook one at home. But if you’re desperate for the resuscitation only a B.E.C. can provide, this homestyle adaptation delivers: gooey cheese, crispy bacon and eggs smushed between a buttered roll then wrapped tightly in foil. The only in-person experience you’ll miss is waving goodbye to the bodega’s owner and cat.
Greens and Beans With Toasted Crumbs
This light, plant-based main was inspired by a traditional cassoulet, a French slow-cooked casserole made with beans, pork and duck and simmered in duck fat. In this fast, vegetarian take, olive oil replaces the duck fat and chard stalks are cooked gently with scallion, garlic and thyme to create the flavor foundation. Summer vegetables are simmered in the infused olive oil until just tender, then served with toasted bread crumbs and fresh cracked pepper. The broth in this dish is the real star, so you will want lots of bread to soak it all up.
Denver Omelet
The Denver omelet — a diner classic of eggs, bell peppers, onions, ham and often cheese — actually began as a sandwich made with those ingredients in the American West in the late 19th century. Its exact origins are fuzzy, but some historians think it was a modification of egg foo yong made by Chinese laborers working the transcontinental railroad, or a scramble made by pioneers masking spoiled eggs with onions. (Bell peppers were likely a later addition.) When the sandwich became popular in Utah, it was named the Denver sandwich after Denver City, Utah. By the 1950s, the Denver was one of the most popular sandwiches around, and at some point in the mid-20th century, diners swapped the sandwich bun for a knife and fork.
Sheet-Pan Feta With Chickpeas and Tomatoes
In a spread of Greek appetizers, or meze, there’s often a warm feta dish like bouyiourdi (baked feta with tomato and hot peppers) or a saganaki (fried cheese). This recipe combines elements of these two classic appetizers into a sheet-pan meal. Softened feta provides a salty, creamy counterpoint to sweet, juicy tomatoes and chickpeas that are sticky from honey and spicy from dried chile. Try this version, then riff wildly: Switch out tomatoes for mini peppers, olives, dates or cauliflower. Swap the hot honey for anchovies, harissa, smoked paprika or turmeric. Eat with pita, grains, salad greens, hummus or yogurt.
Oklahoma Onion Burgers
Homer Davis and his son Ross invented what he called the Depression burger at the Hamburger Inn in El Reno, Okla., as a means to add inexpensive bulk to their burgers. Rather than toasting, the buns are steamed in onion-scented vapor. That the technique — cooking the patties smashed-style with a huge amount of thinly shaved onions and steaming the buns — and restaurant remain popular to this day is a testament to the burgers’ deliciousness. If you prefer, you can take the cooking (and the accompanying lingering onion aroma) completely out of the house by heating the skillet or griddle directly over a very hot grill and cooking outdoors (see Tip).
Pasta Salad
This pasta salad has everything you could want in the bowl: loads of ripe tomatoes, chunks of mozzarella, sliced olives, salami and plenty of fresh green herbs, all tossed in a garlicky, oregano-spiked red wine vinaigrette. Serve it the same day it’s made for the brightest flavor and best texture.
Chicken Thighs With Sour Cherries and Cucumber Yogurt
If you’re lucky enough to have more sour cherries than you need to make a pie, save them for this sweet and tangy chicken dish. The cherries are briefly simmered with sugar, vinegar and a bay leaf, then added to a sheet pan to roast alongside boneless, skinless chicken thighs and wedges of red onion. As they cook, the cherries absorb the chicken juices, becoming very savory and concentrated. Then, the whole thing is topped with dollops of cooling cucumber yogurt. Serve it with bread or rice to catch the juices at the bottom of the pan. If you can’t get sour cherries, you can substitute seedless red or green grapes.
Bulgogi-Style Tofu
This is a no-recipe recipe, a recipe without an ingredient list or steps. It invites you to improvise in the kitchen. Here's the prompt: bulgogi-style tofu. It’s simple. Press some firm tofu to extract as much liquid as you can. Make a marinade of soy sauce, brown sugar, sesame oil, minced garlic, grated ginger, a spoonful of gochujang, a splash of neutral oil, some sliced scallions and toasted sesame seeds. Slice the tofu into bite-size cubes, and slide them into the marinade. Let that sit — a half-hour works; a few hours works better. Then roast them in a hot oven on an oiled foil-lined pan until they’re crisp. Serve with bibb lettuce cups to wrap them in, with rice, kimchi and a dipping sauce of ssamjang and a little bit more gochujang thinned out with neutral oil and sherry vinegar. (If not, go with sesame oil and ground white pepper.) That’s a fine dinner. For more recipe recommendations from Sam Sifton, Melissa Clark and New York Times Cooking, sign up to receive the Cooking newsletter. You can find more no-recipe recipes here.
Shrimp Fried Rice
Inspired by the fire-kissed flavor of Japanese steakhouse and hibachi fare, especially at the Kani House restaurants in Georgia, this quick fried-rice dish is a veritable comfort. Frying the shrimp first in oil, just until they’re cooked, and reserving them to add back at the end means they stay tender. Plus, you’re left with the most aromatic shrimp oil in which to fry the rice and vegetables. The shortcut of bagged frozen mixed vegetables comes in handy here, not least because they need only to be thawed by the skillet’s high heat. The yum yum sauce, a mayo-ketchup dipping sauce that is ordinarily reserved for grilled hibachi meats, tastes fabulous splattered over the finished rice — not unlike how the artist Jackson Pollock flung paint on canvas.
Budae Jjigae
Though it stems from the Korean War, budae jjigae — or “army base stew,” named after the leftover United States Army rations that make it up — is a symbol of resourcefulness and survival during a time of great poverty. The fiery broth is fortified with kimchi, gochujang and an assortment of flavorful sausages. Hot dogs are common, but kielbasa, breakfast sausage and Italian sausage all lend their own special character to the final broth, so use what you like. Arrange the ingredients in the pot in sections, and don’t stir too much while cooking: The joy of eating a big, burbling budae jjigae is reaching for your favorite part of the stew. For many, it’s the Spam, both salty and sweet; for others, it’s the American-cheese-laden noodles, bouncy with chew. Serve this soul-warming stew family style, with white rice to balance its punchy flavors. (Watch the video of Eric Kim making budae jjigae here.)
Chebureki
Chebureki are the southern Ukrainian branch of the global family of empanadas, potstickers, pasties and salteñas — dough pockets filled with meat and deep-fried until golden and juicy. A blistered, chewy crust is the sign of a really good cheburek according to Olga Koutseridi, who grew up in Mariupol, Ukraine, and adapted this recipe for her home kitchen in Austin, Texas. The dough for this recipe is relatively stiff, which means it will take a bit of time to mix it by hand. You could also use a stand mixer, but your mixer may struggle. After the first few, these pies become much easier to assemble, and you can roll and fill the next one while one is frying. It is best to fry one or two at a time, which helps control the oil temperature and ensures the freshest chebureki. They should be eaten within just a few minutes of their emergence from the fryer.
Borsch With Fish
Every Ukrainian family has its own style of borsch. Olga Koutseridi, who grew up in Mariupol, is a historian and collector of Ukrainian recipes; she’s documented more than 70 recipes, including her mother’s “tomato-centric and cabbage-centric” borsch, as well as this version often eaten in Mariupol. Borsch with fish is traditional in southern Ukraine, where Black Sea ports like Mariupol and Odessa have relied on fishing since ancient times. Modern cooks often use canned versions of local species like anchovies, gobies and sprats. With bell peppers and carrots along with the usual beets and cabbage, this soup is hearty and chunky, but also very light.
Fish Sticks With Peas
Two childhood classics — fish sticks and green peas — find their rightful place back at the dinner table for eaters of all ages to enjoy in this wholesome weeknight meal. The fish stick, coined “the ocean’s hot dog” by the historian Joseph Peterson, was first manufactured by Gorton’s, the Massachusetts seafood company, in 1953. It soon became popular as a tasty and effortless family meal for Americans wary of cooking fresh fish at home. The key to flavorful homemade fish sticks is to season them well every step of the way. Here, turmeric provides the nostalgic yellow tint while adding a warm, earthy flavor to meaty cod fillets (or any firm white fish). The accompanying peas get a lift from tangy lemon zest and fresh mint, and red-pepper flakes provide just enough heat to liven up your taste buds and dinner plates. Serve with tartar sauce for dipping and lemon wedges.
Huevos Rancheros
Eggs “rancher’s style” is a traditional, hearty Mexican breakfast typically enjoyed after a hard morning’s work. But huevos rancheros also makes for a satisfying and comforting weeknight dinner. The simple yet flavorful homemade salsa comes together quickly and is smartly used in three ways: a quick simmer transforms the salsa into the warm ranchero sauce; it adds a zesty flavor that shines through in the smoky refried beans; and it gives a final fresh finish as a tangy topping. Any leftover ranchero sauce and refried beans make for great dips the next day.
Emily Meggett’s Crab Cakes
Mace, nutmeg’s peppery sister, is what makes the difference in these crab cakes. The recipe, adapted from “Gullah Geechee Home Cooking: Recipes From the Matriarch of Edisto Island,” comes from Emily Meggett, one of the most well-respected cooks in the Gullah Geechee community, whose food traditions are built largely on the crabs, shrimp and fish they pull from the water near their homes along the southeastern shoreline. She has made thousands of these using freshly cooked blue crabs, but meat that has already been picked and processed works as well. Be sparing with the bread crumbs, which should just hold the mixture together, then add more if the cakes are falling apart. Make sure the pan is very hot, then reduce the heat the minute they hit the oil. Keep a close eye while they brown. These are lovely bites to start a meal, or can star as supper, alongside rice and fresh vegetables. Ms. Meggett serves them with what she calls pink sauce, which is similar to this sauce, with the addition of grated onion and lemon.
Cioppino
The cioppino at Anchor Oyster Bar in San Francisco is a showstopper — a beautiful, long-simmered tomato sauce thinned with clam juice and packed with a mix of excellent seafood. Work with whatever seafood is best where you are, though Dungeness crab in the shell is nonnegotiable for the Anchor’s owner and chef, Roseann Grimm, the granddaughter of an Italian crab fisherman. Replicating her dish at home involves a lot of work, but the results are beyond delicious. To get ahead, you can make the marinara base and roasted garlic butter up to a couple days before. A half hour or so before you’re ready to sit down and eat, bake the garlic bread and cook the seafood. Don’t forget crab crackers — you’ll need them at the table to get to the crab meat — and plenty of napkins!
Honey Ham
A little honey soaks into the slices and crackles on the brown sugar crust of this celebration ham, which ends up with a just-right salty-sweetness. Gently simmering presliced ham on the stovetop before blasting it quickly in a hot oven to caramelize its honey-mustard coating keeps the meat moist and makes it intensely flavorful all the way through. Warming a sliced ham with only an oven bake invariably dries it out and takes a long time. This faster method will give you a juicy ham with the surprising piney perfume of juniper berries and the warmth of cloves. You can double the ingredients below for a spiral-sliced half-ham and use a bigger pot. Leftovers make stellar sandwiches or a perfect filling for an omelet.
Pad Thai
Pad Thai is Thailand’s national dish, but not because it is traditional. The government codified it in the 1930s as a way of encouraging national pride in the unique ingredients of Thailand. It has been adopted and adapted all over the country, but one constant is that the dish is made almost entirely of long-lasting ingredients like rice noodles and tamarind, making it easy on the home cook. The savory, tart sauce is very simple to assemble, and it lasts well in the fridge. Watcharee Limanon, a cooking teacher in Yarmouth, Maine, who shared this recipe, said that although salty dried shrimp are used in the original recipe, many Thai cooks (and most of her students) now prefer fresh shrimp.
Oxtail and Butter Beans
This hearty, warming recipe is inspired by Jamaican and West Indian oxtail stews. Oxtail is a cut that benefits from a long cook time: Here, it falls off the bone and is surrounded by an incredibly rich gravy with a lot of body. Worcestershire sauce is traditional and balances the dish’s earthy, spicy and sweet flavors. The butter beans add a slight bite to counter the tender meat. But back to that gravy: Sop it up with naan or roti, or serve it over coconut rice and peas. (Watch the video of Millie Peartree making oxtail and butter beans here.)
Roasted Orange Chicken
Whole tangerines, peel and all, roast alongside chicken in a sweetened soy sauce that thickens into a glaze and lacquers the bird. The fruit wedges soften in the syrupy sauce while infusing it with their floral bittersweetness. Reminiscent of savory Cantonese soy sauce chicken and tangy American Chinese orange chicken, this dish also combines the warmth of ginger with the bit of heat from ground hot chiles. You can eat the tangerine wedges along with the chicken, which is delicious with its sauce over steamed rice or boiled noodles. Serve with stir-fried brussels sprouts or bok choy.