Main Course
8665 recipes found
Chicken Paprikash
Spices lose their flavor over time but few as quickly as paprika, which starts out tasting of pepper and sunshine but deteriorates in but a few months to sawdust and bitterness. For this recipe, get some new at the market: sweet or hot Hungarian paprika is best, but the generic article isn’t terrible and the smoky Spanish varieties known as pimentón de La Vera would not be out of place either, lending a deep, woodsy aroma reminiscent of cooking over an open fire. It’s a dish that pairs beautifully with butter-slicked egg noodles.
Beef With Horseradish-Beet Aioli
For this modern take on traditional boiled beef, a beef fillet is very gently simmered (never boiled) with root vegetables in stock, then sliced up rosy rare and dolloped with a homemade horseradish aioli and some flaky sea salt. It’s piquant, juicy and on the lighter side of a beefy main course. Tenderloin works best here, but it's not generally considered kosher, so if you are making it for Passover, Rosh Hashana or another Jewish holiday, use a boneless rib roast or center cut London broil. The magenta-colored beet horseradish keeps in the fridge for weeks, and it's also great on roast beef sandwiches.
Stuffed Calamari
Long a star on Camille Orrichio Loccisano’s traditional Italian-American Feast of the Seven Fishes table, these stuffed squid were also a hit at her restaurant, the appropriately named Casa Calamari. After a slow simmer in briny tomato sauce, diced shrimp and peppery crumbs plump up into a rich stuffing that fills tender calamari bodies; they're like seafood dumplings in reverse.
Jajangmyeon
This dish is a Koreanified take on the fried sauce noodles served in the Shandong province of China. It occupies a similar place in Korean cuisine to the one General Tso’s chicken has in American food: a birth-country meal translated to accommodate the too-tired-to-cook takeout tastes of a host nation. It is milder than the Chinese original, a little more porky, the sort of dish you’ll have people asking you to make once or twice a month. You’ll need thick white-wheat noodles, like udon, and some of the Korean black-bean paste known as chunjang, available at Korean markets and online. If you can’t find pickled daikon to serve as a garnish, some raw onions dressed in vinegar will make a fine alternative.
Springtime Spaghetti Carbonara
This lighter, brighter version of the classic Italian pasta dish is adapted from one found in “Almost Meatless: Recipes That Are Better for Your Health and the Planet” by Joy Manning and Tara Mataraza Desmond. It is incredibly simple – if you can chop vegetables, boil water and whisk eggs, you can make this dish – but it's also indubitably luxurious. Everyone will think you slaved for hours when, really, you slaved for about 20 minutes. Timing is everything in this recipe, so be sure to bring your eggs to room temperature before you start, and have all of the ingredients ready before you toss the pasta in the water.
Winter Citrus Salad With Belgian Endive
Late winter really is the time for the best citrus. Produce markets have piles of blood oranges, as well as navel and cara cara oranges and grapefruit, the flesh of each in different vivid brilliant colors. For this salad, use as many kinds of citrus as possible. If you can find pomelos, they add their own kind of sweet tanginess. The combined flavor of sweet and sour citrus, fruity olive oil and coarse salt is seductive.
Cod Cakes
Cod cakes are terrific with cod, but can be made with any white-fleshed fish. Poach the fillets in bay-leaf-scented water, then flake the cooled meat into a New Englandish mirepoix of sautéed onions and celery. Eggs and cracker crumbs will help bind everything together below a drift of spice. Make sure to leave some time to chill the resulting patties in the refrigerator – the cold will help them set up so they don’t fall apart in the sauté pan. A light smear of mayonnaise on the exterior of the cakes before you fry them will encourage the most glorious crust. Serve with a thatch of green salad, a bowl of chowder or a neat pile of slaw.
Japanese Chicken and Root Vegetable Stew
This vegetable-rich stew is based on a Japanese nimono, a simmered dish flavored with kombu, soy sauce and dried shiitake mushroom caps. Although the ingredients may take some searching (check Japanese or Asian markets, or online), the cooking itself is no harder than the usual chicken soup, and the results are just as comforting. You can substitute other root vegetables for the ones called for here. Just make sure to add the sturdier chunks first (taro, celery root, burdock, kohlrabi, turnip, beets) so they have enough time to cook before adding the quicker-cooking ones (turnips, sweet potatoes, winter squash). If you want to make this vegetarian, you can leave out the chicken. It works equally well. Adding cubes of tofu or pieces of fish or seafood during the last few minutes of cooking is also a nice way to go.
Oven-Roasted Chicken Shawarma
Here is a recipe for an oven-roasted version of the flavorful street-side classic usually cooked on a rotisserie. It is perfect for an evening with family and friends. Serve with pita and tahini, chopped cucumbers and tomatoes, some olives, chopped parsley, some feta, fried eggplant, hummus swirled with harissa, rice or rice pilaf. You can make the white sauce that traditionally accompanies it by cutting plain yogurt with mayonnaise and lemon juice, and flecking it with garlic. For a red to offset it, simmer ketchup with crushed red pepper and a hit of red-wine vinegar until it goes syrupy and thick, or just use your favorite hot sauce instead.
Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms
Portobello mushrooms are a great option for a vegan or vegetarian main course, because they are large enough to fill a plate, and can be stuffed with a variety of flavors. For reader Dianne Wenz of West Orange, small stuffed mushrooms were always a holiday side dish -- until the year she decided not to serve them. "I didn't make them one year, thinking no one would notice, but my dinner guests were disappointed that they were missing from the holiday table,” said Ms. Wenz. “To make up for it, the following year I made jumbo portobellos stuffed with beans, spinach, and I made them the star attraction of the meal."
Squash, Eggplant and Tomato Tian
If you’re looking for a colorful dish to brighten your holiday table, try this simple and elegant Vegetable Tian. Reader Deborah Lee Liberatore, of Fernandina Beach, Fla. is a vegan who serves this dish to her guests. Yellow squash, eggplant, zucchini, and tomatoes are basted with olive oil, flavored with herbs and roasted to perfection. Non-vegans can top with parmesan cheese. “It is delicious and so pretty with all of the colors of the rainbow,’’ says Ms. Liberatore.
Artichoke Torte
This simple but substantive vegetarian dish came to The Times from Carol Lamont in 2015 when the Well blog invited readers to share their favorite meatless Thanksgiving recipes. Yes, artichokes are not in season in the fall, but frozen work beautifully here.
Twice-Baked Butternut Squash With Cashew Cheese, Walnuts and Cranberries
The dish from Caitlin Galer-Unti, a vegan food blogger, is stuffed with cashew cheese, nuts and cranberries. It would make a great main or side.
Kasha Caliente
It was a love of kasha and memories of family that inspired Nancy Jane Richer of Knoxville, Tenn., to create this holiday recipe. Ms. Richer’s father loved kasha and died on Thanksgiving more than a decade ago. Recently, Ms. Richer spotted wild turkeys in her winter vegetable garden. For her, it felt like a message. “It was a magical omen,” Ms. Richer said. The result is this spicy take on kasha, created in memory of Ms. Richer’s parents. The dish is robust enough to eat as a vegetarian main course, but also tempting as a side dish for everyone at the table.
Mushroom Chickpea Hazelnut Tart
Savory pies and tarts are go-to dishes at Thanksgiving. They can be made well in advance and they make a great main course for guests who are not eating turkey. We chose this recipe from Kathy Patalsky, a vegan blogger in Los Angeles, to represent the savory pie in our Vegetarian Thanksgiving series. We liked that it was easy (she suggests a pre-made crust) and the hazelnuts make it a great option for the winter holidays as well. “These flavors are rustic, filling, cozy and festive,” Ms. Patalsky wrote. “I adore pot pies and tarts for main dish entrees. You can easily slice them like pies and serve to guests in an elegant way."
Festive Thanksgiving Torte
As a transplanted American living in Paris, Ann Schreifels had the task of hosting Thanksgiving, a holiday the locals didn't celebrate, in a city that is arguably the culinary capital of the world, to a guest list that included meat eaters and vegans. Her solution: Try to please everyone. "The result was accolades from around the table," says Ms. Schreifels. "And every time I serve it (and I mean every) someone asks for the recipe and says, 'I'm going to serve this to my family and see if they can tell it doesn't have meat in it.'"
Stuffed Delicata Squash With Lentils and Cashew Raita
Delicata is a light yellow squash with green stripes and a creamy, rich texture. One of the best things about delicata is that it’s much easier to clean, cut and cook than butternut or other winter squash varieties. Hannah Kaminsky of Fairfield, Conn., creator of the My Sweet Vegan blog, was inspired by the tubelike shape of the delicata. “Each perfect yellow and green-striped edible tube becomes an ideal vessel for every sort of filling imaginable, no matter how you cut or cook it,” said Ms. Kaminsky.
Eggplant Walnut Ricotta Rolls With Fresh Greens and Basil Salad
If you're looking to wow your crowd this Thanksgiving, consider these festive eggplant rolls. Courtesy of reader Christine Vartanian Datian of Las Vegas, these decadent rolls of Japanese eggplant strips, ricotta and walnuts are colorful and tasty, with an added crunch. Ms. Datian said the dish is influenced by her Armenian heritage. Sometimes she substitutes almonds or pecans for the walnuts and sour cream for the ricotta, depending on her guests, but her preference is the combination of walnuts and ricotta, layered on the strips of Japanese eggplant. She serves it as both an appetizer and a main course, next to a fig and basil salad and with a variety of California red and white wines. She garnishes the dish with parsley and green onions to add more color. "It's very, very pretty," said Ms. Datian. "The ricotta and the walnuts with the crunch factor -- people like it, and children like it too."
Vegan Acorn Squash Burgers With Cranberries and Pecans
Bailey Rae, a Nashville-based vegan food blogger, created this fall-themed veggie burger with acorn squash, dried cranberries, toasted pecans and oats. You have to bake the squash and caramelize the onions, but once those steps are out of the way, it's an easy dish to put together.
Salt-and-Pepper Roast Chicken
Calling for just four ingredients – chicken, salt, pepper and whatever herbs you have around – this is a recipe for roast chicken at its simplest and best. The method is fairly straightforward. You season the bird, then roast it at high heat until the skin is bronzed and crisp and the flesh juicy. If you have time to season the chicken ahead, you should; it makes a difference in flavor. And bear in mind, if you have the kind of oven that starts smoking at high heat, you can cook your bird at 400 degrees instead of 450, though you’ll need an extra 5 to 20 minutes to get it done.
Garlic Soup With Pasta and Peas
This garlic soup, which is based on a Provençal recipe, requires a minimal number of the staples that I always have on hand. It calls for garlic; eggs; some sort of pasta; a green vegetable that can be as simple as the limp bunch of broccoli in my crisper or, as I use in this recipe, frozen peas; and Parmesan or Gruyère for the garnish.
Miso Chicken
Making a compound of unsalted butter and the salty, fungal deliciousness of Japanese miso paste is a surefire way of adding immense flavor to a simple weeknight meal. Here the mixture is spread over chicken thighs, which are then roasted to golden perfection. But you could easily use it on salmon or flounder, on corn or potatoes. The recipe calls for white miso, which is more mild than the aged version known as red miso. But you could certainly use red for a more intense result.
Meatballs With Any Meat
Making great meatballs is all about memorizing a basic ratio that you can adjust to suit your taste. Start with a pound of ground meat — any kind will work, even fish if you want to take it in that direction. Add 1/2 cup bread crumbs for lightness, a teaspoon of salt, and an egg to bind it together. That’s all you need. Pepper and other spices, chopped herbs and minced allium (garlic, onion, scallions or shallot) can be added to taste. Then broil or fry as you like. Why You Should Trust This Recipe Melissa Clark, a food writer for more than 25 years, creates her fresh takes on classic recipes by trying at least half a dozen different approaches. A professional recipe tester then makes her recipe a minimum of three times (and sometimes more than 12) to ensure it’ll come out perfectly for all home cooks. For these meatballs, Melissa tinkered with ratios of seasonings to breadcrumbs to ensure the formula works with any type of ground meat.
Roast Chickens With Plums
This recipe, which roasts two chickens at the same time, has been engineered to feed a crowd. It's no harder than roasting one chicken. The birds get rubbed down with a garlicky sumac spice rub brightened with lemon zest. Then, as they cook, their fragrant drippings season sliced plums roasting in the pan underneath them, which caramelize into a fruity, chutney-like sauce. Feel free to halve the recipe if you’d rather, but be sure to reduce the oven temperature to 425 degrees. For two chickens you need the higher heat so they both crisp properly, but for only one chicken, slightly lower heat keeps the plums from burning.