Main Course
8665 recipes found

Turkey Burgers
Turkey burgers are much leaner than hamburgers, but they can be dry and dull. Moisten them by adding ketchup and a bit of grated onion to the ground turkey — or mayonnaise and a bit of mustard. The idea is to emphasize condiments, and keep the turkey moist.

Jerk Chicken
Done right, jerk chicken is one of the great barbecue traditions of the world, up there with Texas brisket and Chinese char siu. It is Jamaica to the bone, aromatic and smoky, sweet but insistently hot. All of its traditional ingredients grow in the island’s lush green interior: fresh ginger, thyme and scallions; Scotch bonnet peppers; and the sweet wood of the allspice tree, which burns to a fragrant smoke. “It’s not a sauce, it’s a procedure,” Jerome Williams, a Jamaican-born Brooklyn resident, told The Times in 2008 on a Sunday in Prospect Park, where families arrive as early as 6 a.m. for lakeside grilling spots, a few of which are actually authorized by the parks department. “It has to be hot, but it cannot only be hot, or you get no joy from it.” This recipe delivers that joy.

Pasta With Roasted Garlic, Pancetta and Arugula
For this pasta, garlic is roasted in the oven to bring out its sweetness, then sautéed with bold flavors: salty pancetta, fiery chile flakes and a squeeze of lemon. Chopped peppery arugula and a pound of penne round out the dish. It takes 40 minutes to an hour to roast the garlic, but you can do it a day in advance, and it is worth it for the final, honeyed results.

Octopus, Galician Style

Lemon Chicken

Pancakes
The basic pancake is made from a simple batter of eggs, flour, milk and baking powder for leavening. You can use different types of flour if you want to experiment with whole wheat or buckwheat. And you can also add fruit to the mixture. You might also enjoy this video of the recipe, which walks through a few variations. The batter can be made from scratch in about the same time it takes to make toast. The most time-consuming part of making pancakes, of course, is cooking them. But that time is so short you should consider these an everyday convenience food, not a special-occasion feast. Cook this recipe a few times and it may become part of your weekly routine. —Sam Sifton

Baked Macaroni and Cheese With Bread Crumbs

Frankies Spuntino Pork Braciole
Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli, who own the Frankies Spuntino restaurants in New York, prefer to keep it mellow. "I cooked on the line for 18 years," Mr. Falcinelli told The Times. Mr. Castronovo, equally low-key, said, "We like to take the easy approach." That means many of their dishes, like vegetable antipasti, grilled meats and wine-stewed prunes, are cooked well ahead and assembled to order or served at room temperature. In this version of braciola, the meat rolls are covered with canned tomatoes that become sauce as the meat cooks. "My grandfather calls it gravy," Mr. Falcinelli said. "For the Sunday sauce, you do spareribs, sausage, meatballs, braciola." The Franks’ version is lighter, meant to be eaten with salad and bread, not steaming pasta. Leftovers are good for sandwiches the following day.

Whole Brisket With Tomato Gravy

Roasted Fresh Ham
This is a huge piece of meat that is simple to prepare and inevitably leads to applause and awe. A fresh ham weighing in at north of 15 pound yields the variety of doneness needed for a big party of eaters: well-done white meat, pink slices for the medium-rare crowd, and crispy fat and dark-meat bits from the shank for those who like to snack. If there are leftovers the next day, carve the rest of the meat from the bone and make yourself a phenomenal ham sandwich. Then use the bones for stock and soup!

Moroccan Leg of Lamb With Mint Dressing
When a large crowd is coming over, it’s easy for panic to set in, as the Lee brothers discussed in the 2006 article accompanying this recipe. Their solution? Cooking a big cut of meat. For their first attempt, they looked to lamb, specifically this Moroccan lamb, coated with harissa, lemon zest and juice (which they used as a substitute for preserved lemons), and cured before roasting. The end result, served with a mint dressing, and perhaps a side of couscous or even mashed potatoes, is a satisfying show-stopper.

Shad With Morels

Garlic Soup With Poached Eggs

Salmon With Yogurt-Curry Sauce
With its rich flesh, salmon is so strongly flavored that you can pair it with just about anything. Here I cook it with a yogurt sauce that contains just chopped cucumber and spices. If you use farmed salmon and a nonstick skillet, you won't even need to add any fat. That's because farmed salmon is so high in fat (fattier than wild salmon, and it's the beneficial omega-3 type, too) that it's difficult to overcook. This is not to say you can put it on the stove and walk away, but that precision is a goal rather than a necessity. Even if you like your fish cooked through, the result will be a piece of meat that still has a fair amount of moisture in it.

Pan-Seared Halibut With Olive Oil Potatoes

Chicken Tagine With Peppers and Chickpeas

Rawia Bishara's Vegetarian Musaqa

Maple-Glazed Meatloaf
A mixture of maple syrup and Dijon mustard coats this hearty meatloaf of beef, pork and veal.

Braised Pork With Red Wine
This easy recipe can be made in a saucepan, Dutch oven or slow cooker. The long simmer gives the pork shoulder, an inexpensive but versatile cut, a chance to absorb the robust flavors of red wine, carrot and garlic that it’s cooked alongside. Serve it over egg noodles and topped with parsley for a hearty, satisfying dinner.

Crab Cakes With Crystal Beurre Blanc
This recipe came to The Times in 2006 from the Upperline restaurant in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. One bright light after the storms was an unexpected windfall in crab. The storms stirred up the marshes and shook up lots of food, so these crab cakes are made with an ice cream scoop and not a spoon. The real gem of the dish is the Crystal beurre blanc, an idea that mixes high French culinary canon with down-and-dirty New Orleans heat. Crystal Hot Sauce has long adorned many a table in New Orleans. It is more vinegary than Tabasco, which is too hot for this recipe. Baumer Foods had been making Crystal Hot Sauce for more than eight decades when the storms hit. Its New Orleans plant was flooded so badly that it was not reopened, but other bottlers kept Crystal on the shelves until the company could move into its new home, about a half hour’s drive from its damaged factory.

Roasted Winter Squash With Seared Cod
Roasting slices of winter squash with nothing more than butter or oil is very effective. It's a preparation that can form the basis of a main dish (as it does here, with cod) or stand alone, especially when sprinkled with a dusting of a good spice mixture.

Rabbit Ragu With Pappardelle

Spiced Crumbed Mackerel with Smoked Paprika

Sweet Potato and Chickpea Curry
This is a warming rather than hot curry. You can taste the spices and enjoy their aromatic fullness. The ginger, chile and pepper flakes provide heat, while the coriander and cumin add a pleasurable earthiness. Meanwhile, the sweetness of the coconut milk, heightened by the soothing starchiness of the sweet potatoes, has as a counterpoint the fierce tang of tamarind. As a side dish, this recipe would be fine without the chickpeas, but as a meal, along with rice and maybe some steamed broccolini, they add heft and, if you're interested, protein.