Side Dish
4106 recipes found
Cucumber Salad With Roasted Peanuts and Chile
Easy to assemble but far from basic, this cucumber salad delivers a riot of flavors and textures with snappy cucumbers, velvety peanut sauce, crunchy cilantro-peanut topping and zingy chile oil. The details make all the difference: First, salting the cucumbers mutes the fruit’s subtly bitter notes while heightening flavor. Next, the simple peanut sauce adds richness to the cool cucumbers. (Make a large batch and store it in the fridge to drizzle over vegetables, chicken and salads.) Finally, a flurry of finely chopped peanuts, cilantro and red-pepper flakes gets dusted over the salad in layers to disperse flavor.
Cucumber-Avocado Salad
Crunchy cucumbers and creamy avocados are the stars of this simple five-ingredient salad. Peeling the cucumbers in alternating stripes helps them soak up seasonings while maintaining their shape. After being cut into bite-size pieces, they are combined with salt to draw out moisture, concentrating their flavor. Cubed avocado is tossed with lemon juice or vinegar to prevent browning, then everything is stirred together vigorously so that the avocado breaks down a bit to add a glossy coating. Finish with a hit of red-pepper flakes for heat, or embellish with herbs, lettuces, beans, soft-boiled eggs, feta, nuts and so on.
Savory Corn Fritters
These corn fritters use fresh, whole kernels, mixed with spices, scallions and a simple batter. Corn fritters come in many types, from the cornmeal-based, deep-fried hush puppies, to the more patty-shaped, pan-fried fritters. Pan-seared in hot oil until crisp, these patty-like fritters contain Cheddar, which adds creaminess while still allowing the crunchy corn kernels to provide a pop of sweet flavor and texture with each bite. Fritters make an excellent side for a cookout, as they stand up to smoky barbecue flavors and can be enjoyed warm or at room temperature. Leftovers make an excellent breakfast, with a dollop of sour cream or plain yogurt on top.
Denver Chocolate Sheet Cake
Since the 1950s, when the Junior League first started publishing cookbooks to raise money for charity, it has sold hundred of millions of copies. This recipe came to The New York Times in 2003 from the Denver chapter: a basic chocolate sheet-cake of tremendous moistness that's very easy to make. It is meant to have a very mild, milk chocolate flavor, but if you prefer a bit more depth, double or even triple the cocoa in the cake and frosting.
Fast Tandoori Chicken
Here’s a dead-simple weeknight meal that Mark Bittman came up with at the dawn of the century for fast tandoori chicken – chicken quickly marinated in yogurt and spices, then run under the broiler for less than 10 minutes. The whole process takes about an hour, but the active cooking time is around 20 minutes in total, and it makes for a delicious family meal when served with Basmati rice and some sautéed spinach.
Sheet-Pan Baked Feta With Broccolini, Tomatoes and Lemon
When baked, feta gains an almost creamy texture, similar to goat cheese but with feta’s characteristic tang. In this easy vegetarian sheet-pan dinner, broccolini (or broccoli), grape tomatoes and lemon slices roast alongside the feta until the broccolini crisp, the tomatoes burst and the lemon rinds soften. (Remember, broccolini has a tender, delicious stalk so only the bottom 1/2-inch needs to be trimmed.) Serve this dish over a pile of orzo for a complete meal. If you like, cut the broccolini, feta and lemon into bite-size pieces and toss with the orzo.
Festival
According to Helen Willinsky, author of “Jerk From Jamaica: Barbecue Caribbean Style” (Ten Speed Press, 2007), festival is a relatively new entry into the Jamaican culinary canon, “but it is already a must.” A cousin of cornbread and hush puppies, festival is a fluffy yet crisp cornmeal-based fritter that is often seasoned with nutmeg or vanilla, then shaped into “fingers” or long buns and fried. (To make them vegan, substitute an equal quantity of full-fat coconut milk for the whole milk.) A touch of nutmeg adds warmth, and salt balances and enhances the sweetness of the corn. Serve festival with jerk chicken, ribs or fish.
Sheet-Pan Kimchi Fried Rice
Kimchi fried rice doesn’t need a weeknight makeover — it’s already so easy. But this oven method maximizes the surface area of the dish by using a sheet pan, increasing the potential for that coveted nurungji, or scorched rice. By baking this dish, you can start with fresh rice (no need for day-old), as the dry oven heat draws out the moisture from the moist grains and turns them crispy-chewy, plus the only active cooking required here is stirring together the ingredients. The oven handles the rest, which means no actual stir-frying. Eggs cracked on top, gently baked to silky perfection, are a necessary finish, as the runny yolks sauce the gochugaru-stained rice.
Roasted Sheet Pan Potato Salad
In this homage to warm, mustardy German-style potato salads, bite-size potatoes are roasted with asparagus and sliced leeks until crisp, then tossed with a simple shallot-and-mint vinaigrette, which soaks into the warm vegetables and infuses them with flavor. Using just one pan makes things simple: less cleaning, more eating. Serve as a side dish, or add hard-boiled eggs for a hearty vegetarian dinner.
Sheet-Pan Sesame Tofu and Red Onions
This sheet-pan recipe makes simple ingredients into a meal of delightful contrasts: savory and sweet, crisp and soft. The roasted tofu’s nuttiness is accentuated by a coating of turmeric and sesame seeds. Onions, which are often the sidekick to other vegetables, are roasted until soft, crackly-edged and sweet, becoming alluring enough to take top billing. A scattering of citrus-dressed herbs adds freshness. This dish goes well with steamed or roasted sweet potatoes or squash; massaged or sautéed hearty greens; rice or other grains; pita or tortillas; or something rich and creamy, like hummus, yogurt, mozzarella,peanut sauce or avocado.
Sheet-Pan Roasted Mushrooms and Spinach
If you love to cook but don’t always feel like cooking, this minimalist recipe is the recipe for you. Great with just about any protein — salmon, steak, chicken or even eggs, wrapped into an omelet — it comes together in under a half-hour, and develops loads of character from its time spent in the oven. While this versatile vegan side pairs well with protein, it’s also great over rice or noodles.
Sautéed Peas With Anchovies and Scallions
Built for ease, this recipe uses kitchen staples like frozen peas, canned anchovies and garlic to make a quick side dish in minutes. Build flavor by melting anchovies and garlic into olive oil, then add frozen peas directly into the pan and simply stir until seasoned and warmed. (The peas do not have to be thawed prior to cooking, and they’ll thaw quickly in the pan.) If fresh peas are in season, please use them and cook them until they’re bright green. You can also substitute the peas with hearty greens like kale, Swiss chard or collard greens; just strip them off their stalks and tear them into bite-size pieces before adding them to the pan. This green side pairs well with roasted chicken, or toss it with cooked pasta, a few tablespoons of olive oil and a flurry of grated Pecorino to turn it into a meal.
Chickpeas Escabeche With Plantain Strips
In the Spanish-speaking world, the technique of cooking ingredients and then immersing them in vinegar is called escabeche. Anything can be made escabeche; it brings a lovely little shiver of sourness to the table. The writer and cultural critic Alicia Kennedy, who lives in Puerto Rico, likes to use chickpeas, simmering them in vinegar, olive oil and sofrito, a potent blend of garlic, onions, sweet peppers, grassy-bright cilantro and its swaggering cousin culantro. Just before serving, she adds Spanish stuffed olives, for extra richness. The beans are meaty enough to sate and small enough to scoop up with a chip — or, as Ms. Kennedy prefers, to be spooned, almost daintily (‘‘like caviar,’’ she says), onto a delicate strip of crisped plantain, hot from the skillet.
Sheet-Pan Gnocchi With Mushrooms and Spinach
This sheet-pan dinner is inspired by classic steakhouse sides: roasted mushrooms, creamy horseradish-mustard sauce, wilted spinach and roasted potatoes. Well, kind of. Instead of whole potatoes, this recipe uses store-bought gnocchi, a superspeedy stand-in that takes on the fun combination of browned and chewy when roasted. This dish is hearty enough to be a full meal, though it’d also make a great side to braised beans, roast chicken, a seared pork chop and, of course, steak. To get vegetarian recipes like this one delivered to your inbox, sign up for The Veggie newsletter.
Twice-Baked Potatoes
At its simplest, a twice-baked potato is creamy, cheesy mashed potatoes cradled in crisp, salty skin. That’s the recipe you see here: comforting, satisfying and pretty much ideal. But if you dream of other flavor combinations, like bacon, scallions and sour cream; blue cheese and chives; or cauliflower and Parmesan, just follow the recipe below and stir in any additions (reserving some for garnish) after the dairy in Step 3. Shower the top with more grated cheese if you like, then bake, garnish and dig in.
Broccoli Salad With Peanuts and Tahini-Lime Dressing
Broccoli stalks, often overlooked or tossed in favor of the florets, take center-stage in this summer picnic salad. While many broccoli slaws are made with mayonnaise-based dressings, this one is inspired by the bright flavors of Thai cuisine, and uses sesame oil, lime juice, salted peanuts, scallions and a dash of hot sauce for heat. (Garnish the slaw with fresh Thai basil, if you like.) Tossed with a creamy vegan tahini-lime dressing, the broccoli softens just enough to lose that raw broccoli flavor without giving up any of its satisfying crunch. A food processor or Mandoline makes quick work of the stems, but with a little bit of patience, a good knife does the trick, too. Finally, this salad is best the day it’s made, though its components can be prepared in advance to save time.
Sesame Broccoli
Mild broccoli gets energized by this textured, rich dressing spiked with sweet miso and soy sauce. Crushed toasted sesame seeds create the intense flavor base for this rich, super nutty sauce. The dish is a great side to accompany any grilled or roasted protein; it can be made a few hours in advance and is equally tasty chilled or at room temperature. Any leftovers can be chopped and tossed with warm pasta and grated Parmesan the next day.
Garlicky, Buttered Carrots
This is one of the few occasions when overcrowding the skillet is a good thing. These carrots are cooked in fat (schmaltz, olive oil, butter), with a pinch of something spicy (red-pepper flakes, cayenne, even hot paprika), sort of half-steaming on top of each other until just tender (no mushy carrots here, please). At the end, they are seasoned with a bit of finely grated or chopped garlic off the heat, which quiets the garlicky punchiness without extinguishing it entirely. Like a sandwich cut into triangles, the fact that the carrots are sliced into rounds makes them taste above-average delicious.
Air-Fryer Broccoli
Broccoli roasts beautifully in the air fryer, and in record time with minimal effort. The air fryer is especially adept at producing the Maillard reaction — the chemical processes that transform sugars and proteins in food when browned and caramelized, deepening their flavor — because the controlled, high heat draws out moisture, creating a lovely char while keeping vegetables tender and flavorful. This recipe gives the broccoli a hit of umami from soy sauce, which is bolstered in the high heat, resulting in nutty, sweet and salty notes. If you’d like more umami, a drizzle of fish sauce or chile crisp will stretch these flavors even further. A sprinkle of sesame seeds adds nuttiness, and some fresh lemon zest provides a jolt of brightness.
Roasted Green Beans With Pancetta and Lemon Zest
This simple, bright green bean dish is as welcome alongside weeknight salmon as it is a Thanksgiving turkey. Green beans are delicious roasted at a high temperature and take just 15 minutes to cook, which particularly important on Thanksgiving when oven space is precious. Trim the green beans ahead of time, and this dish will come together in a flash. Many grocery stores sell packages of diced pancetta, a shortcut that makes this recipe a cinch. If you’re dicing the pancetta yourself, make sure to chop it very finely so it roasts in time with the green beans. (This recipe is easily halved: Simply cut the quantities in half and roast all the green beans on one sheet pan. The cooking time will remain the same.)
Lemony Cauliflower With Garlic and Herbs
There aren’t many cauliflower salads as vivacious as this one, which is zipped up with plenty of lemon, herbs, garlic and one minced jalapeño. It is best made a day or two ahead, which gives all the ingredients a chance to mingle, and the raw cauliflower time to soften and absorb all of the dressing's bright, complex flavors. Although this salad needs no other seasonings, you can add capers, sliced olives or crumbled feta here for even saltier tang. The pinch of red-pepper flakes here is optional, but especially good.
Basic Stovetop Rice
Here’s how to make plain rice in the simplest way, and once you get the hang of all the steps (rinsing, simmering, fluffing and resting) you can make infinite, delicious variations by adapting one or more of these steps.
Pan-Seared Zucchini
A zucchini and a steak may not have much in common, but, like steak, zucchini takes incredibly well to the method of quickly searing in a smoking hot pan. Zucchini has a high water content, so cooking it fast means it retains its structure and doesn’t release too much water, and doing so over high heat yields a beautiful char. A quick baste with brown butter, rosemary and garlic adds even more steakhouselike flavor. The recipe calls for 1½ tablespoons butter, but feel free to use a bit more if you like. Finally, choose smaller zucchini if you can; they tend to be less watery, more flavorful, and contain smaller seeds than their larger counterparts. If you can only find larger zucchini (or if you only have a 10-inch skillet), use two zucchini instead of three to avoid crowding the pan.
Roasted Sweet Potatoes
These easy roasted sweet potatoes make for a quick side dish or a delicious addition to grain bowls and salads. For added flavor, sprinkle with thyme, rosemary or sage, or a pinch of warm spices, such as curry powder, cumin or cinnamon. The directions call for peeling the potatoes, but feel free to leave the skins on to save a step — they become tender and soft when roasted. To prevent any wobbling and safely cut the sweet potatoes, slice a thin strip to create a flat edge before dicing. If you plan to double this recipe, use two sheet pans to avoid overcrowding.