Side Dish
4106 recipes found
Roasted Asparagus With Crispy Leeks and Capers
In this supremely springy recipe, thick asparagus stalks and thinly sliced leeks are glossed with olive oil and covered in salty capers. Everything is roasted in the same pan and emerges tender and golden-edged. Capers also make an appearance in the mustard sauce served alongside, which adds a tangy, mayonnaise-like richness. You can double the recipe, if you wish, though you may have to increase the roasting time by a few minutes to make up for a more-crowded pan. Serve this on its own as a first course, or as an accompaniment to roast chicken, braised meats or seared fish. Just don’t use thin asparagus: It’ll cook too quickly, before the leeks have a chance to turn golden. Stick with spears that are at least 1/2 inch in diameter.
Roasted Fennel and Farro Salad
This salty-sweet grain salad is filled with bits of caramelized roasted fennel, sweet dates and briny olives, and is bolstered by orange, red-pepper flakes and herbs. It’s substantial enough to be a light meatless dinner on its own, or it can be served as a hearty side with simply roasted or sautéed chicken or fish. It holds up well, and any leftovers will be a boon to future lunches. The feta topping is optional and adds a creamy tanginess, but the mix of roasted vegetables, dried fruit and grains is just as good without it.
White Beans With Radishes, Miso and Greens
In this 10-minute take on beans and greens, creamy white beans are sautéed in butter and garlic, then crunchy radishes and tender greens are stirred in at the end for texture and crunch. White miso, a fermented soybean paste that’s worth seeking out if it’s not already in your fridge, provides a complex, umami flavor that pairs well with the mild beans. Finish the dish with a good squeeze of lemon to add brightness and balance out the salty miso. Serve these beans on their own, or alongside grilled shrimp or salmon. Any leftover miso paste can be whisked into salad dressings and marinades, or used as a base for a quick weeknight soup.
Roasted Broccoli Rabe and White Beans With Burrata
With just a few ingredients, this impressive and quick dish boasts many flavors and textures. Roasting broccoli rabe creates tender stems while the leaves crisp like chips. The broccoli rabe cooks alongside paprika-stained white beans, which become warm, creamy and even crisp in spots as they roast. Eat the beans and greens warm or at room temperature, as a starter or vegetarian main, with slices of orange and a puddle of creamy burrata for softness and sweetness. (You could also use ricotta, thick yogurt or avocado instead of the burrata.) This dish is good on its own, or with farro, pearl couscous or crusty bread.
Citrusy Lentil and Sweet Potato Soup
With lentils, sweet potato, chard and earthy spices, this soup is certainly hearty and cozy, but it’s also surprisingly uplifting, thanks to the acidity and crunch of chard stems and jalapeños that have been quick-pickled in citrus juice. The chard leaves simmer in the soup until silky, while the raw stems marinate in a combination of lemon or lime juice, salt and jalapeño. They’re really all this soup needs, but you could also add a little richness to individual servings with yogurt, avocado, a poached egg or a drizzle of oil.
Roasted Vegetables With Cashew Romesco
Crisp yet fork-tender roasted vegetables get a spirited lift from a lively romesco sauce made with just a few ingredients. Each plays an important role: Roasted red peppers form the base of the sauce, cashews add creaminess and a bit of crunch, smoked paprika — along with other spices — provide a grounding depth. The sherry vinegar delivers a vibrant sparkle, and you can add more to your taste. Broccoli and cauliflower are the vehicles for the sauce here, but any combination of vegetables will work. The romesco will last for up to 1 week in the refrigerator in an airtight container.
Citrusy Couscous Salad With Broccoli and Feta
Sweet, spicy and citrusy, this pasta salad is a make-ahead dish that works hot, cold or at room temperature, and can be served as is or with chicken, salmon or shrimp. Fresno (or jalapeño) chiles soak in a tangy honey-and-citrus dressing to soften their bite and infuse the dressing with heat, giving the overall dish a slightly sweet and spicy flavor. Juicy pieces of orange impart a sunny, vacation feel to the look and taste of the dish, while the cumin gives the dressing a warm earthiness.
Dumplings With Chile Crisp
Great dumplings are as much about texture as taste, and these double the welcome contrast of tenderness and crunch. Simultaneously fried and steamed in a covered skillet, the wrappers develop crackling brown bases, while the tops become delicately chewy. Inside, the crunch of spicy chile crisp punctuates soft tofu and greens. Wringing water out of both fillings first allows them to soak in the soy sauce and chile crisp and ensures the filling doesn’t end up watery or bland. Another benefit to this vegan filling is the ability to taste it raw and adjust the seasonings before wrapping.
Charred Carrots With Orange and Balsamic
Ina Garten was one of the people who made roasted whole carrots fashionable for home cooks, back when “The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook” — her first — was published in 1999. Brightening up basic dishes with lemon, orange and vinegar became one of her signatures. She shared this recipe from her book “Modern Comfort Food” with The Times for Thanksgiving 2020.
Chickpea and Fennel Ratatouille
This ratatouille with chickpeas and fennel is among the best I’ve ever made. It’s a recipe for what you might call A Vegan Day. Being a vegan is not my point, and anyway, it’s as easy to create an unhealthy full-time vegan diet as it is to eat brilliantly as a part-time vegan. When fruits and vegetables are at their best, they give you insight into how the vegan thing can work for you, if only for a day. And given a moderate degree of freshness, most conventional vegetables from ordinary supermarkets can be made to taste good when gardens go dormant.
One-Pot Broccoli Mac and Cheese
In the time it takes to make boxed macaroni and cheese, you can have a homemade version that’s creamy with lots of sharp Cheddar, studded with broccoli and doesn’t require making a roux. Instead, the sauce is thickened by the pasta’s starch: As the noodles cook in milk, the milk thickens to the consistency of cream and the pasta absorbs the seasonings. Here, that’s garlic powder, but you could also use mustard powder, ground cayenne or grated nutmeg like in traditional mac and cheese. The broccoli pieces end up soft and sweet, but if you want more bite, add them halfway through cooking. (Watch the video of Ali Slagle making one-pot broccoli mac and cheese here.)
Chicken Fried Rice
Fried rice is so perfect for using up whatever you’ve got that the rice sometimes becomes an afterthought. But not here: First, the rice is lightly seasoned with scallions, ginger and garlic, then judiciously studded with chicken, peas and small curds of egg so that you can still taste the rice itself. Ground chicken is used instead of sliced or cubed because it’s easy to infuse with seasonings and can brown without drying out. If you’d like to add additional vegetables, of course you can: Stir-fry them after Step 2, remove them from the pan, then add them back with the chicken in Step 4.
Kale Sauce Pasta
This recipe for a vivid, vegetarian pasta sauce, made from blanched kale leaves and loaded with good olive oil and grated cheese, comes from Joshua McFadden, the chef at Ava Gene’s in Portland, Ore., and was inspired by Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers of The River Café in London. The technique is absurdly simple and quick from start to finish, but the result is luxurious and near-creamy. Feel free to play with the pasta shape, but no matter what you choose, be sure to let the blender run for a while at a powerful setting: You want the kale to completely break down into a smooth, bright, airy green puree.
Zucchini Scampi
While scampi is a type of crustacean (also known as langoustines), the word has also come to refer to the garlicky lemon-butter sauce that drapes shrimp at Italian American restaurants. But what if you lost the shellfish altogether? When zucchini, or any kind of summer squash, is sliced and cooked only part way, they have a juicy snap similar to shrimp, no mushiness. This rendition also maintains the lively flavors of garlic and lemon, which are only slightly mellowed by the residual heat of the sauce. Eat with pasta or crusty bread, or as a side dish to any summery meal.
Cheesy White Bean-Tomato Bake
For those of you who love lasagna's edges, where sticky tomato meets crisp cheese, this whole dish is for you — even the middle. A tube of tomato paste here mimics the deep flavors of sun-dried tomato. Frying a few generous squeezes caramelizes the tomato's sugars and saturates the olive oil, making a mixture that's ready to glom onto anything you stir through it. Here, it’s white beans, though you could add in kale, noodles, even roasted vegetables. Then, all that’s left to do is dot it with cheese and bake until it’s as molten or singed as you like. Serve with bread and a bitter-green salad.
Pasta With Brown Butter and Parmesan
Sometimes you just want a big bowl of pasta with butter and Parmesan. Starchy, silky and salty, it’s always good — and practically foolproof. To make it a little more grown up, just take it one step further: Brown the butter. When you slide the butter into the skillet, let it cook until the milk solids turn a toasty brown. It adds a rich, nutty flavor that makes the dish a bit more sophisticated with very little extra work.
Crunchy Greens With Carrot-Ginger Dressing
This recipe draws inspiration from the sunny-orange flavor of green salads with carrot-ginger dressing at Japanese American restaurants. The pulpy, aromatic dressing may be the star, but a salad is only as good as its lettuce. After washing and thoroughly spin-drying the greens in a salad spinner (alternatively, you can pat them dry in a clean kitchen towel), one way to maximize their crunch before adding the dressing is to refrigerate them, covered, for at least 30 minutes. Little Gem has a sweet, juicy sturdiness, but regular packaged mixed greens, baby spinach and chopped romaine hearts work, too.
Masala Black-Eyed Peas
Tender, creamy, earthy black-eyed peas spruced up with ginger, garlic, chiles and hefty spices like Kashmiri red chile powder, cumin seeds and garam masala result in a comforting, piquant main. This dish is equally suitable for solo dining — the simple preparation results in versatile leftovers that can be had on toast, with eggs or cooked shredded meats — or for feeding a crowd. The cooking method is typical for beans and peas across South Asia, and the recipe works just as well with any cooked beans from chickpeas, kidney beans, peas or whatever cooked or canned variety may be handy.
Miso-Butter Roasted Broccoli
Deeply flavorful and easy, this simple roasted broccoli dish gets a finishing of miso butter and a hit of acidity from lime juice. It makes a great accompaniment to roasted salmon or chicken, and adds depth to grain bowls or quickly cooked leftovers. Although the recipe calls for room temperature butter, the butter only needs to be soft enough so that you can mash it together with the miso, as it will start to melt upon contact with the sheet pan. You can swap in ghee for the butter, or some lemon in place of the lime. Finish the dish with grated Parmesan for some extra flavor, if desired.
Breakfast Tofu Scramble
This tofu scramble is as good for breakfast with coffee and pancakes as it is for dinner with rice and roasted vegetables. And it’s a cinch to make, even with just one eye open: Sear large slabs of tofu, then break them into irregular pieces. The craggy edges of the tofu absorb a seasoning mixture that’s reminiscent of breakfast sausage: sweet from maple syrup, herbaceous from sage, and spicy from hot sauce and black pepper. Feel free to add vegetables that are already cooked, or that cook in 2 minutes, along with the maple-sage mixture, but if you do so, you may want to increase the seasoning accordingly.
Buffalo White Beans
This spicy-tangy vegetarian skillet comes together quickly, helped along by pantry ingredients and a few hardy vegetables. Don’t skimp on the butter! Classic Buffalo flavor depends on not just the vinegary hot sauce but also a rich butter base. Celery leaves make a fresh herbal topping; if your stalks don’t have leaves, grab some extras from the middle of the bunch.
Glazed Shiitakes With Bok Choy
Gorgeous glazed shiitake mushrooms and tender green bok choy sparked with ginger, sesame and hot pepper work beautifully against more staid flavors, so consider serving them next to a traditional roast chicken or turkey. They also are delicious draped over a pile of rice.
Sesame-Brown Butter Udon Noodles
This weeknight meal is silky, slurpable and so quick to pull off. It follows the tradition of wafu or Japanese-style pasta, and combines brown butter, udon and spinach, but the classic combination of savory sauce, chewy noodle and green vegetable allows plenty of room for improvisation. Instead of soy sauce, you can add umami with Parmesan, miso, seaweed or mushrooms. Instead of black pepper for heat, grab ginger or chile flakes, oil or paste. For more protein, boil eggs or shelled edamame in the water before the udon, or add tinned mackerel or fresh yuba along with the sesame seeds. Udon noodles, found fresh, frozen or shelf-stable, are singularly bouncy and thick; if you can’t find them, use the thinner, dried style that resembles linguine.
Creamy Braised White Beans
Everything you need to make this humble-but-satisfying meal is probably in your kitchen at this very moment. Two cans of beans (chickpeas and white beans) are simmered with milk, a whole head of garlic, herbs and nutmeg for a rich and creamy vegetarian dinner that can be on the table in under a half-hour. Be sure to use whole milk here — it's the most flavorful and will yield the best results. Feel free to wilt greens like chard, watercress, arugula or basil into the beans, and serve with grated Parmesan and red-pepper flakes. A slice of crusty bread slicked with caramelized garlic is the perfect crunchy accompaniment to velvety beans.