Side Dish
4106 recipes found
Braised Mustard Greens
Mustard greens are a delectable option for the simplest weeknight meal or the grandest holiday table. Though they’re from the same plant family as collard greens, mustard greens are more peppery and the cooked leaves are more tender. (They also cook down a lot more, so it takes a lot of mustard greens to make a decent serving amount!) This recipe is generous with the liquid, because as it cooks it becomes something just as delicious as the greens themselves: pot likker. Smoked meats are often used for their flavor, but a small amount of liquid smoke keeps this recipe meat-free. Be sure to serve your greens in a bowl, so you can slurp up the resulting pot likker afterward.
Café China’s Dan Dan Noodles
Also known as dan dan mian, these noodles have regional variations — you’re likely to find a peanut-laden, vegetarian version in Taiwan — but this recipe comes from Café China, a beloved Sichuan restaurant in New York City. Popularized in Chengdu, this dish takes its name from the Mandarin verb “dan,” which refers to how vendors once carried the ingredients, hanging from bamboo poles balanced on their shoulders. The dish builds on a complex chile sauce that is more rich and robust than fiery. Though the ingredient list is lengthy, the process is clear-cut: Get the water boiling for your noodles while you prepare the sauce. Sauté the pork, seasoned with suimiyacai (preserved mustard greens), boil your noodles, and dinner is served.
Pan-Fried Okra
As one of the most respected cooks in America’s Lowcountry region, Emily Meggett knows a thing or two about taking humble ingredients and transforming them into an irresistible plate of food. Such is the case for the matriarch’s pan-fried okra, from her cookbook “Gullah Geechee Home Cooking: Recipes From the Matriarch of Edisto Island” (Abrams, 2022), a book that I co-wrote. Her recipe is constructed around the use of fresh, seasonal okra pods. Mrs. Meggett dismisses what she views as the excessive use of dairy-based cornmeal batters in restaurant versions of fried okra; instead, she lightly coats her okra, allowing the beauty and taste of the vegetable to shine in each mouthful.
Panzanella With Winter Squash and Sage
This cool-weather panzanella trades tomatoes for caramelized roasted squash. It is a great salad for a buffet, but you can also make a meal of it.
Quick-Pickled Okra
Quartering the okra significantly cuts down pickling time in this recipe: The vegetable pickles more quickly because its insides are exposed. Most picklers have their own special way of seasoning the love-it or leave-it vegetable. “Pickled okra had to grow on me,” Kenneth Garrett, a lifelong New Orleans resident and avid pickler, said. Now, he eagerly awaits okra’s growing season, and he makes pickled okra with basil and oregano, all from his garden. He serves it alongside fried chicken or as a snack. Mr. Garrett adds Creole seasoning, but this recipe uses whole peppercorns instead. Feel free to be creative with spices here. This recipe is ready in hours, but you can minimize okra’s characteristic gooeyness by refrigerating the pickles for two weeks before enjoying. Lastly, whenever preserving or canning, even for a “quick” job like this, it’s important to maintain a sterile environment. Wash the jars, lids and rims with hot, soapy water and dry them with clean towels.
Grilled Feta With Nuts
This skillet of warmed feta and nuts can tide guests over before dinner or embellish a meal of grilled lamb kebabs, mixed vegetables, pork or chicken. Inspired by saganaki, a fried-cheese appetizer from Greece, the feta here is surrounded by nuts, olive oil, honey and herbs. Thyme, oregano or za’atar adds earthiness to the salty feta and sweet honey, but you could incorporate orange or lemon peel, fresh or dried chile, or any other aromatics you like on spiced nuts. You could also trade the nuts for tomatoes, dates, salami or olives. Whatever you do, be sure to drizzle the herbed honey and oil over each spoonful of feta.
Fig Jam
Fig jam is a perfect way to preserve a surfeit of this seductive fruit. The added touch here, beyond the fruit, sugar and lemon juice, is the small amount of balsamic vinegar, which intensifies the sometimes elusive flavor of the figs. This jam is wonderful stirred into plain yogurt.
Curried Carrot Salad
This savory side takes the classic French grated carrot salad and adds depth of flavor, with capers, red onions, curry powder and cumin. It keeps well, so make a large batch and keep it in the refrigerator for several not-sad desk lunches.
Sabudana Khichdi (Maharashtrian Tapioca Pilaf)
Sabudana khichdi, which loosely translates to “tapioca mixture,” is a delightfully chewy Maharashtrian pilaf studded with the crunch of toasted peanuts, creamy bits of potato, and the occasional cumin seed. A hit of sweetness is balanced with salt, lemon and the alternating flames of ginger and green chile, and then everything is showered with a generous amount of chopped cilantro. The result is seductive in both texture and flavor. The key to this simple dish is to thoroughly soak the sabudana, or medium-sized tapioca pearls, until you can easily smash one between your thumb and forefinger. Then, use a microwave to cook the sabudana, stopping to check for doneness in 15-second increments. As soon as the pearls are translucent and chewy, they’re done.
Grilled Corn on the Cob
You can grill corn on the cob with the husks on. You can strip the husks partly off, remove the silks and re-wrap the ears, then grill. You can soak the corn in cool water before grilling. Or blanch it in hot. I blanch, occasionally following the lead of the celebrity chef Bobby Flay, who adds one cup of milk to his blanching liquid. “I have no idea why I do it,” he said. “It’s like adding corks to the liquid when you’re poaching octopus. Who knows if it works?” Serve with butter, as in this recipe, or dab with mayonnaise and sprinkle with cotija cheese.
Spicy Caramelized Squash With Lemon and Hazelnuts
This ultimate sweet-and-salty squash recipe can be done with most hearty orange vegetables, like sweet potatoes or even carrots (no need to peel any of these). The vegetables are tossed simply with olive oil and something sticky, like maple syrup or honey, and roasted until tender and caramelized. To add some texture back into the mix, the vegetables are finished with toasted nuts and plenty of fresh lemon zest for some perkiness.
Baked Potatoes
Recipes for baked potatoes exist across the archives of The Times. This is the battle-tested best. Adorn the result with toppings: sour cream, minced chives, crumbled bacon, chopped jalapeño, cauliflower florets, crab meat dressed in lemon juice. The potatoes are a blank canvas, though delicious on their own.
Tamarind Ketchup
A touch of tamarind paste lends tomato ketchup an edgy pucker. Spread this sauce all over Chapli burgers, kebabs, fried potatoes or anywhere else you'd think to use the plain stuff.
Cheesy Bread With Marinara
Soft, pillowy bread stuffed with melty mozzarella and dipped in a marinara sauce makes for an easy, crowd-pleasing appetizer or side dish. Here, store-bought sauce is doctored up with a few pantry staples, including dried oregano, garlic and red-pepper flakes, but you can use homemade sauce, too. Slice the bread or let everyone tear off pieces, like they would a fresh baguette, for a more spontaneous, cheese-pull moment. To round out the spread with something green, roast broccolini, broccoli or kale on a sheet pan in the oven as the bread cooks, then dip alongside. For a crunchier exterior, unwrap the bread and cook uncovered for the last 5 minutes.
Korean Corn Cheese
A uniquely Korean-American creation, corn cheese is a dish inspired by two cultures. The simplicity of the ingredients — canned corn, mayonnaise and mild shredded cheese — yields a nearly effortless banchan, or side dish, that smells and tastes like comfort. It’s extremely kid-friendly, but is also enjoyed as anju, or food that pairs well with alcohol. (Soju, a popular Korean alcoholic beverage, is a great match.) This versatile, sweet-savory dish is best enjoyed hot and accompanied by an array of dishes, like kimchi, gochujang-glazed eggplant, bulgogi or galbi.
East Coast Grill’s Cornbread
This cornbread, adapted from the one developed by Chris Schlesinger and served at his East Coast Grill in Cambridge, Mass., is lofty and sweet, crusty and cakelike, moist and ethereal. As Sam Sifton said in the 2012 article that accompanied the recipe, it is "the cornbread to become a child’s favorite, to become the only cornbread that matters. All else is not cornbread."
Arroz Mamposteao
Rice and beans are religion in Puerto Rico, though they’re typically prepared separately but served together, several spoonfuls of beans on top of white rice. But mamposteao — easily my favorite name for a Puerto Rican dish — combines the two. It’s a preparation intended to make use of leftovers, as it benefits from day-old rice and prepared beans. Traditionally, pork and tomato sauce are added — but, for a more subtle approach to this recipe, bacon fat replaces ham or tocino (fatback) here, giving the dish a smoky richness without any meat. You can prepare this dish from start to finish with fresh rice and fresh beans, but it’s not recommended. Think of this as a satisfying way to make use of leftover ingredients that also pairs well with a variety of Puerto Rican dishes.
Broccoli and Farro Stew With Capers and Parsley
This farro and broccoli stew is as hearty, cozy and full of green vegetables as you might expect, but you may be surprised to taste how effervescent it is. Bowls are piquant with white wine and a mix of garlic, capers and parsley, plus chile that’s used two ways: fried with farro to build the ground floor of the stew, and more to finish for bite. The broccoli is caramelized and sweet — so much more than plain boiled broccoli — and the farro adds bouncy chew. This stew is so lively, you don’t need cheese (but it wouldn’t hurt). Enjoy as a vegan main dish, perhaps with crusty bread for dunking, or as a side dish to roasted sausage or chicken or steamed clams or fish.
Vegan Coconut-Ginger Black Beans
The velvety combination of beans and coconut milk is found in a number of African and Caribbean dishes, like Nigerian frejon and Haitian sos pwa nwa. In this recipe, black beans are simmered in coconut milk with a healthy dose of fresh ginger, then finished with lime juice. The result is a light vegan main or side dish. Finish with crushed plantain chips seasoned with lime zest for sweetness and crunch, or top with coconut flakes or tortilla chips, which are also excellent
Puréed Potatoes With Lemon
Lemon isn’t a classic seasoning for mashed potatoes, but butter makes an excellent go-between. This variation on French pommes purée is just the kind of dish that Ina Garten, who shared this recipe from her book “Modern Comfort Food” with The Times, likes to perfect for home cooks. Cooking the potatoes in less water than usual and gradually mashing in bits of chilled butter are the details that make the recipe special.
Indian-Spiced Corn Soup With Yogurt
The sweetness of summer corn marries nicely with a burst of Indian spices and tangy thick yogurt. Serve this vegetarian soup hot or chilled.
Mustard-Shallot Vinaigrette
Store-bought salad dressings are an automatic shortcut for many cooks. But with their sweeteners and stabilizers, they aren't worthy of a well-made salad, whether your tastes run to iceberg and romaine or mizuna and mesclun. And — revolutionary notion ahead — they aren’t really more convenient than a basic vinaigrette like this one, made in big batches from real ingredients, which can also live happily and indefinitely in your refrigerator door.
Basic Yogurt Sauce
Serve this yogurt with basmati rice, quinoa, or couscous. Use to garnish lamb, chicken or fish kebabs. Spoon a dollop into pureed soups and shellbeans just before serving. Or thin with a little water to make a creamy dressing ideal for romaine or little gem lettuces.
Hashweh (Spiced Rice and Meat With Yogurt)
Hashweh means stuffing in Arabic, hence the name of this dish that is used to fill chicken, lamb, pigeon and almost any other poultry or meat that can be stuffed. The combination of warm spices, fluffy rice and tender meat with the crispy, fried nuts is so delicious, it has become a meal in its own right. For a more elaborate presentation, you can top it with shredded chicken or lamb. Whichever way you serve it, you’re in for a real treat, with a recipe so simple it can easily make its way into your weekly dinner rotation. Hashweh pairs perfectly with a salad of finely chopped cucumbers, tomatoes and onions dressed with lemon, olive oil, salt and some dried mint.