Side Dish
4106 recipes found
Minted Yogurt Sauce
Cucumber-Tomato Salad With Seared Halloumi and Olive Oil Croutons
This recipe, inspired by the Greek horiatiki salad, illustrates the power of good, fresh olive oil to make a dish taste bright and rich — and never oily. It’s used here to toast the croutons, to infuse garlic into the dressing and to distribute the sweetness of ripe tomatoes throughout the salad. Finally, use it to pan-fry slices of halloumi and make this a vegetarian main course.
Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Spinach With Feta
A ho-hum sheet-pan of potatoes and greens this is not. Caramelizing sweet potatoes and wilting soft greens on a sheet pan is a smart way to cook two vegetables at once in this efficient and exciting recipe. There are bolts of pickled jalapeño, salty feta and scallions, but the pickled jalapeño brine is the key. It’s used like a spicy vinegar, seeping into the sweet potatoes to complement their flavor. To make it a meal, top with a fried egg or roasted Mexican chorizo, swaddle in a pita or tortilla with tahini or sour cream, spoon onto grains or brothy beans, or into omelets or frittatas. Leftovers will keep refrigerated for up to a week.
Red Wine Cranberry Sauce With Honey
What does a chef in Napa Valley do to jazz up her cranberry sauce? Add wine, of course. This recipe was inspired by Cindy Pawlcyn, the Napa Valley chef and cookbook author, and includes smashed fresh ginger for extra verve. It’s more tart than most cranberry sauce recipes, so if you like yours sweeter, feel free to add more sugar or a little more honey.
Cornbread
This basic recipe is so easy and forgiving that you may find yourself making cornbread as often as your mother made mashed potatoes. Only a few ingredients are pretty much fixed: the salt, the baking powder, cornmeal and flour (you want a little flour for lightness). Other than that, feel free to experiment with bits of cooked bacon, sautéed onions or shallots, chili powder or cumin, chopped chilies or herbs, grated cheese, mashed or puréed beans or fresh, canned or frozen corn. The options are practically endless.
Herbed Grain Salad With Mushrooms, Hazelnuts and Pears
Instead of the usual Mediterranean flavors, this grain salad has a whiff of Eastern Europe, with dill, hazelnuts and mushrooms. Ripe pear adds juicy and sweet notes. It's great for fall and winter parties, and can be prepared well ahead of time, but wait till the last minute to stir everything together.
Zucca in Agrodolce (Sweet and Sour Butternut Squash)
Squash marinated in vinegar is prepared differently from region to region in Italy. In Sicily, an agrodolce (sweet and sour) marinade, along with thinly sliced garlic and fresh mint, enlivens the palate. Typically, the squash is pan-fried, but it works just as well baked in the oven, as done here. How much sugar you use depends on the zing of your vinegar and the sweetness of your tooth. Zucca in agrodolce is best served at room temperature, and it’s left to rest for just long enough so that the butternut squash soaks up the sweet and sour syrup. You can also make it a day in advance; just remember to it bring to room temperature before adding the final garnish of fresh mint and serving.
Herby Bread-and-Butter Stuffing for Two
This fairly classic stuffing recipe has been scaled down to feed two (generously). Filled with buttery sautéed shallots and plenty of herbs, it’s rich and soft in the center, and golden and crunchy on top. A small shallow gratin dish, about 6 inches in diameter, is your best option for baking, but any dish, loaf pan, or skillet with a 3- to 4-cup capacity will work.
Pineapple Avocado Salsa
A sweet, fruity flavor and a mix of textures set this salsa apart. It goes great with salmon or just about any other fish. This is a sweet, fruity salsa, with a wonderful array of textures: juicy, sweet-acidic pineapple; soft, creamy and subtle avocado; and crisp and refreshing jicama, with everything set off by the heat of the chiles. The avocado gives a pale green cast to the mix. It looks beautiful with salmon and goes with just about any other fish, as well as with chicken or even fajitas.
Lemony Cranberry Relish
Cranberry relish using a whole orange is a classic, but here, a whole lemon — pith and all — acts as the bitter, acerbic edge that your Thanksgiving plate needs. Try to find a thin-skinned lemon, which will prevent the relish from skewing too bitter. (Give it a squeeze before buying. Thin-skinned lemons will yield slightly under pressure, whereas thick-skinned lemons will feel hard.) This confetti of a condiment looks beautiful as well, almost like stained glass, with its jeweled, ruby gleam. Definitely make this the night before Thanksgiving to get it out of the way, then store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator until ready to eat.
Husk Cornbread
A good cornbread recipe is an essential part of any good Southern kitchen. Here, Sean Brock of Husk restaurant in Charleston, S.C., uses a specific grind and brand of cornmeal to create a fluffy texture, though similar results can be had by using a blend of cornmeal and flour. The cornbread can be cut and pan-toasted in bacon fat to provide a good base for salads or poached eggs dishes, in which the slight crunch of a pork-flavored crouton is called for.
Spiced Brown Lentils With Yogurt
In India, dal refers to a number of lentil-shaped legumes. They are served with rice and curries, and are usually soupy, unlike this thick rendition, which resembles refried beans in consistency. If you prefer a soupier dish, double the amount of liquid.
Cornbread Dressing
This crisp, rich and buttery dressing is excellent as a side dish for dinner on Thanksgiving and as leftovers the next day. Aromatics and a mix of fresh and dried herbs give it a deep savoriness. The sausage brings a flavor of its own, but you can leave it out for a vegetarian-friendly alternative. The accompanying cornbread recipe yields a result firm enough to soak up the stock and buttermilk without it turning to a pudding, but you can also use store-bought cornbread or a boxed mix. If you do, just crumble the baked cornbread and spread it out on a sheet pan in an even layer to dry for at least 4 hours and up to 12 hours before mixing it with the rest of the dressing ingredients.
Stuffed Mushrooms
These fun stuffed mushrooms turn humble mushrooms into rich, savory bites with the flavors of escargots, the classic French delicacy of snails cooked in garlic butter. Here, fragrant and buttery bread crumbs infused with garlic, shallots and parsley fill mushroom caps. The roasted cremini mushrooms emerge from the oven juicy, with a garlicky topping that’s golden and crispy. Make use of your trimmings: The mushroom stems can be frozen for later use in vegetable or chicken stock.
Cranberry-Orange Jelly
This is the cranberry sauce for cooks who secretly (or not so secretly) like the kind that comes in a can, a quivering ruby mass with an unexpected dash of orange and spice. Guests can scoop it out of a pretty glass bowl, but it’s more fun to unmold it onto a cake plate and serve it in slices. Make sure the water your use to unmold your jelly is quite hot, not just warm. The idea is to melt the outer jelly layer just enough so that the whole mold can slip right out.
Easy Cornbread-Brown Butter Stuffing
For many people, Thanksgiving is one big excuse to eat lots of stuffing. This one is particularly easy to make. Prepare cornbread using any recipe you'd like, then let it sit out until it gets a little stale. Crumble it into large pieces and then sauté with aromatics in deeply browned butter. Be sure to really let the butter brown: that's where much of the flavor is. Drizzle any remaining brown butter over the top of the stuffing once you've transferred it to the baking dish — that will make the top nice and crispy.
Fish Soup
Ms. Hodgson brought us this recipe over 20 years ago in an article that extolled the virtues of halibut, and indeed, it is very good fish for soups. Here, fish and shellfish are briefly cooked in a saffron-flavored broth. Don't be intimidated. This recipe is extremely simple, and once you've gathered all of the ingredients (perhaps the most time-consuming of all the tasks), it can be put together in about an hour. It can also be made in advance, with the fish cooked in the broth at the last minute. Serve it with our version of rouille (a thick garlicky sauce stirred in after the soup is served) that uses a couple of tablespoons of commercial mayonnaise instead of egg yolks.
Egg Drop Soup
This soup is very easy to make and very delicious. It is in fact so easy to make that it really is the sort of thing you can summon the will to cook even when you arrive home from work hungry. I originally made it out of nostalgia for a soup I had in college that endows its eater with good soup manners. I think it would work just as nicely with beef broth.
Stuffed Onions
These elegant onions are stuffed with beautiful saffron-tinged basmati rice. The fluffy rice is infused with fragrant spices and studded with toasted nuts and dried fruit for a vibrant and textured jeweled look. The onion layers and rice can be prepared a day ahead and kept refrigerated. These festive onions are a great accompaniment to any large protein roast (fish, chicken, steak) and make for a stunning vegetarian main dish. Use any mix of preferred chopped dried fruit; apricots, dates and currants are all nice alternatives.
Mushroom-Butternut Squash Strata
This golden-topped strata has a savory mushroom and butternut squash filling, which gives it a complex, earthy flavor. Mozzarella adds mild richness, while the Parmesan gives everything a hit of salt and depth. You’ll need to let the strata sit in the fridge for at least eight hours (and preferably overnight) before baking. This allows the bread to soak up all the custard. Then, run it under the broiler after baking so the edges become crunchy and pleasingly singed. It’s a lovely main dish for a celebratory brunch or meatless supper, or a hearty side dish with roast chicken or fish for dinner.
Cranberry Sauce
Cranberry sauce should be sweet but not cloying, and tart without causing pucker and anguish. It should have a jelly-like quality, but should owe more to the appearance of jam. The key element to making cranberry sauce is to understand that cranberries are high in pectin, a carbohydrate that exists in many fruits and which is released by the berries when they are heated and the cells of the fruit break down. In the presence of sugar, the pectin molecules bond to one another, forming a kind of gel. The longer you cook a cranberry sauce, the more pectin is released and liquid is evaporated, and the stiffer the result will be. Science! Sometimes it's helpful. So is spice. Some like a clove or two added to their cranberry sauce. (I am not one of them.) Others, a whisper of ginger and a small handful of nuts, for texture. Of this, I approve.
Thanksgiving Dressing
This classic Thanksgiving dressing, made with bread, celery, onions, apples, chestnuts, thyme and sage, is relatively simple to execute. It would do well at almost any time of the year as an accompaniment to roast chicken or pork. The copious use of turkey broth, or a good chicken broth, is crucial to help meld the flavors together. Also necessary is an understanding that the cooking should last long enough to crisp the exterior without burning it, while not going on so long as to dry out the dish. When in doubt, add a splash more broth.
Farro and Bean Soup
This is a thick, hearty Tuscan-inspired potage with farro and beans. Red, kidney, pinto or borlotti beans (or a blend) most resemble the beans used in Tuscany. The farro and beans are soaked together, then cooked with aromatics, tomatoes and pancetta. The pancetta can be left out for a perfectly delicious vegetarian version.
Mashed Potato Casserole
This casserole may upset some mashed potato purists, but take heart: one bite and they'll be won over. The genius of this recipe, besides its utter deliciousness, is that it can be made the day before, or even two. Cook the potatoes, assemble the casserole, wrap tightly and store it in the refrigerator. When dinnertime comes, dust it with the cheese, butter and bread crumbs and bake the whole thing off. (And for everything you need to know to make perfect potatoes, visit our potato guide.)