Side Dish
4106 recipes found
Glazed Carrots With Miso and Sesame
Miso and sesame add nutty warmth to a buttery dish of glazed carrots that’s delicious warm or at room temperature. Bunched carrots with their tops intact are always fresher than the type packed in cellophane, so look for those, or young, slender carrots. You can choose a rainbow bunch, if you wish, but orange or yellow carrots are also just fine.
Egg Mayo
Egg mayo — or oeuf mayo, as it’s called in France — is simply hard-boiled eggs coated with seasoned mayonnaise, but it’s so beloved in France that it has a society to protect it: Association de sauvegarde de l’oeuf mayonnaise. You could season store-bought mayonnaise for this recipe from Priscilla Martel, but at least just once, you should make your own. It’ll be delicious, and you’ll feel like a magician. The dish is beautiful served plain, and tasty dressed with anchovies, capers, snipped chives or other herbs (choose one or more). It’s good as a starter, with a pouf of dressed greens, or as part of a platter of small salads (hors d’oeuvres variées), a picnic on a tray.
Warm Olives with Za'atar
Garlic Aioli Potato Salad
Homemade garlic aioli gives this otherwise classic potato salad a pungent kick. If you don’t want to add the hard-cooked eggs, use another 1/2 pound of potatoes instead. This is best served at least an hour or so after making to allow the flavors to mellow. Or make it the day before and store it in the refrigerator; bring it to room temperature before serving. If you can find garlic chives, there’s no better place for them than here.
Cauliflower Piccata
Piccata sauce — that buttery, briny combination of lemon, butter and capers, silky in texture and tart in flavor — is not just for chicken or swordfish. It’s also a zesty anchor for roasted vegetables. Here, cauliflower is roasted at high heat, which concentrates the flavor, adds nuttiness and encourages caramelization, before being doused with the sauce. Chickpeas make this a fuller vegetarian meal, but leave them out if you’d rather. Piccata dishes are often served with long pasta, which tangle with the tangy sauce, but this one is also great alongside rice or tender-crisp vegetables like blistered green beans. While you are at it, try this sauce with sweet butternut squash, charred broccoli, earthy roasted carrots, golden wedges of cabbage or crispy slices of tofu. To get vegetarian recipes like this one delivered to your inbox, sign up for The Veggie newsletter.
Maduros (Fried Sweet Plantains)
Tender in the middle and crisp at the edges, maduros, or sweet fried plantains, are served as a side dish throughout the Caribbean and Latin America. Plantains change color as they ripen: They are firm when green and unripe, then soften as they turn yellow, and eventually, black. Like bananas, plantains develop more sugar as time passes. For the sweetest maduros, use blackened plantains — they have the most sugar, and will yield a more caramelized result. If you can only find yellow ones at the store, buy them in advance and be prepared to wait over a week for them to fully ripen. They’re worth it.
Chung Yul Bang (Scallion Pancakes)
The cookbook author Grace Young learned to make these scallion pancakes from her mother, who is from Hong Kong, and first published the formula in her book “The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen” (Simon & Schuster, 1999). In homage to the Cantonese immigrant experience, Ms. Young phoneticized dish names in the same way they appeared on Cantonese-American restaurant menus and titled this recipe chung yul bang. They have the perfect blend of crispy flakiness and tenderness. The trick is a mix of boiling and cold water: The boiling water gives you a soft, malleable dough that is easy to work, the cold water just the right chewiness in the fried pancake. She prefers these served without any dipping sauce: “Hot out of the wok, they don’t need anything,” she said. “They’re perfect the way they are.”
Vegetarian Meatballs
Seasoned with Parmesan, ricotta, fennel seeds and oregano, these meat-free Italian meatballs capture all the flavors of the classic. Cremini mushrooms and chickpeas mimic the texture of ground beef, bulgur helps bind the mixture together, and ricotta keeps it tender. The balls are rolled in a light coating of bread crumbs and Parmesan that crisps as it bakes, but if you prefer a saucy meatball, skip the coating and simply bake until firm, then simmer in marinara. Any extra coating mixture can be toasted in the oven and sprinkled over roasted veggies or creamy pastas. Leftover meatballs can be frozen and reheated in a 425-degree oven until warmed through, about 15 minutes.
Sushi Rice
Back in 2002, Matt and Ted Lee reported on how home cooks had started making sushi with ever-increasing frequency. Among the recipes they brought to The Times was this one, for sushi rice, short-grained rice bolstered by the flavors of vinegar sugar and salt, adapted from “The Great Sushi and Sashimi Cookbook,” by Kazu Takahashi and Masakazu Hori. Use it as a backdrop for your own home-rolled sushi, or pair it, as the article suggests, with various kinds of sliced fish and vegetables, pickled ginger and wasabi for a chirashi sushi bowl.
Roasted Broccoli With Almonds and Cardamom (Malai Broccoli)
This recipe comes from the British cookbook author Meera Sodha, who adapted it from a dish she tasted in Goa, India. It's a smart, simple technique that turns the broccoli crisp and creamy at the same time: charred florets with a lick of thick nutmeg-spiced sauce baked into every nook and cranny. Ms. Sodha uses a mix of cream cheese, yogurt and ground almonds. Don't be afraid to get messy and use your hands to thoroughly coat the broccoli in the sauce; it pays off later.
Creamed Red And White Pearl Onions With Bacon
This recipe came to The Times in 2003 from Barbara Lynch, the owner and chef of No. 9 Park in Boston. It is incredibly rich, and remarkably good. If you don't have time to blanch and peel the onions, feel free to use frozen pearl onions in a pinch.
Mango-Avocado Salad With Lime Vinaigrette
Inspired by Vietnamese green papaya salad, this salad stars ripe, juicy mangoes and dresses them in the classic punchy lime-fish sauce dressing. Tender torn greens, crunchy sweet snap peas and creamy avocado round out this dish with both crispy and creamy bites. The cooling salad is the perfect side to accompany grilled or roasted fish, chicken, or steak. If mangoes are unavailable, tomatoes or sweet stone fruit like peaches are tasty options.
Maple-Roasted Squash With Sage and Lime for Two
Slathered with a mildly spicy maple glaze, chunks of winter squash are roasted until velvety soft and browned at the edges, then brightened with lime and fresh sage just before serving. Unless you’re using a squash variety with a particularly thick rind, you don’t need to peel the squash before roasting. The skins of butternut or delicata roast up wonderfully crisp, adding texture to each bite.
Spinach and Pea Fritters
As a vegetable-forward weeknight meal, these spinach fritters have it all: sweet peas, gooey cheese and crispy bits. Made from thawed, frozen peas and spinach, the work is minimal. If you’d like to use fresh peas and spinach, you’ll need to quickly blanch and drain them first. Fresh mozzarella adds a pleasant creaminess, but goat cheese or feta would work, too. Serve these over quinoa or rice, or top with a poached or fried egg for brunch.
Slow-Roasted Heirloom Tomatoes With Fresh Thyme
Like any other tomato recipe, this dish lives or dies with the perfectly ripened tomato. Commercial growers breed for size, shape and hardiness of shipping, but you should put your emphasis on taste rather than appearance. I'm a willing taker for tomatoes that are not so stunning-looking because I know how good they taste.''
Parmesan Smashed Potatoes
My friend Antonia Bellanca taught me this old fashioned recipe, which I featured in “The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook” (Clarkson Potter, 1999). These are simple, flavorful and come together quickly. Use an electric mixer and don’t peel the potatoes!
French Onion Stuffing
Golden caramelized onions and mushrooms are the building blocks of this vegetarian stuffing inspired by French onion soup. The onions take some time to cook, but the meltingly tender result brings rich sweetness to the dish. Mushrooms are added for their texture, and mushroom broth reinforces the stuffing with more depth. An initial steam helps soften the big mound of raw onions to make caramelizing them easier and faster. The onions can be cooked the day before (through Step 3) and refrigerated, then rewarmed before using.
Tepary Beans With Chile-Agave Glaze
The small tepary beans that grow in the harsh, dry American Southwest are an heirloom variety that has been cultivated and harvested wild by countless generations of Native people in the region. The Diné (more commonly known as the Navajo) seed savers even protected them during the Long Walk of 1864, a brutal forced march to eastern New Mexico, hiding the beans in their clothing. This is an amazing bean that can withstand and even prosper in the most extreme heat and drought. The white variety I use here is slightly sweet and nutty, while the brown variety has an earthier flavor. The combination of white and brown tepary beans is both visual and flavorful, but you could also simply use 2 cups of one variety of tepary bean. Top the beans with roasted turnips and winter squash for a satisfying vegan meal, or pair them with bison pot roast, roast turkey or other meat.
Spicy Kimchi Potato Salad
A spicy take on the usual pink potato salad recipe (which is made with Russian dressing instead of straight mayonnaise), this unusual mix also includes sriracha and kimchi to liven things up.
Spam Macaroni and Cheese
This decadent yet simple recipe pairs creamy macaroni and cheese with crispy, salty-sweet diced Spam for a dish that bridges Puerto Rico and the South. It’s much quicker than most homemade macaroni and cheese recipes (which often require making a roux and cream sauce), without sacrificing texture or flavor. It is also incredibly adaptable, because it will work with most cheeses. If you have the time and the will, sprinkle the finished macaroni with extra cheese and bake under a low broil for 5 to 10 minutes until toasted. During tough times, a box of instant mac and cheese and a can of Spam will also yield delicious results.
Fatty ’Cue Brussels Sprouts
Adapted from the Fatty ’Cue restaurant in Brooklyn, this is a recipe that matches the flavors of southeast Asia to ones of New England. Sweet, smoky, fiery, crisp, soft — it’s a dish that could become a new Thanksgiving tradition, or just spice up a meal on a blustery evening.
Grilled Slaw With Ginger and Sesame
Napa makes an excellent cabbage for grilling. Its elongated shape provides greater surface area to char — and thus smoke — over a hot fire than a round cabbage. Its leaves are less tightly packed than conventional cabbage, allowing for deep penetration of the smoke flavor. Also known as Chinese cabbage, napa cabbage is native to China and pairs well with Asian seasonings, such as sesame oil, rice vinegar and ginger. To notch up the heat, add a spoonful of Asian chile paste.
Homemade Green Bean Casserole
If you think you don’t like green bean casserole, withhold judgment until you’ve tried this entirely from-scratch version. It has all the classic elements of the Thanksgiving favorite, but its base is a mushroom gravy amped up with red-wine vinegar, red-pepper flakes and fresh thyme rather than a can of soup. If you don’t want to fry the onions yourself (we understand), you can always substitute 1 1/2 cups store-bought fried onions or even crispier fried shallots.
Pan de Jamón (Venezuelan Ham Bread)
This recipe for the traditional Venezuelan Christmas bread comes from Martha Beltrán in Austin, Tex., who brought the recipe with her when she moved to the United States and now considers it essential to her family's Thanksgiving feast. Ms. Beltrán always starts the bread the day before she serves it, laminating it with butter three times before rolling it up with ham, bacon, olives and pimentos. The process can be long, but the dough can be left in the fridge for a flexible and forgiving amount of time, even overnight. When the finished loaves are sliced, each piece reveals a festive butter-slicked swirl.