Side Dish
4106 recipes found
Ash-Roasted Potatoes
You don’t need a real recipe for these potatoes, but you do need a charcoal grill because these ash-baked tubers won’t work with gas. The recipe is a throwback to when clans of kids roamed New York City streets in the early 20th century, building fires in abandoned lots and baking potatoes into the ashes for a hot snack. The potatoes turn so sooty black that it can be hard to tell them apart from the coals, especially in the twilight. The timing of when they will be done will vary depending upon the size of your potatoes and the heat of your fire. Stab them with a skewer to see when they are tender within. To eat, carefully break a potato open and scoop out the smoky, fluffy flesh with a spoon, seasoning it with salt and butter to taste. Or go old-school and wrap the potatoes in a newspaper to protect your fingers before breaking them open and biting the flesh directly from the burned shells.
Grilled Summer Beans With Garlic and Herbs
Green beans don’t number among the vegetables we normally grill — eggplants, onions, peppers, zucchini — but there’s something about the high, dry heat of the fire and the gentle scent of smoke that heightens their snap and natural sweetness. But how do you grill a vegetable so slender it seems doomed to fall between the bars of the grate? The secret is to use a meshed grill basket, which lets enough fire through to char the beans and enough smoke through to perfume them. The New York chef Missy Robbins grills Romano beans (a.k.a. flat or pole beans), whose shape maximizes the surface area exposed to the fire. If unavailable, substitute conventional green beans or haricots verts. The Italian inspiration for this dish is evident in the garlic, basil, mint and extra-virgin olive oil, but grilling the beans over a wood fire, instead of boiling, is uniquely and distinctly American. If necessary, you can use charcoal rather than wood; a gas grill is fine if that's what you have.
Crispy Smoked Shiitakes
Most vegetable charcuterie involves several days of curing and smoking, but these crispy smoked shiitakes — mushroom bacon, if you will — can be made from start to finish in less than a half hour. The recipe comes from a terrific vegan restaurant in Washington D.C., called Fancy Radish, by way of the chef and co-owner Rich Landau. It involves a two-step process: First you fry thinly sliced shiitakes to make them crisp, then you smoke them to make them taste like bacon. You can do the smoking in your smoker or a charcoal grill, or indoors with a handheld or stovetop smoker. You’ll love the crisp crunch and rich, baconlike mouthfeel, with a smoky flavor that’s similar to bacon’s but with distinct mushroom overtones. Make shiitake crispy smoked shiitakes for a vegan snack or BLT, or serve it with eggs if you eat them.
Sweet and Spicy Fruit Salad
Most fruit salads consist of little more than diced fruit mixed in a bowl. They are simple and satisfying, but not necessarily special. This one is a more sophisticated take. It calls for a star anise- and chile-infused simple syrup, which adds sweetness and musky, spicy complexity. In addition to fruit, herbs – tarragon and basil – are tossed in for freshness. You can use whatever fruit you like as long as it is sweet and ripe. Eat the salad as it is, or top it with either mascarpone for a mellow, creamy note, or crumbled ricotta salata for something savory and bracing. Feel free to play around with other toppings as well. In the mellow category are fresh ricotta, crème fraîche, sour cream or ice cream. For something on the salty side, try shaved Parmesan, crumbled feta or goat cheese.
Grilled or Roasted Pattypan “Steaks” With Italian Salsa Verde
Cut into thick slices, pattypan squash, which look sort of like small flying saucers, can make a juicy sort of “steak” that could be topped by a pungent sauce. Grill or roast the “steaks” and serve them with this gorgeous green sauce. You’ll need only half the amount of salsa verde that this recipe yields, but it keeps very well in the refrigerator and it’s great to have on hand.
Warm Bread Salad
This is, quite possibly, the bread salad to end all bread salads. Judy Rodgers, the legendary chef and bread lover, developed it to serve alongside roast chicken, but it's perfect paired with any roast meat. Bread chunks are mixed with a sharp vinaigrette, softened currants, toasted pine nuts and lightly cooked scallions and garlic. Everything is piled into a roasting pan then slid into the oven just before the chicken comes out and stays in while the chicken rests (if you're not making it with chicken, heat the oven to 450, turn it off and pop the salad in for 15 minutes). At the last minute, toss the bread mixture with arugula and vinaigrette. Top with your meat of choice (or not) and dig in.
White Bean Salad With Roasted Cauliflower
This is the kind of substantial salad that’s nice to have on hand, no matter the occasion. If you have time, it’s best made with large dried white beans, such as cannellini, simmered at home. (It’s great to have a pot of cooked beans in the fridge all summer long, for deploying in salads and soups.) But using canned beans is absolutely OK. The recipe calls for roasting the cauliflower, but it could also be cooked on a grill to impart some pleasant smokiness.
Lowcountry Pickled Coleslaw
Ben Moïse, a retired game warden in South Carolina, has been serving a version of this coleslaw at his Frogmore stew parties for years. The hot, boiled dressing softens the cabbage and pickles it slightly. The result is a salad that stays delicious even when it sits outside on a picnic table for a few hours. The amount of vegetables can vary, and a finely chopped jalapeño can be added for a little extra heat.
Glazed Grilled Carrots
These glazed carrots, from Karen and Quinn Hatfield of the Los Angeles restaurant Odys and Penelope, are caramelized and sweetened from a quick hot turn on the grill, then tossed in a salty dressing of soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, garlic and ginger. Turning the carrots often and moving them around on the grill keeps them from burning. And if your carrots are burning but aren't yet cooked through, transfer them to a baking sheet and finish cooking in a 400-degree oven.
Marinated Mozzarella, Olives and Cherry Tomatoes
This simple dish of marinated cherry tomatoes, olives and mozzarella is best, of course, when cherry tomatoes are in season. That it gets better as it sits is a boon: Bring it to potlucks or picnics, or simply let it sit in your refrigerator, a satisfying lunch at home. A generous handful of basil leaves, sprinkled atop just before serving, gives everything a bright, herbal finish. You’ll want to make this all summer long.
Slow-Roasted Tomatoes With Olive Oil and Lime
Inspired by a meal at Le Jardin des Plumes in the French town of Giverny, where the artist Monet lived and worked, this dish is as beautiful as it is unusual: It’s simply a tomato gently roasted and basted with olive oil. It tastes vegetal and rich, as you’d expect, but it’s also sweet and citrusy. The surprise is at the core, which gets filled with sugar and lime zest. During the hours in the oven, the oil, sugar and zest find their way into every fiber of the tomato, technically making it a kind of confit, a dish usually cooked in fat or sugar — or, in this case, both. Serve the tomato warm or at room temperature as a starter, perhaps with a tiny salad, or, for your most adventurous friends, serve it chilled for dessert, topped with vanilla ice cream, a drizzle of oil and some flaky salt.
Larder’s Smoked Carrots With Roasted Yeast
Jeremy Umansky is a master meat curer from Cleveland, where he runs a new wave deli called Larder. New wave? The guy serves smoked carrots and burdock root “meat sticks” alongside house-cured pancetta, pastrami and bresaola. His passion for — and obsession with — koji, the miracle spore used by the Japanese to turn soybeans into soy sauce and miso, runs so deep, he not only gave a TED Talk on the topic, he wrote a whole book about it, “Koji Alchemy” (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2020). Most of his vegetable charcuterie involves a complex curing, smoking and aging process, plus fermentation with koji, but these carrots can be smoked from start to finish in about an hour. The roasted yeast rub gives them an otherworldly flavor that’s smoky, malty and absolutely unique.
Lemony White Beans With Anchovy and Parmesan
These white beans, adapted from Alison Roman's cookbook "Nothing Fancy" (Clarkson Potter, 2019), could potentially be a whole meal, but they are also great alongside another protein since they pull double duty as both starch and salad. While this dish is beautifully seasonally agnostic, it is a summery dream with grilled whole trout or lamb shoulder, and lots of cold red or white wine, preferably in the sunny outdoors.
Orzo With Fresh Tomato
Lessons Worth Savoring Spinach Timbales
Gefilte Fish
If you loathe gefilte fish, that staple of the Seder, it may just be that you've never had it homemade. In this recipe, created to convert gefilte fish skeptics, the traditional patties are updated with more flavorful fish, and then poached in court-bouillon — that is, a light vegetable broth. Be sure to use a wide pot here; the patties rise to the top as they cook, and you want to give them enough space.
Savory Corn Fritters With Sauteed Vegetables
Savoy Cabbage
Chicken Noodle Soup for One
Home alone? This is a superfast soup that is meant to feed one person — that’s right, one. Soy sauce, sherry and ginger give tang and heat to the broth, and udon noodles lend a decidedly Asian feel. And with the added flavors of chicken, spinach and sugar-snap peas, it’s healthy and filling.
Oven Rice
Boiled Rice
Chinese Wheat Wrappers
These Chinese wheat wrappers are popular in northern China, where they are paired with anything stir-fried in small shreds, such as moo shu pork. The author Carolyn Phillips is a proponent of using Korean flour, which is lower in gluten than American all-purpose flour. Adding a layer of oil between the dough before rolling it into a circle is a trick that allows the layers to be peeled apart after cooking for a thinner wrapper. But even unpeeled, these wrappers are fairly thin.
Boiled Red Potatoes