Stovetop
652 recipes found
Burst Cherry Tomato Orzotto
Peak-season cherry tomatoes and fragrant basil join forces in this light and summery one-pot orzotto. Cherry tomatoes are first cooked down with aromatics until they burst and their juices thicken. This concentrated tomato mixture fortifies the broth, imparting its flavor to the orzo. Stirring every minute or so releases the pasta’s starch, while a pat of butter makes this dish silky and that much more reminiscent of a saucy risotto. The orzotto is only as good as the tomatoes you use, so be sure to use the best ones you can get your hands on. Topping each serving with a handful of arugula is a wonderful way to incorporate more greens and add a bit of fresh, peppery zing.
Marinated Green Beans
This snappy, tangy and super easy recipe for Italian marinated beans makes a perfect side dish, salad or addition to an appetizer spread. The green beans are cooked briefly in salty boiling water just to turn them bright green, then tossed with olive oil, red wine vinegar, grated garlic and fresh herbs and left to marinate. Gently cooking the beans and marinating them while they are still warm allows them to soak up more flavor from the dressing. They are delicious served cold or at room temperature, and you can add a little kick to them with crushed red pepper, if you like. Green beans are available year round, which means this side dish is ready to become a staple in your kitchen.
Soy Butter Fish and Peas
Some dishes feel like they take hours to develop deep flavor, but this one comes together in minutes. The fish gently steams in a rich, buttery soy and black pepper sauce, soaking up its deeply savory notes while staying perfectly tender. Just before serving, snap peas (or snow peas) are tossed in, adding a fresh green crunch. Everything cooks in one pan, making this dish fast, effortless and packed with flavor. Feel free to swap in other quick-cooking vegetables like bok choy or asparagus for a different take.
Poached Chicken Breasts
This quick and versatile poached chicken breast recipe can stay in your stable through many seasons. Need an elegant topping for a bright spring salad? An easily portable contribution for a potluck picnic? A simple sandwich anchor for a midday lunch? The chicken is ready in just a few minutes, and works just as well after a day or two in the fridge. As written, the poaching liquid’s aromatics skew on the lighter side, so as not to overwhelm any accompanying condiments, dressings and sauces, but you can always double or triple your preferred elements to strengthen the flavor profile.
Light Soup With Mushrooms
Impossibly rich but never heavy or thick, light soup is a Ghanaian favorite, made by gently simmering dried fish or meat in a pot, then briefly adding onion, tomato, ginger and chiles to the broth. This version replaces the protein with mushrooms and is endlessly adaptable. You can add any summer vegetable of your choice, such as baby potatoes, spinach, squash or zucchini. If you prefer to add fish, toss in some chunks of a simple white fish at the end of the cooking process. The choice is really yours.
One-Pot Bean and Tomato Stew With Cod
This hearty white bean stew comes together super-quickly thanks to canned beans, a true pantry hero. Onion, carrots and sweet bell peppers sizzle in olive oil with garlic and anchovies to start the rich sauce. Evanescent but memorable, the anchovies disappear as they cook but lend their prized saltiness and savory depth. There’s a double dose of tomatoes from the use of tomato paste, which cooks until caramelized, and fresh sweet cherry tomatoes. Cod fillets are added on top of the thickened stew and steam gently until flaky and juicy. The meal comes together in one pot; it’s low-effort but full of layered flavor.
Creamy Artichoke and Charred Scallion Pasta
For a comforting, veg-forward meal, this one-pot recipe transforms dozens and dozens of charred scallions into a cheesy pasta dish. Through charring, fresh scallions transition from sharp and savory to smoky, mild and sweet, creating the perfect flavor foundation for a pasta sauce. To speed up the charring process, start with a smoking-hot pan, oil-coated scallions and a grill press or skillet to weigh down the scallions and increase surface contact. For additional body and texture, meaty canned artichokes are stirred with the pasta, along with fresh lemon zest and juice to brighten. A shower of Parmesan at the end will lead to an irresistibly silky, creamy sauce.
Creamy Tomato Spaghetti With Preserved Lemon
Something magical happens when preserved lemon and tomato are cooked together. In this quick and simple pasta, fragrant lemon permeates the tomato paste, creating a beautifully aromatic (and pantry-friendly) sauce with the addition of heavy cream. Spaghetti is tossed with the sauce, which ends up subtly sweet and yet bright and tangy — a comforting weeknight twist on the always beloved tomato pasta.
Sizzled Scallion Rice With Sardines
This sardine rice recipe unites some likely kitchen inhabitants, such as onions, garlic and leftover rice, to make a quick, allium-perfumed weeknight dinner. Since fat is an excellent courier for flavor, giving the olive oil time with the aromatics and sardines ensures a satisfying amount of each ingredient's fragrance and flavor throughout the rice. Is it fried rice? Technically, yes, but the taste drifts toward the Caribbean. The dish stands alone, as any seafood fried rice can, but would also welcome a soft-boiled egg on top, if you’re up for getting another pot involved.
Ginger Chicken and Rice Soup With Zucchini
A simple base of aromatic garlic, ginger, bay leaf and turmeric flavors this cozy and nourishing chicken soup. Tender chicken, zucchini and chewy brown rice provide bite and substance, and simmer together at the same pace. The rice will swell and soften in the broth as the soup sits, and you can cook it longer than called for to give this soup more of a stewy or even porridge-like texture, depending on your preference. Add more water or stock to thin the broth as needed if reheating. Serve with a drizzle of chile crisp or a squeeze of lemon and sprinkle of fresh cilantro.
Spiced Couscous With Fragrant Steamed Fish
Like any carb cooked in a tomato sauce, this dish is deeply comforting. Pearl couscous simmers in a spiced tomato base, absorbing its rich flavors while developing a lightly golden, crispy bottom, much like a tahdig. Just before the couscous finishes cooking, sea bass fillets are gently steamed on top, staying tender as they soak up the fragrant sauce. A final flourish of hot garlic oil, inspired by Cantonese steamed fish, adds warmth and depth. This meal is easy enough for a weeknight, but special enough for a celebration.
Curried Red Bean Soup With Kale
This riff on classic Italian minestrone draws inspiration from rajma and maharage nu shaak, two red kidney bean curries with spiced, aromatic gravies, typically made with tomatoes (rajma is Hindi for kidney beans, and maharage is Swahili for beans). This version offers a perfect use case for black mustard seeds, which bloom in the oil to add a sharp, earthy flavor before the onions and garlic are added. This, along with a few other warming spices, helps create an aromatic tomato base for the kidney beans, pasta and greens. Using whole peeled tomatoes (preferably San Marzano) is key to achieving a brothy soup that still has body, but crushed tomatoes will work in a pinch.
Pork Laab
The magic of pork laab (also known as moo larb or laap) lies in the simple yet strikingly effective combo of fresh herbs and toasted rice to season this ground meat salad. Cilantro, scallions and mint balance the richness of the meat, while the nutty flavor of the ground rice — an essential component of laab — complements the zingy lime juice. Many Thai recipes call for ingredients that can be tough to find in the U.S., but this northern Thai salad is an outlier. You can opt for dried Thai chiles, if you’ve got them, or you can achieve your desired heat level by grinding up crushed red pepper.
Pistachio Halvah Rice Krispies Treats
What’s better than a pan full of freshly made, just-gooey-enough Rice Krispies treats? A core memory for many, it continues to be a fan favorite, whether a packaged gas station treat or a high-end bakery grab like this one. Perfectly balanced with an additional layer of texture from the pistachio and halvah, this recipe comes from Shilpa and Miro Uskokovic, the supertalented pastry chef duo that opened Hani’s Bakery + Café in New York’s East Village in 2024. Their use of tahini brings a level of sophistication, and offsets the sweet bite this snack can often have. There is not a thing that needs altering in this recipe, yet, in Rice Krispie treat tradition, it encourages a bit of playfulness for the cook to make it their own.
Pad Prik King (Red Curry Chicken and Green Beans)
There are very few ingredients that can electrify a dish the way a spoonful of curry paste can. In this recipe, which is adapted from “Kiin: Recipes and Stories from Northern Thailand” (Penguin Canada, 2020) by Nuit Regular, store-bought red curry paste and lime leaves season sliced chicken and long beans in a salty-sweet dry curry. At her Toronto restaurant, Ms. Regular makes the curry paste from scratch, and in Thailand, you can purchase fresh curry paste by weight, but stateside, you’re more likely to find it in shelf-stable cans or jars. Salt and heat levels vary widely, so start with a little, then add more gradually, as desired. Citrusy, herbal Makrut lime leaves are essential to classic pad prik king (see Tip 2), but rest assured, this recipe is still delicious without them.
Chicken Jorim (Soy-Braised Chicken)
Korean jorim is a classic braise of meat, fish or veggies simmered in a savory soy sauce until they’ve absorbed all of the flavors of the thickened liquid. Typically done with beef, the stew is equally flavorful with quick-cooking chicken. Here, cubed chicken thighs and potatoes are braised in a tangy sauce infused with ginger, garlic cloves and mushrooms, a simple combination that delivers deep flavor. Serve the stew over warm rice to balance and soak up the intense sauce.
Dak Bulgogi (Korean BBQ Chicken)
One great joy of bulgogi, marinated grilled beef that translates to “fire meat,” is that you can prepare it in advance and, when you’re ready to eat, have dinner on the table in under 10 minutes. This stovetop chicken variation, dak bulgogi, provides the same workday convenience and savory-sweet flavors, thanks to soju, an alcohol which tenderizes the meat, and maple syrup, which caramelizes beautifully without burning. Apple juice extends those ingredients and allows room for the subtle umami — known in Korean as gamchil mat — from garlic, ginger and scallions to gently season the chicken. Don’t skip the salt, pepper and lemon at the end; they complete this deliciously brisk dish.
Honey Walnut Shrimp
Thought to hail from Hong Kong, this beloved salty-sweet glazed shrimp dish gained adoration through fast food chains and Chinese-American restaurants stateside in the ’80s and ’90s. The secret to these lightly battered shrimp is a double-fry method that uses cornstarch to create the crispy golden crust. The hot shrimp are tossed in a sweet, satiny sauce of condensed milk and mayonnaise that clings to the coating. Candied walnuts add extra crunch and wonderful nutty flavor. The finished dish hits all the notes of sweet, savory, crunchy and tender all at once. Serve with fragrant jasmine rice to balance the sweet dish.
Squid Ink Pasta
Stained a striking black hue from a dose of squid ink, squid ink pasta has a subtle briny flavor that pairs extremely well with seafood. This recipe coats the noodles in a garlicky, fresh tomato sauce infused with canned clam juice, which reinforces the flavors of the shrimp and calamari. Although shrimp does look nice whole, here it’s coarsely chopped to help it fold into the pasta for bites that include pasta, shrimp and calamari all at once. A good spritz of lemon juice brightens the briny dish.
Jian Dui (Fried Sesame Balls)
Popular in bakeries and dim sum parlors in Chinatowns around the world, these sweet bean-stuffed fried sesame balls are a pleasure to snack on, their texture a cross between a warm donut and a gummy bear. But during Lunar New Year, jian dui take on a special significance. Some believe the golden roundness of sesame balls portends money and good fortune “rolling” into your household. Non-believers, fret not: These are easy to make and their crisp chewiness makes them a delight to bite.
Herby Pearl Couscous and Sugar Snap Pea Salad
The earthy and tangy flavors of tabbouleh serve as the loose inspiration for this lemony and herbaceous salad. Fresh parsley and mint are bright and grassy, offering a lovely textural contrast to the silky pearl couscous; dried mint adds depth. Juicy and sweet sugar snap peas supply a fresh crunch, with just a rough chop needed to release the inner peas. Allspice brings a moment of intrigue, both warm and complex, but you could substitute with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves or a little of each. This salad can be prepared up to several hours in advance (kept at room temperature); the flavors will meld and improve over time.
Tinolang Manok (Chicken Tinola)
You could call tinola a chicken soup, but that is just a literal description for a dish that, in the Philippines, is more like a form of medicine. The writer Jill Damatac remembers her lola (grandmother) putting a whole chicken in the pot; in her own version, she bronzes thighs and drumsticks then submerges them in chicken stock and sets to a simmer. The broth’s depth comes from ginger, peppery malunggay (moringa) leaves and patis (fish sauce), standing in for salt. Chayote, kin to squash but as bracing as an apple, yields a clean, juicy bite. Be patient: The soup’s subtle flavor “does not bloom, soft and gentle on the tongue, until the second mouthful,” Ms. Damatac writes in her memoir, “Dirty Kitchen” (Atria, 2025). As a luxurious topping, she buys extra chicken skin from the butcher, crisps it and adds it to the soup at the last moment, for a satisfying shatter.
Pesto Chickpea Soup
If you constantly find yourself searching for the next no-fuss pantry meal to make after a busy day at work, this pesto chickpea soup is for you. It requires just a handful of ingredients and minimal effort; slicing two shallots is the most difficult thing this 20-minute recipe will require. The modest but mighty recipe relies on store-bought or homemade pesto as its main flavor source. The steps are as simple as can be: The shallots cook in the pesto’s fragrant oil until softened. Next, canned chickpeas are added to the pot and crushed, then simmer in vegetable broth until thickened. Finally, a second dose of pesto gets swirled in the stew alongside fresh spinach, preserving their radiance for a bright boost of flavor.
Noodle Okonomiyaki (Cabbage and Egg Pancakes)
These hearty, vegetarian main-meal pancakes have it all: noodles, eggs and big umami flavors. Loosely inspired by Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki, this weeknight-friendly recipe is a shortcut version, with cabbage and instant noodles tossed with seasoned eggs to make a thick, satisfying pancake. It provides a good chance to use up that leftover wedge of cabbage in your fridge, as a little cabbage goes a long way here. There’s room to experiment with other vegetables, too, such as carrots, bean sprouts, potato or broccoli. The egg seasonings — soy sauce, scallions and sesame oil — are also flexible: Try adding a dab of miso paste, a drizzle of chile crisp, Maggi seasoning or a spice paste like gochujang. For a gluten-free alternative, opt for glass noodles. This recipe shows that the best weeknight recipes are the ones that work with what’s available in your pantry.