Stovetop
653 recipes found
Crispy Ginger Sticky Rice
Inspired by a Chinese classic that translates to “flavorful rice,” this dish lives up to the name. Chewy sticky rice has a natural faint sweetness and here it goes savory with bacon and mushrooms. A heaping mound of ginger sizzles in oil to mellow its sharp, hot bite to a fragrant crisp. Speckled throughout the rice, the ginger offers a tiny crunch and surprising pop of warmth. You can keep the rice warm for an hour on the stovetop or for a few hours longer if you return it to the rice cooker and turn on the warm setting. Stir in the ginger just before serving to keep it crispy. Serve it as stuffing in a Thanksgiving spread, with other dishes for a feast or simply on its own.
Make-Ahead White Wine Gravy
A flavorful make-ahead gravy depends entirely on a concentrated stock, so try to use homemade rather than store-bought. And remember: Chilling the gravy before reheating it will cause it to thicken, so it’s a good idea to reserve a little bit of stock for thinning it out to the desired consistency before serving. (Watch Claire make Thanksgiving dinner from start to finish on YouTube.)
Smooth and Creamy Mashed Potatoes
This recipe uses a masher and a mixer instead of a ricer or food mill to make smooth and creamy mashed potatoes. As long as you don’t mix excessively, the potatoes will come out light, not gummy. (Watch Claire make Thanksgiving dinner from start to finish on YouTube.)
Lomo Saltado (Tomato Beef Stir-Fry)
Lomo saltado might be the most well-known and beloved example of Chifa cuisine, a hybrid of Peruvian and Chinese culinary traditions. It’s a quick stir-fry made with marinated beef, juicy tomatoes, sautéed red onion, sweet peppers and potatoes or French fries, all tossed in a chile-and-soy-based sauce. Rice is served alongside to help soak up the bountiful sauce. A fresh, fruity, vibrantly yellow tropical chile called aji amarillo is usually called for, but this recipe calls for aji amarillo paste, which is more widely available. (Serrano chile works here, too.) Lomo saltado often has a subtle smoky flavor from engulfing the steak and sauce with flames in a wok, often with the South American brandy called pisco. This recipe is streamlined for home cooks, but if you’re familiar and comfortable with the technique, you may want to try it out.
Vegetable Stock
Vegetable stock doesn’t need the whole vegetable drawer to be savory and flavorful; browned onions, garlic and mushrooms achieve that here, boosted by caramelized tomato paste. The other key ingredient is salt, which transforms the liquid from flat to well-rounded, so if your stock seems watery, the answer might not be simmering more but rather adding salt. This stock tastes neutral enough to be used in any recipe that calls for vegetable stock, though you can shift its personality with additional ingredients; see Tip for some ideas.
Orzotto Alla Carbonara
This carbonara swaps out spaghetti for smooth, velvety orzo. It’s up to you how much you want to treat this eggy, peppery comfort like pasta or like risotto, where orzo is used like rice (minus all that stirring). For more of a risotto flavor, you could cook a finely diced shallot, maybe even some celery or celery seed, in the guanciale fat before adding the orzo, then add a splash of white wine. This creamy pantry dish is best eaten right off the heat, but it is odd how, even straight out of the fridge, it still stays glossy somehow, like a dreamy pasta salad.
Brown-Butter Mashed Potatoes
The simple act of browning butter takes this holiday mainstay from simple to superb in a matter of minutes. Russet potatoes are the perfect blank canvas for the toasty, nutty notes of the brown butter, which is lifted to a starring role as it permeates the potatoes and pools on top. Mashed potato purists may say that using a ricer or food mill is the only way to achieve a creamy texture, but a hand mixer or potato masher works just as well, as long as you don’t overmix and your potatoes stay hot. Make sure to create divots for the pools of brown butter that sit atop the dish, which make each spoonful feel extra luxe.
Gumbo
While there are no hard and set rules, it’s generally agreed that roux and the “holy trinity” of celery, onion and green bell pepper are the foundation of gumbo, a pleasantly spicy, thick soup that was declared Louisiana’s official state dish in 2004. From there, gumbo can include a wide range of meat, seafood and vegetables. (Chicken, andouille sausage and shrimp are highlighted in this version.) The roux — a combination of vegetable oil and flour, in this case — takes time and patience, as it needs to be continuously stirred to achieve a deep shade of brown. To break up the work, the roux can be prepared up to a week in advance, and the gumbo can be made the day before eating. (Second-day gumbo has an even deeper flavor.) Filè powder, which is ground sassafras leaves found in the spice aisle or online, is optional, but if using, sprinkle some over each bowl, or stir it into the pot off the heat to thicken and flavor the soup.
Coq au Vin Blanc Meatballs
Coq au vin blanc, a creamy, delicate French dish, is very different from the classic coq au vin made with red wine. Turning it into an easy skillet dinner of chicken meatballs in mushroom sauce is the kind of trick that has made Half Baked Harvest a wildly popular recipe site in the last decade. Tieghan Gerard, its creator, is a home cook from a big family who has sold millions of cookbooks. The meatballs are seasoned just with salt and pepper, making them superquick, but the sauce is spiked with enough herbs, white wine and Dijon mustard to give the dish depth. You can easily substitute ground turkey.
Bangers and Mash
The “bangers” in this classic British pub dish get their name from English sausages during World War I. Made with filler ingredients and a high water content, they would often explode, or “bang,” when cooked. The name as well as the appeal of this comforting dish stuck. Any sausages will work here, but pork sausages provide the most flavorful pan drippings for the onion gravy, the rich, brown sauce that really makes bangers and mash special. Serve with steamed peas or roasted broccoli on the side.
Cabbage Soup
Cabbage soup has been a staple in Eastern European cuisines as far back as the Middle Ages, when cabbage was one of the most readily available fresh vegetables. Even today, there is something undeniably comforting and restorative about this brothy yet hearty soup. While some variations call for chicken broth, this one is entirely vegan (though chicken broth certainly works if that’s what you have on hand). Cook the recipe as written, or make it your own by adding other vegetables from your fridge, or a can of rinsed white beans to make it more filling.
Tortellini Soup
Store-bought cheese tortellini make this easy vegetarian soup a breeze to put together at home. The stuffed pasta cooks in minutes and floats in a creamy, tomato-y broth that’s loaded with vegetables. A splash of vinegar enhances the tomato flavor and provides a bit more acidity, and chopped herbs, added at the end, offer some freshness. This soup works well with substitutions like swapping kale or other hearty greens for the spinach, for instance, so feel free to use whatever produce you have on hand. Whatever you do, don’t skimp on the grated Parmesan at the table.
Rice Pudding
The size and quality of the rice matters in this classic pudding: A medium-grain rice is starchy enough to thicken it, but it won’t soften so much that it completely disintegrates. Using a 2-quart saucepan is also important. If the pan is larger or wider, the liquid will evaporate faster than the rice cooks. If you prefer a looser pudding, or plan on serving it cold (it thickens as it sits), remove it from the heat as soon as the rice softens; or cook it a bit longer if you like a thicker pudding. For an extra-rich dessert, stir in egg yolks and butter, or further elevate it by adding some rum-soaked raisins.
Crispy Green Bean and Potato Sabzi
Indian cooking is filled with one-pan sabzis that come together fast and deliver big, complex flavor. This variation on a potato and green bean sabzi has a twist: almond butter, which gives the vegetables a nutty, almost tempura-like coating, made fragrant with warm spices, ginger and garlic. The green bean and potato combination makes for a nice contrast of textures, but you can easily make swaps: potatoes for sweet potatoes, green beans for broccoli. Chaat masala — a salty, tart and delightfully funky spice blend — is widely available in South Asian grocery stores or online and is well worth having in your pantry to give sabzis like this one some extra sparkle.
Iwuk Edesi (One-Pot Rice With Chicken)
Preparing this rice and chicken one-pot meal from “My Everyday Lagos: Nigerian Cooking at Home and in the Diaspora” by Yewande Komolafe (Ten Speed Press, 2023) is an experience: the rich fragrances of these ingredients will slowly fill your kitchen as the rice softens. Iwuk edesi is a dish rooted in Efik and Ibibio cuisine, a gift from the southeastern region of the country. It is often found on buka menus and is sometimes called “native rice.” If you use another type of meat, the cooking times may differ, but the method essentially stays the same. This is a solid standalone meal, best enjoyed straight off the stove, but is equally satisfying the next day as leftovers.
Jammy Tomato Breakfast Eggs
Over the nearly two decades that Yewande Komolafe was unable to visit Nigeria, where she grew up, she was fortunate enough to have her parents visit at least once a year, she writes in her cookbook,“My Everyday Lagos: Nigerian Cooking at Home and in the Diaspora” (Ten Speed Press, 2023). She and her brother Seeni would host them and attempt to rekindle some sense of Lagosian tranquility through cooking together. Their mother would typically make breakfast: a skillet full of tomatoey Naija eggs served with thick slices of yam or whatever sweet American white bread they could find that most closely resembled agége bread. The scent of her dried herb seasoning blend, mixed and packed right before her trip, would hang in the air as she cooked. In those moments, she knew that even if she couldn’t visit home, a weekend tradition of home had come to her.
Crispy Rice With Salmon And Avocado
This recipe for golden-crisp blocks of sushi rice topped with cool and creamy salmon and avocado is a riff on a spicy tuna and crispy rice dish created by Katsuya Uechi, a Los Angeles chef who was inspired by yaki onigiri. While the dish does require a number of steps and is best eaten right when it’s made, you can break up the work by cooking the rice and seasoning the salmon with lemon zest and jalapeño up to 24 hours ahead. (In fact, the results will be better if you do.) Right before serving, slice and fry the blocks and top with the salmon and avocado. These gorgeous two-bite treats make an excellent party hors d'oeuvres or full dinner with a cucumber salad.
Djon-Djon Rice (Black Mushroom Rice)
Throughout Haiti, djon-djon mushrooms grow in rotting wood during the island’s rainy seasons. They’re picked and dried to make this intensely flavorful black mushroom rice — called diri djon-djon by some — that is typically served on holidays and for special occasions. (In a pinch, some people also use mushroom-flavored bouillon cubes by Maggi to season their rice.) This recipe, from Natacha Gomez-Dupuy, the author of “Bak Fritay: Haitian Street Foods,” starts with soaking the mushrooms to create a broth, blending together a verdant, clove-scented epis seasoning, then cooking parboiled rice in both to make this dish, which is meaty and full of umami. Add seafood like blue crab, lobster or shrimp, or serve the rice with something saucy, like a Haitian chicken stew or these epis-braised short ribs.
Crab Cakes
Flavored with Old Bay seasoning, mustard and a splash of Worcestershire sauce, these classic Maryland-style crab cakes are heavy on the crab, with just enough bread crumbs and mayonnaise to hold everything together. Serve with homemade tartar sauce, lemon wedges and a green salad for a special lunch, dinner or appetizer any time of the year. For an hors d’oeuvre-sized portion, form smaller cakes (about 3 tablespoons of batter each) and pan-fry as directed. The batter can be made up to 24 hours in advance and stored, covered, in the refrigerator.
Vegetable Soup
This simple, one-pot soup is chock full of vegetables and can be customized as you wish. Think of this recipe as a template and feel free to swap in whatever happens to be in your fridge or freezer, adding vegetables according to their cooking times. Diced fennel, zucchini or even broccoli would be particularly nice additions. Try fresh rosemary or your favorite Italian seasoning mix in place of the oregano and thyme, or a pinch of cumin for a subtle, smoky flavor. Hearty greens, such as kale and Swiss chard, can be substituted for the spinach. Add a 15-ounce can of drained, rinsed white beans for a more filling soup. Serve as-is, or finish with a sprinkle of Parmesan, thinly sliced scallions and torn fresh basil to take things up a notch.
Pasta con Palta (Creamy Avocado Pesto Pasta)
In 2016, Sandra A. Gutierrez began to narrow down a list of 9,000 recipes to about 500 for her encyclopedic Latin American cookbook called “Latinísimo: Home Recipes from the 21 Countries of Latin America” (Knopf, 2023). She wanted to focus on the dishes people made at home for a readership of novice cooks. This easy, weeknight recipe from Chile emulates that spirit with the use of Hass avocados –– the main variety produced in the country –– to make a rich and silky sauce that comes together in a blender as the pasta cooks. For best results, sauce and eat the dish immediately to enjoy its velvety texture.
Herby Sweet Potato Soup With Peanuts
This sweet potato soup is both fresh and hearty, with layers of flavors and textures throughout. The sweet potato brings an autumnal warmth, brightened by handfuls of fresh herbs and a squeeze of lemon juice added just before serving. Feel free to swap the sweet potato for pumpkin or any winter squash — this soup is versatile — and use small pasta shapes like orzo if you don’t have bulgur on hand. The topping and soup can be cooked a day in advance, but you’ll want to add the herbs and lemon juice when ready to serve in order to optimize their bright notes.
Buss Up Shut (Paratha-Style Roti)
In Trinidad and Tobago, this roti is called buss up shut because it resembles a torn — busted up — shirt after the flaky layers of paratha roti are shredded during the cooking process. This version comes from Peter Prime, the executive chef of the Caribbean restaurant Bammy’s in Washington, D.C. Across the world, from the Indian subcontinent to the Caribbean Islands and East Africa, roti is used to describe several versions of flat, unleavened bread cooked on the stovetop. Here, the soft dough is brushed with a combination of butter or ghee and coconut oil for a toasted nuttiness that lingers faintly within the finished tender and chewy layers. The roti should be served while it’s still hot, but can also be cooled completely, wrapped in a sealed bag and frozen. Defrost and warm up by steaming gently for a few minutes.
Arepas
These chicken and avocado-stuffed arepas, which are known as reina pepiada (or curvy queen), were created in honor of Susana Dujim, a Venezuelan beauty queen who was crowned Miss World in 1955. The 1950s also marked the invention of precooked corn flour, now known as masarepa, by a Venezuelan engineer. But arepas were around for hundreds of years throughout Latin America before that, the corn patties sometimes served whole or split, then filled with countless combinations. Preparing them used to be labor-intensive, but masarepa gives arepas a light and creamy texture without a lot of effort. Unlike cornmeal used for cornbread or muffins, which is ground dried uncooked corn, masarepa is ground from cooked corn and conveniently sold as dried corn flour. Masa harina is ground uncooked corn treated with other ingredients and is used to make tortillas and other dishes. Neither cornmeal nor masa harina can be substituted for masarepa, which is available online and in many supermarkets.