Weeknight
3493 recipes found
Chicken Paillard With Black Olive Tapenade
Paillard is the French word for a thin slice of meat that cooks quickly. (Sometimes, a thicker piece of meat is pounded with a mallet to make it thinner.) This recipe is an easy way to make a chicken paillard without much pounding. Essentially, you butterfly a boneless, skinless chicken breast, slicing horizontally to make a flat, heart-shaped breast, then pound it lightly. Unfortunately, a chicken breast is often dry and tasteless, but it doesn’t have to be. Seasoned and cooked correctly, it should be tasty and moist. A dab of tapenade, a traditional Provençal black olive paste, makes a perfect accompaniment.
Arctic Char With Soba Noodles, Pine Nuts and Lemon
Soba, the slender buckwheat noodles from Japan, are pale brown in color, earthy in flavor and springy in the bite. Pair them with a silky, pink piece of fish to create a simple, elegant study in contrasts. The fish here, Arctic char, is reminiscent of salmon but has a more delicate texture. It’s seasoned with cumin seeds that, in a clever move, are briefly toasted in a pan then steeped in oil. The deeply scented oil and seeds are then spooned over the fish for a rich coating of flavor. The fish is roasted about 10 minutes, to desired doneness, while the noodles are tossed in a dressing of finely ground pine nuts, garlic, lemon zest and juice, along with a ribbon of olive oil. The recipe calls for Meyer lemons, which are smooth-skinned, sweet, fragrant and juicy, without the acidic tartness of more commonplace lemons. Meyers are easier to find than they used to be, but are still something of a delicacy in the produce aisle. Regular lemons will do fine.
Pasta Macedonia
Bean and Tuna Salad
New-Wave Macaroni And Cheese
Orecchiette With Corn, Jalapeño, Feta and Basil
Sweet, peak season corn is at the heart of this flavorful and simple-to-make summer pasta. The jalapeño offers a pleasant kick, and the feta cheese tossed in at the end melts slightly, giving the sauce a silky texture. It’s worth seeking out orecchiette here, as it nicely catches the corn kernels, creating perfect bites. If you can’t find it, fusilli or farfalle would work in its place. Serve with a bright, simple salad alongside and fresh fruit for dessert.
Cold Pasta With Spicy Roasted Tomato Vinaigrette
Roasted Fish With Leeks and Olive Salsa Verde
Leeks show their gentle side in this speedy weeknight fish recipe. A lemony olive salsa verde adds brightness to the dish, while red-pepper flakes bring some heat. Serve this with rice, polenta or crusty bread to soak up the tangy-sweet juices. For a richer, more full-flavored variation, try salmon or tuna fillets instead of milder white fish.
Frittata With Red Peppers and Peas
This is one of the best destinations I can think of for frozen peas, and reason enough to have a bag on hand in your freezer at all times. Red peppers keep very well in the refrigerator, and you can also use jarred red peppers for this if you don’t have a fresh one on hand. The frittata looks beautiful on a buffet.
Skillet Soba, Baked Tofu and Green Bean Salad With Spicy Dressing
You can make this salad with wide rice noodles, but I love the nutty flavor and wholesomeness of buckwheat soba.
Broccoli Rabe and Sausage With Orecchiette
Orecchiette With Grated Squash, Walnuts and Ricotta Salata
I don’t know why it had never occurred to me to grate hard winter squash until I started envisioning this pasta. If you have a food processor with a grater blade, this will be the easiest way you’ve ever prepared winter squash, short of sticking it in the oven skin and all. The cooked grated squash lodges in the indentations of the ear-shaped orecchiette, a perfect pairing.
Roasted Asparagus and Scallion Salad
In this hearty, many-textured salad, soft, roasted asparagus is tossed with chewy whole grains and crisp, sweet caramelized scallions. You can use freekeh or farro here for the grains. Both are whole-wheat kernels, but the freekeh has a slightly smoky note from being toasted, while the farro is nuttier-tasting. You can prepare the freekeh or farro ahead and let it marinate in the dressing for up to six hours, but it’s best to roast the asparagus and scallions within an hour of serving. Don’t use pecorino Romano here, it’s too sharp. If you can’t find a young pecorino, use a young manchego or even a nice Cheddar, and serve this as a light main course or a salad course to a more substantial meal.
Wild Rice and Barley Pilaf
Orecchiette and Summer Vegetables
Orecchiette With Broccoli Rabe and Red Pepper
Orecchiette with broccoli rabe, also known as rapini, is a classic dish from Apulia, the region of Italy that makes up the heel of the country’s boot shape. To make the dish more colorful, I added red bell pepper to the traditional mix. The sweetness of the peppers makes a nice contrast to the bitter greens.
Purée of Peas and Watercress
Miso Chicken in Ginger, Leek and Scallion Broth
This chicken dish gets most of its flavor from miso, and relies on boneless, skinless thighs, which are nearly impossible to overcook. First simmered in water (or chicken broth for depth), the thighs are then slathered with a seasoned miso mixture and roasted until the miso forms a beautiful glaze. Use light miso (yellow or white) for a mild, nutty flavor, or dark miso (red or brown) for a deeper rustic quality.
Fish With Sizzling Olive Butter
Sizzling butter is an excellent base for several classic sauces for fish, including amandine and meunière. Here, garlic, sliced olives (try a mix of green and black), fennel seeds and lime juice are thrown into the pan, adding tangy, bright and aromatic flavors. You can use this sauce for any kind of fish, whether pearly fillets of cod or meaty tuna or salmon. It even works with shrimp and chicken breasts. After all, there are few things that aren’t improved by a drizzle of garlicky melted butter. Serve this over rice or with crusty bread to catch all that butter.
The Best Macaroni and Cheese
Amanda Hesser brought this recipe to The Times in a 1998 article about a return to simply-prepared, down-home foods in response to the brash, over-the-top 90's style of cooking. It's an adaptation of one found in Pam Anderson's book, "The Perfect Recipe," and it calls for stirring the mixture every five minutes while it is baking. This gives it the ideal balance of lightness and creaminess -- a detail that is missing from most macaroni and cheese recipes.
Skillet Chicken and Farro With Caramelized Leeks
This very savory skillet dinner features golden pieces of bone-in chicken nestled in a leek and farro pilaf. You might be surprised to see the leek greens used along with the whites. But, because the slices are sautéed until tender and then simmered with the farro, they turn soft and sweet, and contribute loads of deep onion flavor. (Added bonus: It’s nice to use the whole vegetable.) A simple tomato relish garnishes the top, adding juicy freshness to this hearty one-pot meal.
Orecchiette With Broccoli Rabe
Pearl Couscous With Creamy Feta and Chickpeas
Baking pearl couscous with chickpeas, roasted tomatoes and garlic results in a one-pan vegetarian meal that’s cozy and very savory, especially if you use a flavorful stock for cooking. Soft and almost porridgelike in texture, it satisfies the same urge as polenta or risotto. Lemon zest and fresh herbs make it bright, while feta, added at the end, gives the whole thing a creamy richness. Save leftovers to bring to work for lunch the next day; they pack up perfectly. If you feel like you need more vegetables here to round out the meal, serve this on a bed of baby spinach, some of which will wilt on contact with the hot couscous.