Weeknight
3489 recipes found
Parmesan-Crusted Salmon Caesar Salad
This fast weeknight recipe uses your favorite store-bought mayonnaise and bottled fish sauce in an easy Caesar dressing. And then, in an even more resourceful move, it uses that same dressing to coat salmon fillets, to help prevent overcooking, and to adhere a Parmesan crust. As the fillets broil, the layer of cheese bubbles and caramelizes to form a crispy, salty coating, a texture that only enhances the crisp lettuce. (For a vegetarian version, you can also use this method on avocado halves.)
Sweet Corn Carbonara
Of carbonara, the chef Michael Serva writes, "[it's] an infamously specific alchemy with fighting words around any sort of modification. Always with guanciale, never bacon. And the addition of peas is likely to have you ducking thrown furniture anywhere near Rome." Perhaps it's the 6,000 miles between Rome and Marfa, Texas, that emboldens Mr. Serva, who co-owns the Italian deli Bordo with his wife Hannah Texie Bailey, to reimagine classic carbonara. He uses finocchiona salami ends that no longer fit in the meat slicer in place of guanciale, and adds in-season sweet corn to the mix. True to Mr. Serva's waste-not philosophy, he utilizes every part of the corn too: kernels in the dish, cobs to flavor the pasta water, and silks as a sweet and surprising garnish. This approach results in a luscious carbonara punctuated by summer sweet corn, making it a perfect dish for late summer and early fall. While finocchiona salami and Calabrian chile paste are well worth sourcing, any salami or chile paste you have in your refrigerator work well here too.
Smoked Mackerel, Lettuce and Tomato Sandwich
Summertime is the season of the tomato sandwich, and few are more revered than the BLT. Smoky bacon, mayonnaise and juicy, umami-rich tomatoes make it as close to a perfect sandwich as possible. Changing out the bacon for smoked mackerel results in an entirely different experience, albeit just as satisfying. The richness and smoke of the mackerel are both excitingly novel and familiar enough to prompt you to pop cans of tinned fish any time you procure fresh tomatoes from the farmers’ market.
Smoky Shrimp Saganaki
Inspired by Greek shrimp saganaki, this dish combines wonderfully sweet shrimp, tomatoes and feta with subtly smoky dried Mexican chiles. The aromatics — cherry tomatoes and garlic, plus an assortment of dried and fresh chiles — simmer and confit in oil in the oven, with shrimp and feta added toward the end of cooking, broiling quickly, to create a wonderfully oozy, charred dish. It’s a simple, one-pan weeknight meal that cooks in just 30 minutes. This recipe allows flexibility in your choice of chiles; whichever you choose, the gentle confiting of the chiles releases their flavors, adding nuanced heat to complement the bright and tangy tomatoes and feta. You can switch out the ancho chile for pasilla chile, or dial up the heat with a fruity Scotch bonnet. Enjoy this dish straight from the pan, mopped up with a piece of crusty bread. Any leftovers can be easily turned into a show-stopping pasta sauce, making this recipe a versatile addition to any recipe collection.
Pasta With Chicken and Asparagus Ragu
This weeknight pasta yields a hearty yet light chicken ragu that’s infused with fresh oregano and studded with a pound of sweet asparagus. The tomato-free white ragu teams up with quick-cooking ground chicken, which stays juicy thanks to a simmer in broth and cream, but feel free to use your favorite ground meat here. (Ground pork will also deliver a rich, comforting pasta sauce.) To keep the asparagus bright green and crisp-tender — a trick that can be employed for peas, spinach or other green vegetables — it’s briefly blanched in the boiling water with the pasta during the last few minutes of cooking.
Fettuccine With Creamy Black Garlic Sauce
This pasta features a back-pocket sauce that credits its complexity to black garlic, garlic aged under low heat and high humidity until it becomes dark and chewy, like dehydrated fruit with pungent savory notes and a molasses-like sweetness. You can buy black garlic online or at health or gourmet shops, and smash it into dressings, marinades or into this pasta sauce made with cream cheese. The hot noodles instantly melt the cheese into a velvety cream, so the dish requires no complicated technique or extra cooking, yet still manages to feel luxurious. Dress up the finished dish with sautéed mushrooms or shrimp, braised greens or even frozen peas.
Blueberry Corn Muffins
There are corn muffins, and then there are blueberry corn muffins. The simple addition of fruit transforms the bread basket staple into a glorious, slightly tart treat equally suitable for dinner or breakfast (or anything in between). Don’t skip the ten-minute rest in step 2 — it allows the batter to hydrate and creates an A+ dome — but make sure to stir in the blueberries after that, so the juices don’t seep and create a grayish tint. Serve these muffins as a grab-and-go breakfast, alongside a bowl of chili or slathered in honey butter to accompany a barbecue spread.
Ginger-Scallion Tofu and Greens
A classic Chinese condiment, ginger-scallion oil is most commonly served with poached chicken but is incredibly versatile — and shines here, applied to cold silken tofu and blanched greens. Most Chinese families will have their own version of the aromatic oil, each with their own ideal ratio of ginger to scallions. There are no hard rules here, so feel free to adjust the amount of ginger and scallions to your preferences. Thinly slicing both will give you a robust sauce, but you may chop them until minced for a smoother sauce. This oil is a great one to make in bulk, as it keeps, refrigerated, up to one month, so you can add it to rice, roasted veggies, pan-fried tofu, cold noodles or eggs, invigorating your everyday cooking.
Broccoli Pasta With Salami Bread Crumbs
Turn those last slices of salami into a terrific crispy topping for this quick weeknight pasta meal. Simply chop and toast them up in olive oil with bread crumbs until golden and crunchy, for savory meaty bites that complement the veg-heavy pasta. Chopping the florets into smaller pieces helps them cook faster and also guarantees scoopable pasta with broccoli in each bite. Leftovers make a fantastic cold pasta salad the next day, and the bread crumb topping can be refrigerated and scattered on green salads in place of croutons.
Buffalo Chicken Meatballs
For a switch-up to the usual wings, use often underutilized ground chicken to make these juicy, tender Buffalo meatballs. Celery, a frequent wing pairing, gives the meat mixture a bit of crunch and freshness. Perfect for subs or party platters, you can make the meatballs ahead of time by wrapping the pan with plastic and placing it in the refrigerator or placing them in an airtight bag and freezing them for up to 3 months (defrost in the refrigerator the day before cooking).
Mayo-Grilled Broccoli
Broccoli is delicious with a little char from the grill, but often that high, direct heat can render the vegetable tough and dry. Enter mayonnaise: The silky emulsion of eggs and oil sticks to the nubby florets and insulates them, ensuring that the broccoli gets tender, rich and sweet while also developing deep charred flavor and crispy bits. Plus the mayonnaise acts as a nonstick coating and seasoning, all in one. (It also works beautifully on grilled proteins.) Be sure to cut the head of broccoli into large, long florets, including the stem, and lay them perpendicularly across the grill grates so they don’t fall into the fire.
Roasted Brussels Sprouts Caesar With Tahini
This wintery twist on Caesar salad upholds the beloved creamy, crunchy and punchy characteristics while opting for a new set of greens — and a flavorful vegetarian alternative to anchovies. Tahini acts as both the thickening agent for the dressing, binding it together, and the flavor maker: Its sesame seed nuttiness and creamy texture balance the bitter undertones of the roasted brussels sprouts, which form the base of this salad. Quartering the sprouts decreases the cooking time and their size, so you can eat them by the forkful.
Lemon-Pepper Tofu and Snap Peas
This combination of sesame and pepper-crusted tofu, blistered snap peas and tahini-lemon sauce creates a lively and quick dinner, while the three elements are just as valuable as building blocks to many more meals. The tofu is crisp with a coating of cornstarch and sesame seeds and punchy with lots of black pepper and lemon zest. The snap peas are seared until juicy but still snappy. The tahini sauce, which is buoyed by lemon, ginger and soy sauce, can be drizzled on everything from salads to seared chicken. Serve this dish over rice or other grains, soba noodles or salad greens.
Pastina al Pomodoro
Pastina al pomodoro is a classic Italian dish of small pasta that is cooked in the style of risotto until creamy and comforting. Orzo is the traditional pasta of choice for this dish, as its shape resembles a grain of rice, but pastina (small pasta) can be made with several different shapes of pasta. The pasta is cooked using the risottata method: It gets toasted with aromatics in olive oil, stirred to coat in tomato sauce and then simmered until tender, gradually moistened with hot water as you would with a risotto. This process releases the starch from the pasta, giving the sauce an incredibly creamy texture and mellowing the acidity in the tomato sauce. Sauce and pasta cook simultaneously in this one-pot pastina, creating a perfect weeknight meal with little effort.
Salmon and Kimchi Skillet
Sautéing kimchi brings out its mellower side: a delicious, cabbage-y sweetness. In Korean cuisine, stir-fried kimchi (kimchi-bokkeum) is a classic staple served with rice. In this recipe, the kimchi is cooked in a fragrant mix of butter and toasted sesame oil along with just a touch of sugar, making a four-ingredient seasoning and sauce for salmon filets. Often, jarred cabbage kimchi is already chopped into large bite-size pieces, so you can simply empty the jar into the skillet. If your kimchi has very long or unwieldy pieces of cabbage, you may want to use kitchen scissors to snip them up in the jar (or chop it on a cutting board). Serve the salmon and kimchi with rice.
Sheet-Pan Chicken and Tomatoes With Balsamic Tahini
This sheet-pan meal of spicy herbed chicken and blistered green beans and tomatoes comes together in just 20 minutes. Broiling the chicken and vegetables instead of roasting swiftly creates well-browned yet juicy bites; while that’s happening in the oven, swirl together a creamy, sweet-tart sauce of tahini and balsamic vinegar — and perhaps get out rice, salad greens or pita to serve alongside. For even more ease, trim the green beans with scissors and you don’t need to clean a cutting board or knife.
Salt-and-Vinegar Baked Fish and Chips
There’s nothing quite like the savory pucker of a salt and vinegar potato chip. Those flavors are applied to these fish and chips, baked in the oven for workday ease. Don’t be afraid of white vinegar: Its bracing, unadulterated acidity makes flaky white fish taste so good. Vinegar’s tartness also helps offset the richness of the fried potatoes. Reminiscent of a seafood shack dinner, this dish includes a makeshift tartar sauce that both marinates the fish and serves as a dip. It stars dill in all its glory, as an herb that reinforces the joyful sharpness of salt and vinegar.
Quick Roasted Eggplant
Of all the ways to cook eggplant, roasting it in large cubes is one of the easiest and most delicious. Eggplant browns beautifully in a hot oven, becoming crisp and golden at the edges, and tender and soft in the center. Because it will absorb the olive oil quickly, giving the eggplant a good toss with your hands is the best way to make sure it’s evenly coated before it goes into the oven. And don’t skip the parchment paper: It makes for easy cleanup and prevents any crispy eggplant bits from sticking to the pan. Serve roasted eggplant with a scattering of fresh herbs, or dress it up with a drizzle of tahini sauce or herb salsa.
Braised Chicken With Cabbage and Lemon
Cabbage is the vegetable that keeps on giving: Cheap, accessible and available year-round, it can be roasted, fermented, stuffed, turned into salads, soups and more. This one-pot recipe is all about keeping things simple and letting the schmaltzy cabbage shine as it gets tender and sweet in this bright lemon and white wine sauce. First, you’ll sear chicken thighs, then add a tumble of cabbage, white wine and sliced lemon to the pot and gently simmer the mixture. To complement those tangy notes, the dish is drizzled with honey and broiled until the chicken browns, crisps and caramelizes. To soak up all those flavorful juices, pair the dish with crusty bread or egg noodles.
Herby Farro Salad With Stone Fruit and Burrata
Grain salads always hold up well, so they’re perfect for picnics, potlucks and making ahead for lunch the next day. This one stars chewy farro, enhanced with red onion, arugula and slices of ripe stone fruit, whatever kind you have (red plums are especially pretty added to the mix). The tangy grains are then spooned around a ball of burrata, which adds a mild, creamy contrast. Serve this as a meatless main course or a hearty, colorful side dish.
Crispy Artichoke Pasta
Fast enough for a Tuesday night mad dash to dinner, this pantry pasta tastes more like a restaurant dish — and no one has to deal with trimming and pruning a spiky artichoke. Instead, canned artichokes are brought to the peak of their crispy potential. The key is to remove as much water from the artichokes as possible by pressing them gently with paper towels (as you would tofu). Some of the artichokes are fried in olive oil until shatteringly crisp, then the rest cook gently in more oil, along with garlic and chile flakes, to soften. They’re all mixed with pasta and Parmesan into a stunning weeknight meal.
Scrambled Eggs With Soy-Marinated Tomatoes
Scrambling eggs with tomatoes is a classic comforting pair, particularly in Chinese cuisine. But instead of cooking the tomatoes along with the eggs, here, the eggs are cooked separately, while the ripe tomatoes break down, their flavors concentrating when left to sit in a sweet soy-sesame dressing. Pile the scrambled eggs and the tomatoes onto crusty bread to soak up all the flavor. Add chunks of avocado to the marinated tomatoes too, if you like.
One-Pot Chicken and Rice With Caramelized Lemon
This simple one-pot chicken and rice dish is topped with caramelized lemon slices that add sweet flavor and texture. Thin slices of lemon are cooked in chicken fat and oil until their pulp dissolves, their pith sweetens and their rind softens to the point of being edible. Briny Castelvetrano olives and herby dried oregano are wrapped up in creamy rice and topped with juicy chicken thighs. Fresh parsley and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice on top before serving add brightness and crunch.
Tomato and Ginger Braised Tofu
Tomatoes and tofu may not be an obvious pairing, but they belong together in this speedy braise. A brave amount of ginger provides a robust flavor foundation for this sauce, imparting verve. (If you’d like to increase the heat, you could add some crushed red pepper, too.) Halving the cherry tomatoes helps them break down faster, transforming them into a rich sweet, savory and tangy sauce in minutes. This recipe works any time of year: If fresh cherry tomatoes are unavailable, 28 ounces of canned cherry tomatoes will also work. Pan-frying the tofu first makes the slices sturdier and locks in moisture, creating the perfect texture to carry and soak up the braising sauce.