Weeknight
3434 recipes found
Roasted Cauliflower With Crispy Parmesan
The key to well-roasted cauliflower, with frizzled edges and sweet and tender middles, is to cook it at a high heat on a rack near the heat source, mostly on one side. You could stop there or, toward the end of cooking, shower it with grated Parmesan to crisp and add a salty boost. Follow the instructions in Step 1 to cut the cauliflower through the stem to create lots of flat sides, which yields more surface area for browning and cheese — in other words, more of the good stuff.
Moqueca (Brazilian Seafood Stew)
Moqueca hails from the state of Bahia in northeastern Brazil, the heart of Afro-Brazilian culture and its rich culinary heritage. Built on the freshest seafood you can find, moqueca delivers a creamy, spicy richness with just a few central ingredients. The dish begins with a base of sautéed garlic, onion, tomatoes and sweet peppers. A fresh chile adds heat that will linger gently, and coconut milk gives the stew body. Red palm oil (azeite de dendê in Portuguese) acts as the glue that holds this dish together. There is no substitute for its characteristic floral, smokelike flavor and vibrant orange sheen. Serve moqueca hot, alongside steamed white rice, farofa de pilão (made from manioc flour toasted in dendê oil), pirão (a creamy porridge made from cooking manioc flour in a fish or meat stock) and lime wedges for a bright finish.
Baked Potato Soup
If we’re being honest, a baked potato isn’t really about the potato. It’s about the toppings: plush sour cream, butter, cheese, salty bacon, bright scallions. This soup version doesn’t skimp on those extras: The potatoes simmer in milk with garlic and scallions until just tender, then they join sour cream and Cheddar in the pot before the toppings — including potato skins — are added. It’s potatoey, creamy and adaptable. Make it smooth or textured, skip the bacon and-or serve it with a side salad (though it’s plenty hearty all on its own).
Kale and Butternut Squash Bowl With Jammy Eggs
Steaming vegetables is a quick way to enjoy their inherent sweetness, and steaming eggs is the secret to perfect-as-possible jammy eggs. In this recipe, you don’t need a steamer basket for either. Cook the eggs in a covered skillet or pot of shallow boiling water, then layer winter squash, broccoli or cauliflower and dark leafy greens. The small amount of water will produce ample steam to cook the vegetables. Eat with plenty of sesame seeds for crunch and a yogurt sauce that is nutty from sesame oil and bright with lemon and ginger. The sauce is endlessly adaptable; add fresh or dried herbs or chile, ground or toasted spices, toasted coconut and more.
Carrot-Leek Soup With Miso
This light, simple vegetable soup is very quick to put together. A little miso is stirred in just before serving to add depth, and a final squeeze of lime gives brightness.
Baked Fish With Mushrooms and Ginger
A firm, white-fleshed fish like halibut, bass or grouper makes a neutral backdrop for a zesty, savory topping of stir-fried mushroom. Any type of mushroom will work, but shiitake are especially nice. Serve with steamed rice.
Air-Fryer Pork Chops
This easy air-fryer recipe creates tasty, effortless pork chops, with the flexibility to season ahead of time or with no notice at all. The sugar-and-spice blend performs double duty, injecting a jolt of seasoning all over while also caramelizing as the pork cooks, forming a delightfully crackly crust that keeps the meat moist. Depending on the size of your air-fryer basket, you may be able to fit more than two pork chops, but the temperature and cook time will stay the same.
Chile Crisp Fettuccine Alfredo With Spinach
Swirling chile crisp, a popular Chinese condiment, and spinach into fettuccine Alfredo gives you an immensely satisfying meatless one-dish dinner. The firecracker crunch of chile crisp intensifies when sizzled in butter before cream tempers its heat. Parmesan heightens the sauce’s savory umami, and pregrated cheese works just fine here. This astoundingly simple meal — it doesn’t even require any chopping — comes together in under 30 minutes but tastes as complex as anything you’d get at a restaurant.
Honey-Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Apples
Simple enough for weeknights but special enough for holidays, this mix of roasted root vegetables and fruits showcases all the sweetness fall produce has to offer. Because each ingredient roasts differently, you’ll also get various textures, from jammy apples to crisp-tender carrots. Honey accentuates the sweetness, but there’s plenty of room for personal flair. For warmth, roast with 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, cardamom or ginger. For crunch, add chopped nuts to the pan in the last few minutes of roasting. For a little zip, add lemon or orange zest with the red-pepper flakes. Eat alongside turkey, lamb or pork, or serve over sautéed greens or salad greens.
One-Pan Shrimp Scampi With Crispy Gnocchi
The best part of shrimp scampi is arguably the garlicky sauce, usually poured over pasta or mopped up with bread. This recipe offers another take: Pillows of potato gnocchi are crisped in a skillet that is then used to cook the shrimp. The gnocchi add heft, and their soft yet chewy texture goes nicely with the springiness of the shrimp. Serve this with a big green salad to round out the meal.
Easy Mustard Greens
Mustard greens are a delectable option for the simplest weeknight meal or the grandest holiday table. Though they’re from the same plant family as collard greens, mustard greens are more peppery and the cooked leaves are more tender. (They also cook down a lot more, so it takes a lot of mustard greens to make a decent serving amount!) This recipe is generous with the liquid, because as it cooks it becomes something just as delicious as the greens themselves: pot likker. Smoked meats are often used for their flavor, but a small amount of liquid smoke keeps this recipe meat-free. Be sure to serve your greens in a bowl, so you can slurp up the resulting pot likker afterward.
Spicy Peanut and Pumpkin Soup
This recipe is a promise of warmth on those cool autumn nights. Habanero chiles and peanuts both feature heavily in Nigerian cuisine, and this soup is an adaptation of a long-simmered stew common to much of West Africa. Don’t be afraid of a chile with seeds: The fragrant oils from these peppers are worth every bite. The peanut butter and coconut milk mellow the warmth of the chile to a gentle, lingering heat, but you can also take the chile out before the soup is puréed. An optional spoon of honey to the soup will round out the flavors, and a dollop of crème fraîche or yogurt will further temper the heat. Serve with a baguette or sourdough bread for dipping.
San Francisco-Style Vietnamese American Garlic Noodles
These noodles, adapted from the cookbook "The Wok" by J. Kenji López-Alt, and based on the noodle dish originally created and served by Helene An at San Francisco’s Thanh Long restaurant, are extraordinarily simple and delicious on their own, but that doesn’t mean you can’t fancy them up a bit. They go very well with seafood, and some raw, shell-on shrimp stir-fried along with the garlic right from the start would be an excellent addition. Recently, I’ve taken to adding a few spoonfuls of tarako or mentaiko — Japanese salted pollock roe. Sushi-style flying fish roe (tobiko) or salmon roe (ikura) would also be a great addition, as would chunks of crab or lobster meat, or even Western-style caviar (if you’re feeling flush).
Greens and Beans With Toasted Crumbs
This light, plant-based main was inspired by a traditional cassoulet, a French slow-cooked casserole made with beans, pork and duck and simmered in duck fat. In this fast, vegetarian take, olive oil replaces the duck fat and chard stalks are cooked gently with scallion, garlic and thyme to create the flavor foundation. Summer vegetables are simmered in the infused olive oil until just tender, then served with toasted bread crumbs and fresh cracked pepper. The broth in this dish is the real star, so you will want lots of bread to soak it all up.
Pasta Salad
This pasta salad has everything you could want in the bowl: loads of ripe tomatoes, chunks of mozzarella, sliced olives, salami and plenty of fresh green herbs, all tossed in a garlicky, oregano-spiked red wine vinaigrette. Serve it the same day it’s made for the brightest flavor and best texture.
Bulgogi-Style Tofu
This is a no-recipe recipe, a recipe without an ingredient list or steps. It invites you to improvise in the kitchen. Here's the prompt: bulgogi-style tofu. It’s simple. Press some firm tofu to extract as much liquid as you can. Make a marinade of soy sauce, brown sugar, sesame oil, minced garlic, grated ginger, a spoonful of gochujang, a splash of neutral oil, some sliced scallions and toasted sesame seeds. Slice the tofu into bite-size cubes, and slide them into the marinade. Let that sit — a half-hour works; a few hours works better. Then roast them in a hot oven on an oiled foil-lined pan until they’re crisp. Serve with bibb lettuce cups to wrap them in, with rice, kimchi and a dipping sauce of ssamjang and a little bit more gochujang thinned out with neutral oil and sherry vinegar. (If not, go with sesame oil and ground white pepper.) That’s a fine dinner. For more recipe recommendations from Sam Sifton, Melissa Clark and New York Times Cooking, sign up to receive the Cooking newsletter. You can find more no-recipe recipes here.
Shrimp Fried Rice
Inspired by the fire-kissed flavor of Japanese steakhouse and hibachi fare, especially at the Kani House restaurants in Georgia, this quick fried-rice dish is a veritable comfort. Frying the shrimp first in oil, just until they’re cooked, and reserving them to add back at the end means they stay tender. Plus, you’re left with the most aromatic shrimp oil in which to fry the rice and vegetables. The shortcut of bagged frozen mixed vegetables comes in handy here, not least because they need only to be thawed by the skillet’s high heat. The yum yum sauce, a mayo-ketchup dipping sauce that is ordinarily reserved for grilled hibachi meats, tastes fabulous splattered over the finished rice — not unlike how the artist Jackson Pollock flung paint on canvas.
Budae Jjigae
Though it stems from the Korean War, budae jjigae — or “army base stew,” named after the leftover United States Army rations that make it up — is a symbol of resourcefulness and survival during a time of great poverty. The fiery broth is fortified with kimchi, gochujang and an assortment of flavorful sausages. Hot dogs are common, but kielbasa, breakfast sausage and Italian sausage all lend their own special character to the final broth, so use what you like. Arrange the ingredients in the pot in sections, and don’t stir too much while cooking: The joy of eating a big, burbling budae jjigae is reaching for your favorite part of the stew. For many, it’s the Spam, both salty and sweet; for others, it’s the American-cheese-laden noodles, bouncy with chew. Serve this soul-warming stew family style, with white rice to balance its punchy flavors. (Watch the video of Eric Kim making budae jjigae here.)
Huevos Rancheros
Eggs “rancher’s style” is a traditional, hearty Mexican breakfast typically enjoyed after a hard morning’s work. But huevos rancheros also makes for a satisfying and comforting weeknight dinner. The simple yet flavorful homemade salsa comes together quickly and is smartly used in three ways: a quick simmer transforms the salsa into the warm ranchero sauce; it adds a zesty flavor that shines through in the smoky refried beans; and it gives a final fresh finish as a tangy topping. Any leftover ranchero sauce and refried beans make for great dips the next day.
Air-Fryer Chicken Parmesan
An air fryer can form a crispy shell on chicken Parmesan while keeping the meat inside juicy. Rebecca Abbott and Jennifer West, the authors of “Air Fryer Beginner Recipes” who run the blog Air Frying Foodie, created this recipe using a crust that combines coarse panko and fine bread crumbs with Parmesan for the most flavorful crunch. It’s delicious served with pasta and tomato sauce for dinner, or sandwiched in a roll for lunch.
Four-Cheese French Bread Pizza
Each cheese plays a special role in this French bread pizza: A combination of Parmesan and pecorino makes it especially nutty and salty; mozzarella melts evenly and a sharper deli-style provolone bridges the gap between them. Once you learn how to make the classic white sauce (technically a Mornay, which is a béchamel with cheese added), you’ll find dozens of ways to use it beyond pizza: Swap in an equal amount of grated Cheddar and toss it with pasta for an easy stovetop mac and cheese, or use Gruyère, slather the sauce over ham on toast, and broil until bubbly and browned. The sauce can be made up to 3 days ahead of time; store tightly covered in the refrigerator until ready to use.
Pepperoni Lover’s French Bread Pizza
An easy no-cook sauce works as a tangy base for pizzas of all kinds. Draining the tomatoes before seasoning ensures the sauce won’t create any soggy bottoms, no matter what type of crust you build your pizza on. Use an equal amount of crushed or whole peeled tomatoes instead of diced if that’s what you have on hand. Just use your hands to break whole tomatoes up a bit (and drain off any additional liquid). The sauce will keep, tightly covered in the refrigerator, for about 5 days. But feel free to use your favorite jarred marinara in its place. Leftover pizza reheats beautifully in a 350-degree oven until warmed through.
Honey-Glazed Mushrooms With Udon
In this weeknight dish, caramelized mushrooms are bathed in a satiny glaze of honey and butter, delivering the winning trifecta of sweet, savory and earthy. Cremini mushrooms are the hardest workers of the fungi world; they are inexpensive and accessible, and while they may not feel as fancy as some wild varieties, with some time in the pan, they burst with complex flavor. (Button mushrooms also do the job well.) Chubby udon are the ideal carriers for the luscious sauce, but for the most satisfying results, use fresh or frozen noodles, rather than the thinner dried strands. (Though in a pinch, they work, too). To get vegetarian recipes like this one delivered to your inbox, sign up for The Veggie newsletter.
Roasted Mushroom Laab
Earthy mushrooms replace meat in this take on laab. A dish popular in the northern and northeastern regions of Thailand, laab (also spelled larb) is often a lively combination of cooked minced meat, fresh herbs and a punchy dressing. In this recipe, mushrooms are roasted until golden brown and crispy around the edges, and, once cooled, tossed with a mix of cilantro, mint, basil and aromatics, including sliced scallions. Lime juice and soy sauce keep the dressing tangy and savory. A subtle, nutty crunch from toasted ground rice is an essential element of the salad, so don’t skip this step. Serve the dish with steamed rice and additional lime wedges for squeezing. To get vegetarian recipes like this one delivered to your inbox, sign up for The Veggie newsletter.