Weeknight
3491 recipes found
Poached Chicken Breasts With Parsley-Onion Salad
Slowly poaching bone-in chicken breasts in a very low oven makes the meat extremely silky, without turning it tough or drying it out. And having the oven on for an extended period allows you to cook other things in the gentle heat. Here, halved cherry tomatoes turn sweet and jamlike. A pan of chicken skin renders and crisps, becoming golden and potato-chip crunchy before getting tossed with a bright parsley-onion salad. If you’d rather skip the chicken skin, you can. This dish is nearly as good without it, though you may want to add some toasted pine nuts or slivered almonds to the parsley salad for texture.
Crisp Stuffed Chicken Cutlets
The chef Alexandra Raij modeled this recipe on a traditional Spanish dish called flamenquines, in which flattened chicken breasts are stuffed with ham and cheese, then rolled up, coated in egg and bread crumbs and fried. Her recipe mostly follows that lead, but instead of pounding the breasts and rolling them up with the stuffing, she used thin cutlets of chicken and layered the stuffing between two of them, sealing them together with an egg mixture. Fried to a golden hue, the dish is both crunchy and greaseless. The crumbs insulate the delicate meat and help keep it from overcooking.
Seared Chicken Breast With Potatoes and Capers
Pan-seared chicken is a skill with countless rewards. (If this is your first time making chicken this way, you’ll understand why fast.) You'll want to start the chicken on the stovetop and finish it in the oven. Then, once it's perfectly cooked, you can pair it with almost anything, whether a simple green salad or a side of smashed potatoes loaded with butter, mustard, capers and chopped lemon, as it is here. The trick is to steam, not boil, the potatoes, which gets them soft and smashable quickly. You need very little water (an inch or so), so there’s no waiting around for water to boil, and, best of all, you won’t lose any of that rich potato flavor.
Skillet Chicken and Zucchini With Charred Scallion Salsa
Baked chicken breasts have a reputation for being dry, but pan-searing bone-in, skin-on breasts before roasting them helps them render their fat. It also forms a protective coating, develops a crisp, deep-golden skin and adds an extra layer of flavor. In this one-pot recipe, zucchini is tossed with the rendered chicken fat, and everything cooks together in the oven. Swap in any seasonal, quick-roasting vegetable for the zucchini, like cherry tomatoes or asparagus, but don’t skip the charred scallion and jalapeño salsa. The zingy lime, grassy herbs and barely there brown sugar really make this dish sing. If cilantro isn’t your thing, basil makes a fine replacement, or try a combination of the two. Alongside? Steamed rice would be nice.
Soy-Glazed Chicken Breasts With Pickled Cucumbers
The pan-steam method used here ensures boneless, skinless chicken breasts cook quickly while staying moist. The technique works with water, but a flavorful mixture of soy sauce, honey, garlic and coriander infuses the chicken with even more flavor. Depending on the size of the skillet you use, the sauce may reduce a little slower or faster than the time indicated. When you swipe a rubber spatula across the bottom of the skillet, the sauce should hold a spatula-wide trail that fills in with liquid pretty quickly. If you happen to reduce too much, whisk in water one tablespoon at a time until you’re back to a shiny sauce that can be drizzled. Rice is an obvious side, but the sliced chicken and pickled cucumbers are really good tucked inside flour tortillas, too.
Chicken Katsu
Katsu, a popular Japanese comfort food of breaded cutlets, is commonly made with chicken or pork. For this chicken version, boneless chicken breasts are pounded thin, dredged in flour, egg and panko, then fried until golden brown for an irresistible crispy crust that yields to — and protects — juicy meat inside. The traditional accompaniments are a mound of crunchy shredded cabbage, steamed rice and a generous drizzle of sweet-savory katsu sauce. Also called tonkatsu sauce, it’s a tangy Japanese-style barbecue sauce made with soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, tomatoes, ginger and clove. Though you can purchase bottles of it in Asian markets or online, the sauce is easy to make, lasts indefinitely in the fridge and serves as a great all-purpose dip.
Parmesan Chicken Breast With Tomato and Herb Salad
For better weeknight chicken, dredge it in flour loaded with freshly grated Parmesan and shallow-fry it. The cheese works to create a sort of frico, so you don’t need bread crumbs for a deeply flavorful crust. While you could make this entirely on the stovetop, you risk overcooking the Parmesan, and under- or overcooking the meat. Instead, finish it in the oven, which yields a juicy, tender breast and keeps the Parmesan from getting too dark. Serve with perfectly ripe beefsteak and cherry tomatoes, jumbled together with salt and herbs and a splash of vinegar to make the tomatoes pop.
Sheet-Pan Baked Feta With Broccolini, Tomatoes and Lemon
When baked, feta gains an almost creamy texture, similar to goat cheese but with feta’s characteristic tang. In this easy vegetarian sheet-pan dinner, broccolini (or broccoli), grape tomatoes and lemon slices roast alongside the feta until the broccolini crisp, the tomatoes burst and the lemon rinds soften. (Remember, broccolini has a tender, delicious stalk so only the bottom 1/2-inch needs to be trimmed.) Serve this dish over a pile of orzo for a complete meal. If you like, cut the broccolini, feta and lemon into bite-size pieces and toss with the orzo.
Sheet-Pan Mushroom Parmigiana
This smart weeknight dinner offers all the comforting flavors of a classic Parmigiana, but with minimal work. Earthy portobello mushrooms are used here, offering a perfect cradle for the red sauce and creamy mozzarella. Use good quality store-bought marinara sauce (vodka, arrabiata or amatriciana), a much-underrated pantry item that can turn around a meal quickly. This flexible recipe can be scaled up or down without too much fuss. It accounts for two portobello mushrooms per person, but if you’re serving them with pasta or a salad, you could reduce to one each. The basil-scented bread crumbs finish the mushrooms with a lovely, herbaceous crunch. Extra bread crumbs keep well in an airtight container and are wonderful for topping pasta, salads, soups and roasted vegetables. To get vegetarian recipes like this one delivered to your inbox, sign up for The Veggie newsletter.
Roasted Honey Nut Squash and Chickpeas With Hot Honey
Colorful and meatless, sweet and fiery, this sheet-pan dinner is an exuberant combination of cold-weather vegetables and warming spices that will perk up any weeknight. Although the recipe takes about an hour from start to finish most of it is hands-off, and the actual prep time is relatively short. If you don’t have hot honey, you can substitute regular honey and a pinch of cayenne. And try to use canned chickpeas prepared with sea salt; the unsalted kind are bland.
Sheet-Pan Paneer Tikka
Paneer, the slightly salty and extremely versatile South Asian cheese, is the perfect backdrop for heady masalas. In this recipe, soaking paneer in hot water for 10 minutes before cooking rehydrates it, while coating and baking it — along with bell peppers and red onion — with yogurt, ginger, garlic, oil, and spices means the paneer will be light, fluffy and flavorful every time. Basting the paneer with melted ghee toward the end of the baking process keeps it from drying out and adds nuttiness. In the end, you’ll have a one-pan meal of sweet, crunchy veggies and luxuriously spiced paneer in under 30 minutes. To make it vegan, substitute tofu for paneer (no need to soak) and skip the yogurt.
Original Plum Torte
The Times published Marian Burros’s recipe for Plum Torte every September from 1983 until 1989, when the editors determined that enough was enough. The recipe was to be printed for the last time that year. “To counter anticipated protests,” Ms. Burros wrote a few years later, “the recipe was printed in larger type than usual with a broken-line border around it to encourage clipping.” It didn’t help. The paper was flooded with angry letters. “The appearance of the recipe, like the torte itself, is bittersweet,” wrote a reader in Tarrytown, N.Y. “Summer is leaving, fall is coming. That's what your annual recipe is all about. Don't be grumpy about it.” We are not! And we pledge that every year, as summer gives way to fall, we will make sure that the recipe is easily available to one and all. The original 1983 recipe called for 1 cup sugar; the 1989 version reduced that to 3/4 cup. We give both options below. Here are five ways to adapt the torte.
Sheet-Pan Crisp Tofu and Sweet Potatoes
Tossing marinated tofu squares in cornstarch before roasting makes them wonderfully crunchy and brown. Here, the tofu is cooked alongside spears of sweet potato, which are soft and silky against the crisp squares. A tamari-honey dressing spiked with rice wine vinegar acts both as marinade for the tofu and sauce for the finished dish. Then quick-pickled scallions and hot sesame oil make for a bright and spicy garnish.
Sheet-Pan Tofu and Brussels Sprouts With Hoisin-Tahini Sauce
Two powerhouse pantry ingredients – hoisin sauce and tahini – come together to turn this vegetarian sheet-pan dinner into a memorable meal. Hoisin, which is made with fermented soybeans, is often used as a sweet and savory glaze for meat, but it also injects big, deep flavors into vegetable-based dishes. Here, it is mixed with tahini to create a tangy, creamy sauce that is reminiscent of one served with fried rice noodle rolls at dim sum. This dish could be served with rice or noodles, or you could add a few spinach leaves for a salad-leaning meal, but the crispy, earthy brussels sprouts and toothsome golden tofu are more than hearty enough on their own.
Sheet-Pan Grilled Cheese
Ever dream of serving warm grilled cheese sandwiches to a crowd without feeling like a short-order line cook or getting stuck with a slightly soggy sandwich? A sheet pan can help: It allows you to cook four sandwiches at once, with less attention than they require on the stovetop, and provides the opportunity to add cheese to the outsides for a crisp, chip-like contrast to the gooey filling. This oven technique is amenable to different kinds of breads and cheeses, and can take additions for melts. Grilled cheese just got even more convenient.
Sheet-Pan Roasted Mushrooms and Spinach
If you love to cook but don’t always feel like cooking, this minimalist recipe is the recipe for you. Great with just about any protein — salmon, steak, chicken or even eggs, wrapped into an omelet — it comes together in under a half-hour, and develops loads of character from its time spent in the oven. While this versatile vegan side pairs well with protein, it’s also great over rice or noodles.
Sautéed Peas With Anchovies and Scallions
Built for ease, this recipe uses kitchen staples like frozen peas, canned anchovies and garlic to make a quick side dish in minutes. Build flavor by melting anchovies and garlic into olive oil, then add frozen peas directly into the pan and simply stir until seasoned and warmed. (The peas do not have to be thawed prior to cooking, and they’ll thaw quickly in the pan.) If fresh peas are in season, please use them and cook them until they’re bright green. You can also substitute the peas with hearty greens like kale, Swiss chard or collard greens; just strip them off their stalks and tear them into bite-size pieces before adding them to the pan. This green side pairs well with roasted chicken, or toss it with cooked pasta, a few tablespoons of olive oil and a flurry of grated Pecorino to turn it into a meal.
Chickpeas Escabeche With Plantain Strips
In the Spanish-speaking world, the technique of cooking ingredients and then immersing them in vinegar is called escabeche. Anything can be made escabeche; it brings a lovely little shiver of sourness to the table. The writer and cultural critic Alicia Kennedy, who lives in Puerto Rico, likes to use chickpeas, simmering them in vinegar, olive oil and sofrito, a potent blend of garlic, onions, sweet peppers, grassy-bright cilantro and its swaggering cousin culantro. Just before serving, she adds Spanish stuffed olives, for extra richness. The beans are meaty enough to sate and small enough to scoop up with a chip — or, as Ms. Kennedy prefers, to be spooned, almost daintily (‘‘like caviar,’’ she says), onto a delicate strip of crisped plantain, hot from the skillet.
Sheet-Pan Gnocchi With Mushrooms and Spinach
This sheet-pan dinner is inspired by classic steakhouse sides: roasted mushrooms, creamy horseradish-mustard sauce, wilted spinach and roasted potatoes. Well, kind of. Instead of whole potatoes, this recipe uses store-bought gnocchi, a superspeedy stand-in that takes on the fun combination of browned and chewy when roasted. This dish is hearty enough to be a full meal, though it’d also make a great side to braised beans, roast chicken, a seared pork chop and, of course, steak. To get vegetarian recipes like this one delivered to your inbox, sign up for The Veggie newsletter.
Twice-Baked Potatoes
At its simplest, a twice-baked potato is creamy, cheesy mashed potatoes cradled in crisp, salty skin. That’s the recipe you see here: comforting, satisfying and pretty much ideal. But if you dream of other flavor combinations, like bacon, scallions and sour cream; blue cheese and chives; or cauliflower and Parmesan, just follow the recipe below and stir in any additions (reserving some for garnish) after the dairy in Step 3. Shower the top with more grated cheese if you like, then bake, garnish and dig in.
Broccoli Salad With Peanuts and Tahini-Lime Dressing
Broccoli stalks, often overlooked or tossed in favor of the florets, take center-stage in this summer picnic salad. While many broccoli slaws are made with mayonnaise-based dressings, this one is inspired by the bright flavors of Thai cuisine, and uses sesame oil, lime juice, salted peanuts, scallions and a dash of hot sauce for heat. (Garnish the slaw with fresh Thai basil, if you like.) Tossed with a creamy vegan tahini-lime dressing, the broccoli softens just enough to lose that raw broccoli flavor without giving up any of its satisfying crunch. A food processor or Mandoline makes quick work of the stems, but with a little bit of patience, a good knife does the trick, too. Finally, this salad is best the day it’s made, though its components can be prepared in advance to save time.
Air-Fryer Broccoli
Broccoli roasts beautifully in the air fryer, and in record time with minimal effort. The air fryer is especially adept at producing the Maillard reaction — the chemical processes that transform sugars and proteins in food when browned and caramelized, deepening their flavor — because the controlled, high heat draws out moisture, creating a lovely char while keeping vegetables tender and flavorful. This recipe gives the broccoli a hit of umami from soy sauce, which is bolstered in the high heat, resulting in nutty, sweet and salty notes. If you’d like more umami, a drizzle of fish sauce or chile crisp will stretch these flavors even further. A sprinkle of sesame seeds adds nuttiness, and some fresh lemon zest provides a jolt of brightness.
Air-Fryer Green Beans
Tossed simply with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, red-pepper flakes and grated garlic, green beans in the air fryer blister beautifully in a fraction of the time without heating up the oven. Equally tasty hot or at room temperature, these green beans can be made ahead and set aside if you want to cook a main dish in the air fryer after they’ve crisped. Green beans will crisp up nicely if left undisturbed in the air fryer, but like an oven, an air fryer can contain hot spots, so it’s worth shaking the green beans at least once for even cooking.
Skillet Chicken With Silky Peppers and Green Olives
Made with diced fresh tomato and colorful sweet bell peppers, this savory chicken dish is lively and bright. Cooked as written, the sauce is on the brothy side, perfect for pouring over rice or couscous, or for sopping up with bread. But if you prefer it to be heartier, remove the chicken pieces from the pan once they’re cooked, then simmer to reduce the sauce, stirring occasionally, for another 5 to 8 minutes. Return chicken to the pan and stir in olives, then garnish with herbs to serve.