Weeknight
3491 recipes found
Farro and Lentils With Jammy Onions
Simmering chopped onions in a generous amount of olive oil is a two-for-one deal: The onions go soft and sweet while the oil gets infused with deep flavor. While the onions sizzle and simmer, the lentils and farro boil together until al dente, keeping the dish a speedy weeknight option. This makes a great warm side dish or a satisfying make-ahead grain salad. (Leftovers keep for up to three days.) Red-pepper flakes add heat, and lemon peel provides floral sweetness; you could also add whole spices, capers or other additions, if you like. Accessorize with hearty greens, soft herbs, eggs, smoked fish or leftover roasted vegetables.
Lentils Cacciatore
Chicken cacciatore is an Italian hunter’s stew that’s made by braising chicken with tomato, aromatics and vegetables, like red peppers, onions, carrots, rosemary, olives and so on. This braise’s cozy, deep flavors are equally tasty with red lentils in place of the poultry. In less than half an hour, red lentils break down to create a creamy, rich vegetarian stew. Carrots and red peppers make it a hearty meal, but you could also eat it over pasta, polenta or farro. If serving with pasta, thin the cacciatore with a little pasta water before tossing with the noodles.
Vegan Cheeseburgers
The new generation of vegan meat alternatives, such as Impossible and Beyond, are at their best when still medium-rare and juicy. Flipping the patties frequently as they cook ensures an evenly cooked interior and good flavor development on the exterior. To make the burgers vegetarian, feel free to use any good melting cheese, such as American, Cheddar or Swiss, but to make them strictly vegan, be sure to look for vegan burger buns, as standard supermarket burger buns frequently contain milk or other dairy products.
Grilled Zucchini
Naturally suited to grilling, zucchini is both juicy and mild, which means it stays moist even when it’s hit with fire, and it soaks up the smoky flavors of the grill in the short time it cooks. Maximize surface area — and convenience — by cutting the zucchini into sturdy planks, which cook through quickly without slipping through the grates while still retaining some texture. Brush them with olive oil, season enthusiastically with salt and pepper and grill until crisp-tender to enjoy them as a simple side, tossed into a salad or tucked into sandwiches. If you’d like to show them off, arrange them over some ricotta, then dot with herbs, capers and lemon and serve with grilled bread for an easy seasonal supper. The best summer recipes allow you to embrace technique but customize at whim.
Mapo Tofu
You can order mapo tofu from many Chinese restaurants, but it’s also quite doable at home. You can find the pivotal fermented chile and broad (fava) bean sauce or paste called doubanjiang (sometimes rendered as “toban djan”) at a Chinese market. Look for a doubanjiang from Pixian, in Sichuan, and bear in mind that oilier versions have extra heat but may lack an earthy depth. Sichuan peppercorns add mala — tingly zing — and fermented black beans, called douchi, lend this dish a kick of umami. Ground beef is traditional, but many cooks choose pork; you can also try lamb, turkey thigh or a plant-based meat alternatives. Add chile flakes for extra fire, and balance mapo’s intensity with rice and steamed or stir-fried broccoli.
White Bean Burgers
These have a delicate texture and a wonderful savory taste. They’re a little tricky to turn, as they can fall apart. Don’t make them too thick and use an offset spatula, and it will be easier for you. They should be cooked on a flat griddle or pan; don’t try to grill them on a barbecue.
Kimchi Tuna Salad
Kimchi and canned tuna make a popular combination in Korean cooking. These two pantry staples are found together in a number of dishes like kimchi jjigae and kimbap, and here they are the basis of a lively, fortifying salad. Combine them with fresh ginger and celery for crunch (or an equal amount of other crunchy vegetables, like thinly sliced sugar snap or snow peas, radishes, carrot, cabbage or fennel). The dressing is made using the spicy liquid from the kimchi jar, rice wine vinegar and sesame oil, but because each jar of kimchi is different, you may want to tweak the seasonings to taste. Eat the salad on its own; with gim, or seaweed, as a hand roll; or with something starchy to balance the punch, like a burger bun, rice, boiled potatoes, soba or ramen noodles.
Gyudon
A popular fast-food dish in Japan, gyudon is a quick-simmered mixture of thinly sliced beef and crisp-tender onions cooked in a sweet soy broth that’s seasoned with fresh ginger. It’s perfectly suited to weeknight cooking because it requires minimal prep, a short ingredient list and less than 30 minutes of active cooking. Gyudon owes its popularity to Yoshinoya, Japan’s first fast-food chain, which was founded in Tokyo in 1899 and became wildly successful in the 1960s serving just this dish. Variations abound — this recipe borrows heavily from the chef Ivan Orkin’s recipe, as well as one featured in “Simply Bento” by Yuko — and while some skip the use of dashi, a Japanese stock using bonito flakes and seaweed, the ingredient gives the dish a slight funk that offsets the sweetness of the mirin, sake and ginger. The flavor is subtle, but it’s missed when absent.
Pressure Cooker Salsa Verde Chicken
This warming, satisfying stew takes about 30 minutes from start to finish, thanks to the pressure cooker, which makes quick work of braising chicken and melding flavors. Use your favorite jarred green salsa as a shortcut: The salsa mingles with the chicken juices to make a thick, tangy sauce that tastes like more than the sum of its parts. (Jarred salsas vary in heat levels, so be sure to taste yours first. Make the dish spicier by leaving some of the jalapeño seeds in.) Serve the chicken over rice or whole grains, which soak up the sauce, or use the chicken in tacos, burritos or enchiladas. You can also add one cup of frozen or fresh corn, or a drained 15-ounce can of black or pinto beans to the cooked chicken and simmer until just warmed through. Pass around toppings like crunchy pepitas, tortilla chips, crumbled queso fresco or avocado, to customize at will.
Instant Pot Dakdori Tang
Dakdori tang, sometimes called dakbokkeum-tang, is an easy-to-make Korean braised chicken stew. It gets its deeply savory flavor and brick-red color from gochugaru, Korean red-pepper flakes, and gochujang, the spicy, pungent and sweet fermented red chile paste. Most traditional recipes call for braising bone-in, skin-on chicken parts without browning them first, resulting in a rich dish with a layer of very delicious chicken fat on top. If you prefer a leaner broth, you can remove the skin from half the chicken parts before starting, or simply ladle some of the fat off the top before serving.
Snapper Escovitch
A Caribbean favorite, this light, tender and flaky fish is made with whole snapper, but you can also use fillets for ease. This recipe has a mellow spice to let the flavor of the fish shine through, but it’s open to adaptation: Feel free to add a little more hot pepper or allspice, if you like, for more intensity. If you’re in a hurry or low on spices, you can substitute Old Bay, jerk or Cajun seasoning blends for the spice mix in Step 1. Then, turn it into a sandwich (see Tip), paired with sweet plantain fries, or eat it as a light meal on its own.
Pressure Cooker Lentil Soup With Sausage
An electric pressure cooker makes quick work of this Italian-style lentil soup, which tastes like it has simmered away on the stovetop for hours. (If time is on your side, get the slow cooker version of this recipe here.) You could use any brown or black lentils, but beluga lentils are ideal because they get creamy on the inside while retaining their shape. (Other lentils may fall apart, but the soup will be no less delicious.) Determine your leafy green selection by what the market has to offer, keeping in mind that heartier types will retain more bite. Finish the soup with a hit of red-wine vinegar and a sprinkle of fresh basil for bright, fresh flavor.
Instant Pot Congee
You can use any leftover roasted meat to flavor this mild, comforting congee, which is delicately seasoned with white pepper. Adapted from Liyan Chen of New Jersey, this recipe is a perfect use for all the bits and pieces of your leftover Thanksgiving turkey (or chicken or duck during the rest of the year). If you’d like to, add the shredded lettuce just before serving so it retains some of its texture. Then garnish the top with any combination of scallions, ginger, soy sauce or chile sauce that pleases you. Note that congee will thicken as it cools, but you can thin it out again with a little water or stock.
Red Cabbage Glazed With Maple Syrup
This recipe, published in The Times in 1991, was adapted from Yves Labbé, the chef at Le Cheval d’Or, a restaurant in Jeffersonville, Vt., that showcased French country cooking. Mr. Labbé was known to serve this side dish alongside quail in a red-wine sauce, and its simple instructions belie depths of flavor. The cabbage cooks down, braising in its own juices, while the sweetness of the apples and maple syrup, a Vermont staple, tones down the bitterness of the cabbage. The result has broad appeal.
Pressure Cooker Mushroom and Wild Rice Soup
This comforting soup tastes long-simmered, but it’s cooked in a pressure cooker, which makes it a weeknight possibility (though you could also make this recipe in a slow cooker). Use any variety of mushrooms you like: Cremini (also called baby bella) are affordable and easy to find and work well, or you can add shiitake or oyster mushrooms for a mix of texture and flavors. Don’t worry about removing small, supple stems, but discard any that are tough or dried-out. Wild rice isn’t a true rice at all but the seed of a grass that’s native to North America. When it’s cooked, it should be pleasantly chewy and nutty, not hard, and most of the grains should be slightly split open to reveal their creamy insides.
Pressure Cooker Squash With Honey and Lemongrass
This caramelized delicata squash purée, adapted from Nathan Myhrvold's multivolume “Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking,” is prepared in a pressure cooker. Normally, a pressure cooker wouldn’t get hot enough to caramelize anything. But, Mr. Myhrvold explained, if you create an alkaline environment with a sprinkle of baking soda, you can caramelize at a lower temperature. And the pressurized environment helps ingredients caramelize through and through, not just around the outside. This gives the squash an intense, nutty flavor, which is enhanced here with buckwheat honey and lemongrass.
Honey-Soy Braised Pork With Lime and Ginger
This is a wonderfully simple and hands-off way to prepare a flavorful hunk of meat, equally suited to a weeknight or a dinner party. There is no need to brown the pork first because the meat gets appealingly dark and caramelized while braising in the rich combination of soy sauce and honey. Fresh cilantro, scallions and a squeeze of lime added just before serving bring freshness. This meal is flexible: It works over rice or other whole grains, tossed with noodles or wrapped in lettuce leaves.
Thai-Style Sweet and Salty Shrimp
Made of equal parts sugar, fish sauce and vinegar, the sauce in the famous pad Thai at Kris Yenbamroong’s Night + Market restaurants in Los Angeles is too good to be used exclusively on rice noodles. This adaptation is simmered with a tangle of shrimp, peanuts, scallions, chile and lime juice for for a sweet, salty stir-fry. Add a quick cooking vegetable, like peas, thinly sliced asparagus or bean sprouts, with the shrimp, or substitute tofu, salmon or cubed boneless chicken thighs for the shrimp. Serve over shredded cabbage, rice, a roasted sweet potato or rice noodles.
Pressure Cooker Chipotle-Honey Chicken Tacos
If you have an electric pressure cooker, you can throw together a big batch of spicy chicken and black bean tacos in about 30 minutes. Smoky canned chipotles in adobo and honey do most of the heavy lifting here, combining to create a glossy, spicy-sweet sauce. Chipotles can pack varying levels of heat, so if you want your tacos on the milder side, use only one or two peppers. You can always drizzle with hot sauce at the table. The pickled onions are not absolutely necessary, but they add acidity and crunch that contrast nicely with the spicy shredded chicken. (Get the slow cooker version of this recipe here.)
Chile-Crisp Shrimp and Green Beans
This stir-fry is inspired by the taste and textures of chile crisp, that fiery condiment made by infusing oil with dried chiles, garlic and shallots. For this 20-minute recipe, make a quick version of the oil while the shrimp marinates in a combination of soy sauce, sugar, red-pepper flakes and cumin. Use the infused oil to cook the green beans (or asparagus), shrimp and peanuts, then serve topped with the fried shallots and garlic. It’s a deeply savory, spicy and satisfying dinner.
Pressure Cooker Lamb Meatballs
This recipe for lamb meatballs with a Greek-inspired tomato sauce, adapted from the cookbook author and pressure-cooking maven Lorna Sass, comes together in well under an hour.
Instant Pot Chicken Juk With Scallion Sauce
This Korean savory porridge was originally created as a comforting meal to soothe an upset stomach, but it’s satisfying no matter how you feel. A stovetop version typically requires a few hours to prepare, but the process is reduced to a mere 30 minutes with the use of a pressure cooker, and boneless, skinless chicken thighs, which cook faster than a whole chicken. In the cooker, combine the chicken, rice, vegetables and store-bought chicken broth with aromatics, and your work is done. The chicken emerges meltingly tender and practically shreds itself. A fresh and vibrant ginger sauce brightens the rich, warming soup.
Slow-Cooker Chicken Tortellini Tomato Soup
This satisfying soup is an excellent one-pot dinner to come home to after a long day. It takes only 10 minutes to throw it together in the morning and 10 minutes to finish it in the evening. If you plan to be away for eight hours or more, set the cook time for four hours, then set the slow cooker to auto-switch to warm for the remaining time. (This prevents overcooking.) If you’ll be home when the soup is done and can remove it from the heat, it’s best to cook the chicken for five to six hours. Add only the tortellini you will eat right away. Leftover tortellini will get mushy.
Pressure Cooker Punjabi Rajma (Indian Spiced Kidney Beans)
Rajma is a classic dish from Northern India in which red kidney beans are cooked with onions, tomato, ginger and a host of heady spices until they’re tender and fragrant. The classic version requires soaking the beans overnight followed by lengthy cooking. But when made in an electric pressure cooker, the whole thing can be ready in about an hour. If you think your beans are old (or if you can't remember when you bought them), the cookbook author Urvashi Pitre, who adapted this recipe for the Instant Pot, recommends soaking them in water for an hour before cooking.