I'm fairly convinced that hummus is some of the best stuff on earth. It might look beige and boring in the bowl, but this blend of chickpeas, olive oil, tahini, lemon juice, and garlic creates a dip that is so much more than the sum of its parts.
Skip the store-bought stuff — making it yourself is so easy and will be far tastier than just about anything from the deli section.
Coming from a Cantonese background on my father's side, I'm no stranger to seafood dishes involving copious amounts of scallions and ginger. It is absolutely one of the best flavor combinations known to man.
Pasta casseroles are perhaps the ultimate combination of weeknight convenience and homey comfort food. Casseroles like this one don't take long to cook, and they can be put together the day before and baked or warmed up at the end of a long day. And yet these pasta bakes are comforting and delicious.
This one has a double dose of spinach, spoonfuls of pesto, and, yes, plenty of cheese. It's a whole meal in one dish.
You might be thinking that a hearty, rustic loaf of bread like this one — with its shatteringly thin crust and tender, tangy interior — requires special equipment or skills or even a bread starter. Nope, this loaf is the simplest bread we know how to bake at home and it requires no stand mixer, no starter, no special knowledge, and no kneading.
This is a step-by-step guide for the now-ubiquitous no-knead bread. It's ridiculously easy, and very forgiving. If you're intimidated by baking ratios, volume vs. weight, baking scales, and kneading, this is a great recipe to start with. It will give you such a delicious loaf with about five minutes of hands-on time and almost no way to mess it up.
This recipe for everyday pizza dough is one we've worked on together over the years, tweaking something here and adding something there, until finally coming to a consensus. That makes it sound like this recipe might be tricky — it's not. In fact, keeping it simple was one of our biggest requirements.
This is the dough for your weeknight pizza, and it's the one that went into The Kitchn Cookbook. It's easy to make, either over a lazy afternoon at home or to stash in your fridge for later, and it's super easy to roll out. Top it with sauce and cheese, bake until bubbly, and awesome homemade pizza is yours.
Banish all thoughts of stringy, tough, sad chicken from your mind. For our chicken salad sandwiches and quick weeknight meals, we want nothing but the best. And for that, poached chicken is definitely the way to go. This method is easy, fast, and foolproof. Totally tender chicken breasts that are as good for dinner as they are for lunch the next day? Not a problem.
As winter wanes into spring, it is perfectly normal to crave both creamy comfort food and the bright spark of fresh veggies. This soup has it all — tender chicken, chunky carrots, wisps of wilted spinach, bite-sized pillows of pasta and cheese, all with a silky broth to tie it together.
My dad has an intense sweet tooth, just like me. One afternoon when I was around 10 years old, Dad got a hankering and he enlisted me to help him make Toll House chocolate chip cookies. That was the first time he and I had ever baked together. Since then, whenever I make chocolate chip cookies, including the ones from this recipe, I think of him and that special afternoon we spent together in the kitchen.
Can I share with you my current favorite flavor combination? Put harissa, a spicy chile paste, and honey together and pow! You get an instant punch of complex, sweet-spicy flavor.
This easy baked chicken dish takes full advantage of this dynamite duo, with harissa and honey flavoring a base of chickpeas and tomatoes as well as serving as a seasoning for chicken thighs.
Everything gets thrown into a baking dish and, 40 minutes later, out comes crispy-skinned chicken over saucy legumes. Spoon everything over couscous or just toss together a green salad to go alongside — you really can't go wrong with either one for an easy dinner.
These bars slip into that magical niche of snacks that seem — and taste — like candy but are still, at least ostensibly, healthy. They are made without refined sugar, require zero cooking, and can last in a backpack all day. Packed with peanuts and topped with a thin layer of chocolate, they are also the perfect energy-boosting snack to get you through a workout, an afternoon class, or a weekend hike.
If I could urge you to make one meal in your slow cooker this month, these chicken enchiladas would be it! We don't eat enough enchiladas in my house, mostly because my brain equates rolling enchiladas with too much work for a weeknight, but these slow cooker enchiladas are layered, not rolled, and each layer is stacked with delicious flavor.
For this easy weeknight dinner, you'll make a fragrant, possibly life-changing enchilada sauce (you can do this the night before), then cook some chicken in the sauce and layer this beautiful mess between tortillas and cheese in your slow cooker. You'll come home to this fragrant casserole, full of tangy, spicy sauce, tender chicken, and oh-so-satisfying cheesy goodness. Let's dig in.
Vietnamese beef noodle pho is an easy soup to fall in love with. Those chewy noodles, that savory broth, the tender slices of beef — all those crunchy, spicy, herby garnishes we get to toss on top. On a cold evening, after a rough day at work, when we're sick, on a lazy weekend afternoon — a bowl of piping hot pho is pretty much always a good idea.
Beef pho (pronounced "fuh"!) feels like a restaurant staple, but it's not actually all that hard to make a quick version at home. This recipe for quick Vietnamese beef pho was one of our favorites from The Kitchn Cookbook; so much so that we wanted to walk you through how to make it, step by step.
If you're a longtime reader of Kitchn, no doubt you have come across Faith's chicken ragù with bacon in the years since it was first published. This is one of those magical recipes whose flavor is inversely related to the number of ingredients and effort required to prepare it. A favorite among editors here at Kitchn, it's hard to believe it has taken us this long to revisit it.
While pork or beef ragùs regularly cross our tables, the transition into spring calls for swapping in something a bit lighter here: chicken.
Chicken and rice is a classic combination, but throw in some Cajun or Creole spice and make it creamy, and then you have a true winner. This stovetop rice casserole has juicy chicken cooked right in tender rice that's fragrant with lots of spices and black pepper. Crowned with a shower of scallions at the end, the dish is ready to be scooped into bowls and enjoyed as a comforting dinner. The leftovers make a great lunch the next day, too.
I didn't think chicken tikka masala could really get much better, but then I remembered my best gadget friend: the slow cooker. This is a curry dish that benefits from a nice, long simmer anyway, so why not let that happen while I'm off doing other things? That's what I call smart cooking.
Spooned over some steamed rice, this easy slow cooker tikka masala is about to make your busy days very happy indeed.
Sequels usually fail to recapture the original magic of a book or movie. And when it comes to dinner, leftovers languish in the refrigerator or end up as a sad desk lunch. But on a rare occasion, the second take is the reason to try it in the first place. Case in point? Risotto balls.
There is a lot to love about a pan-fried two-bite morsel of rice and cheese, but the best thing is breaking through a thin, crispy coating to reveal ultra-rich and creamy rice and a pocket of gooey cheese. Here's how to make these all yours.
When fragrant Italian sausage, juicy tomatoes, and sweet basil join forces, you know things are going to be good. Here they're tucked into al dente risotto and the whole mess is made extra creamy, thanks to the additions of butter and grated Parmesan cheese.
Served up in shallow bowls, this is dinner at its very best. It's a one-pot dish simple enough for a weeknight yet just fancy enough for a casual dinner party with friends on the weekend. Either way you decide to enjoy it, you can't go wrong.
Want the cheesy, tomato-y goodness of chicken Parmesan without all the breading and frying? With the help of ground chicken and the slow cooker, you can make these juicy meatballs instead.
You'll end up with all the comforting flavors of chicken Parm, in cute meatball form — ready to be stuffed into rolls as subs or ladled onto pasta or soft, creamy polenta.
When we shared a menu from Ina Garten's new book, Make It Ahead, we pulled a few of our favorite recipes and chatted with Ina herself about ways to put them together into a delicious and satisfying vegetarian dinner party — one that, yes, you can make ahead.
The star of the show is this roasted vegetable lasagna — always a hit! Here's what Ina says about this dish, with a few smart tips for making it great.
Are you in the mood for some comfort food? Of course you are. But now that spring is here and summer is on the horizon, you might, however, be leaning towards something with vegetables — perhaps even a vegetarian dish?
I have a proposal for you: fresh baby spinach and chickpeas, slow-cooked with ginger, garlic, and onion in a creamy coconut milk sauce, finished off with a healthy dash of lemon. But it doesn't stop there. No — this spicy, tangy dish of greens was designed to be served over a sweet potato. See? Both comforting and your daily dose of vegetables, all in one dish.
As I flipped with no small pleasure through the pages of Yotam Ottolenghi's cookbooks, considering recipes for this week's lunch feature, I was looking for recipes that went beyond the obvious: the salads, the soups, the plain sandwiches that characterize my all-too-frequent lunch ruts. But what else is out there? Come on — give me a new idea.
And unsurprisingly, Ottolenghi came through, with this recipe for a cauliflower cake that is good fresh, cold, at room temperature, for breakfast, lunch, or really any time at all.
What is warm-weather cooking, to you? For me, it means keeping things as simple as possible. In the spring and summertime I want meals that come together in one big pot — easy to cook and easy to reheat later. I want meals that taste like the garden, fragrant with herbs and bright flavors. I want hands-off meals, so I can retire to the back porch with a cucumber gimlet while my supper cooks.
Well, this braised chicken dish fits all those requirements beautifully.
Mustard is one of those condiments that can add a lot of easy flavor to your cooking. And two kinds of mustard (grainy and smooth)? Now you're talking about a flavor powerhouse.
This braised chicken dish puts the classic French combination of mustard, white wine, shallots, and cream to work in a slow cooker to create tender, saucy chicken ready to be served with some good bread to drag through the last drops of sauce on your plate.
Forget Atkins and Paleo — the new low-carb diet du jour is called keto, as in ketogenic. Although there are many similarities between these diets, a keto diet is all about restricting carbohydrates and increasing healthy fats. The goal is to force your body's metabolism into ketosis, which means it burns fat instead of glucose — because without carbs, glucose isn't readily available.
Read more: What Is the Ketogenic Diet, and Why Are We Talking About It?
There needs to be a revolution in the poultry world. While many people think that boneless, skinless chicken breasts are the end-all-be-all for a chicken recipe, chicken thighs deserve the real love.
When cooked correctly (which isn't hard), chicken thighs will make the most succulent chicken you'll ever eat, with a perfectly crispy skin.
