30 Recipes You Should Know by the Age of 30

When it comes to essentials, like tomato sauce, originality is overrated. Marcella Hazan’s classic tomato sauce is famous and adored, and justly so. Scads of bloggers and food writers have written about it, so I’m just following along. This is one of the best sauces I know, and it only needs four (yes, four) ingredients.

The most important element for guacamole is ripe avocados. They should give easily when squeezed (gently!). Underripe avocados make for bland, chewy guacamole. On the other hand, you shouldn’t feel any air pockets beneath the skin; this usually indicates the avocados are overripe.

Balsamic vinaigrette will take you far in life. This is made just with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and the balsamic adds just the right touch of sweetness when tossed with salad greens.

It’s a one-skillet meal that’s easy to clean up, and with the perfect combination of protein and vegetables, it’s absolutely satisfying and delicious. Frittatas are great for cleaning out the crisper, but one of my favorite veggie combos is savory mushrooms, crunchy asparagus, feta cheese, and fresh thyme.

Pancakes get high marks for being one of the most comforting of comfort foods. What this means is that everybody has their family favorite, resulting in thousands of recipes to choose from. But here’s one with a unique twist, a shortcut actually, that hands-down produces the best pancakes I have ever made.

Salmon is one of the most versatile proteins to work with in the kitchen. It’s delicious and universally loved, quite good for you, and very easy to prepare.

The perfect grilled cheese sandwich is a pursuit that has consumed many of us. Here is our contribution to the quest.

If you are craving soup and you have vegetables and broth in your cupboard, you’re all set. Here’s a step-by-step guide to transforming nearly any kind of vegetable into delicious, nourishing soup.

There are a million and one ways to make chili. All of them are excellent and all of them are sure to satisfy a large crowd of hungry people. Whether you like your chili with ground meat or chuck roast, pinto beans or no beans at all, the basic method for making it is the same. Want to make a very good pot of chili? Here’s how.

Stir-fries aren’t usually the well-edited dishes you think about and shop for in advance. They are frequently renegade, use-up-what’s-in-the-fridge meals, which is part of their charm. But not so with this recipe. I chose these particular ingredients deliberately, picking up pork tenderloin for a mid-week treat and adding lots of fresh spring vegetables for crunch.

Making homemade pizza from prepared dough is a quick and easy dinner any night of the week. Even making your own dough only really adds a few minutes to the prep time! Pile on your favorite toppings and get ready to chow down.

What’s better than chocolate chip cookies? Chocolate chip cookie dough in your freezer that’s ready to go whenever a cookie craving hits. Here's how to freeze it?

Each cook has decided preferences when it comes to his ideal chocolate cake, but they usually fall somewhere on the spectrum of Colwin’s three types: flourless, fudgy, and cocoa.

Valentine’s meal is not complete without a bit of chocolate. Here we end with chocolate in the form of a rich, fudgy brownie topped with a whipped peanut butter frosting and finished with flaked salt to tame the sweetness and round out all the flavors.