Sheela Prakash

While I am big fan of traditional pan-fried crab cakes, it’s hard to beat the ease that comes with baking them. Skip standing over a hot stove and instead, bake the whole batch at once on a sheet pan.For these easy crab cakes, you’ll shape the crab mixture into patties and chill them for 10 minutes, which ensures they’ll firm up a bit so they won’t fall apart in the oven. The patties are then transferred to a 425°F oven and baked until just cooked through.

There are many ways to cook carrots, but roasting them is hands-down my favorite method. It’s one of the best vegetable side dishes that pairs well with anything for dinner. Roasted carrots might seem simple, but when done right, they can rival just about any other vegetable side, be it Brussels sprouts or sweet potatoes. When it comes to glazed carrots, some recipes call for cooking them on the stovetop, but I opt for the oven so that the carrots can do their business while I do mine.

Regardless of what time everyone rolls out of bed on holiday mornings, you know there will be stomachs growling. It’s a holiday for you too, though, so no need to wake up at the crack of dawn to get going in the kitchen. Our favorite solution: a make-ahead breakfast casserole.

There’s nothing better than freshly baked cookies on Christmas. Who doesn’t love a platter of spiced gingerbread, classic snowball cookies, or peppermint candy cane cookies to share with loved ones?But do you need an occasion to bake cookies? A lazy Saturday, a winter snow day, or a rainy weeknight is absolutely reason enough, too.

I like to think sweet potatoes eagerly await Thanksgiving every year, knowing it’s their time to shine. Whether it’s a tradition to bake them into a pie for dessert or turn them into a casserole with marshmallows as a side dish, sweet potatoes are a holiday classic. However, there are so many more ways to serve them than these fan-favorite dishes.

These creamy, caramelized coins are almost too good to be true.

Dutch ovens are the workhorses of pots. They go from stovetop to oven with ease, making them ideal for braises, soups, stews, and more. Even better, Dutch ovens can be covered to keep foods warm or to transport a hot dish over to a sick friend. Whether you choose a classic cast iron Dutch oven or the ever-popular enameled version, Dutch ovens are easy to clean and can last decades with proper care. I like to think of the day I brought home a Dutch oven as the day my kitchen changed forever.

If you struggle to get your guests out of the kitchen while you’re focusing on the roast turkey and Thanksgiving stuffing and are desperate for no distractions, I suggest you casually place a platter of these deviled eggs in the room you’d like your family and friends to gather in. I guarantee they’ll be like bees to honey, fleeing your workspace and helping you to not freak out in the eleventh hour.

I knew absolutely nothing about the glories of a good baked potato until the day I ordered one at a local restaurant in my town that was known for them. Before that, my primary “baked” potato experience involved a microwave. What I tasted was so revelatory I still remember it: ridiculously crisp on the outside and oh so fluffy inside. I realized what we’d been doing at home was very, very wrong.

Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving a full month-and-a-half or so before Americans. While it’s often not quite the affair that it is in the States, the food is generally the same. There’s always the classic roast turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and gravy, and maybe there’s a little more maple mixed into desserts and special side dishes. Canadian Thanksgiving is this coming Monday, so we’ve gathered up a few of our favorite Thanksgiving recipes on the site to celebrate.

We have quite a collection of slow cooker recipes on our site. We really just can’t get enough of the appliance’s versatility and ease. And while we’d have a tough time picking out our favorite recipes from the bunch, you, our readers, definitely have your favorites. These 10 slow cooker recipes are the most popular of all, and for good reason — they’re comforting crowd-pleasers that can easily go on repeat on the dinner roster.

Tender sautéed greens are an easy go-to vegetable side everyone should know how to make. They pair with everything from quick pastas to weeknight chicken dinners, and come together in minutes. While mustard greens might not be as trendy as kale or as omnipresent as spinach, they’re well worth getting to know. They’re the leafy green of the mustard plant and are related to collards, cabbage, and, in fact, kale, and are common in Indian, Chinese, Japanese, African, and Southern U.

We’re in prime cold and flu season, and with it comes the need to keep plenty of cozy soups in your recipe arsenal. Sometimes a bowl or two is all you need to start feeling yourself again. These 20 easy soup recipes are comforting meals to make when you, your significant other, or your kids are sick and feeling under the weather.

In addition to keeping a jar stashed in the pantry, I love to make a big pot of applesauce after a day of apple picking — there’s something just so satisfying about its simplicity. However, after a few days of eating it from a bowl, dusted with cinnamon, I tend to grow tired of the snack. Luckily applesauce is good for so much more than just snacking. There are loads of sweet and savory recipes using applesauce, where it serves as a useful ingredient (especially when baking!

Pumpkin and butternut squash seem to get all the attention this time of year, but when it comes to orange-hued vegetables, I actually prefer the humble sweet potato. I’ll take sweet potatoes any which way, but at my Thanksgiving table I prefer mashed sweet potatoes. Some mashed sweet potato recipes call for baking the them in the oven first, then slipping them out of their skins and mashing them. Other recipes call for boiling the sweet potatoes in water.

I grew up thinking the only way to eat butternut squash was to mash it with lots of butter, milk, and brown sugar. Although that’s a delicious way to enjoy it (it’s still one of my favorites!), I’ve learned there are many more possibilities when it comes to preparing this vegetable. You can add butternut squash to creamy risotto, blend it into soup, or turn it into fritters.

There are a number of reasons why it’s a great idea to have a festive non-alcoholic option on hand for Thanksgiving. Maybe there are guests who have a long way to drive home after dinner, or perhaps there are simply a few friends or relatives who don’t imbibe. Whatever the reason, having something special for everyone to sip on rather than leaving those who don’t drink to rely on just water or seltzer adds to the celebratory nature of the holiday.

You don't even have to peel it!

It's salty, briny, spicy perfection.

It's summer in a bowl.

Somehow Labor Day weekend is upon us. It’s been a very short summer — it seems like we were just firing up our grills for Memorial Day, and yet that also feels like a long-distant memory now. Since we are all out of our normal rhythms, the long weekend might’ve snuck up on you. If you’re planning on getting outside and cooking this weekend, we’ve got some side dish options for you.

It's bright, fresh, and a breeze to whip together.

I stock my freezer with them summer after summer.

Now that the weather is getting cooler and it’s peak apple season, it’s hard not to want to crank up the oven and bake something warm and cinnamon-spiced. Bringing an apple dessert to the table — whether it’s apple pie, apple cake, apple crisp, or something else entirely — is just about the very best way to usher in autumn and all the cozy, sweater-wearing vibes that come with it.

We all know and love Julia Child for her cooking wisdom and sense of humor. She produced so many tried-and-true recipes over the years, like Suprêmes de Volaille aux Champignons, delicate cheese soufflé, and the fluffiest scrambled eggs, that it’s hard to keep track of all of them.

The time we’ve been looking forward to all year is finally here. It’s tomato season! Yes, peak tomato season is in full swing, and that means one thing: It’s your duty to consume as many tomatoes as possible. My cue that it’s time to dive in is when I go to the market and I can smell the table of heirloom tomatoes before I even step up to it.

Better than anything you'll buy at the store.