Side Dish Recipes & Ideas

Southern biscuits are the perfect fictional device for telling the narratives of Southern families. One cook makes his biscuits with White Lily flour only because that’s how his Maw Mae did it. Another swears by lard, as her family never had the funds for high-dollar butter or shortening. Most Southern cooks bake biscuits at least once a week — a ritual and rite of passage as the recipe is handed down through the generations. My biscuit recipe is much the same.

People can't stop raving about them.

Plus, it’s endlessly customizable.

The foolproof recipe is inspired by two greats: Ina Garten and Julia Child.

Despite being beautiful, delicious, and good for you, artichokes don’t get much play in the kitchen because — let’s face it — they’re a little intimidating. But with just a tiny bit of prep work, artichokes are surprisingly easy to pick, cook, and eat. The next time you’re at the farmers market or grocery store, pick up a few and give it a go. I’ll walk you through everything you need to know.

Warm and comforting soup is my favorite thing to eat this time of year, but it’s not always enough to make a complete meal. Your side dish of choice is going to depend on the type of soup you’re making. If you have a relatively smooth soup, like creamy tomato soup, you might want garlic bread or a soft milk bread bun for dunking. If you have a creamy mushroom soup, then maybe you want a side of roasted potatoes. That’s where these 46 sides for soup come into play.

Everyone will demand seconds.

Beef brisket is one of those rare dishes that sits squarely between homey comfort food and sophisticated classic. It’s comfortable on a weeknight dinner table and as the centerpiece of a holiday feast. Beef brisket can be slow-roasted in the oven, set in the slow cooker, or braised in an Instant Pot, where it quickly becomes fall-apart tender. If you don’t have an outdoor smoker, you can still make delicious and tender Texas-style brisket in your oven.

It's a match made in heaven.

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. These mustard greens are smothered in lots of garlic, kicked up with a pinch of red pepper flakes, and brightened with balsamic. When you have the main dish squared away, mustard greens are the easiest answer to “What should we have with it?

It’s delicious!

It's hard to eat just one.

We're not kidding when we say they taste like potato mac and cheese.

It’s the ultimate comfort food.

Ham is one of my favorite things to serve as a main dish. I’ll either cook my ham in the slow-cooker or bake it in the oven. I love that it’s easy to make and provides the perfect savory foundation to build the rest of your dinner around. In my opinion, a large part of the pleasure of serving ham is enjoying the side dishes that play well with its rich flavor. Plus, leftover ham can be reinvented into several other meals throughout the week or frozen until further notice.

Whether you plan to serve roasted leg of lamb, pan-seared lamb chops, or grilled lamb chops for a special dinner, you’ll want to choose some sides. The beauty of serving lamb as the main is that you can serve it with a wide variety of sides and the meal will taste great. Hearty potatoes dishes pair just as well as bright snappy veggies like green beans.

In about 15 minutes, you have one of the best side dishes you can enjoy.

This umami-packed, buttery glaze will make you love roasted tender carrots.

If you’re a savory breakfast person like me, a Scotch egg is a perfect food. The U.K. dish consists of a boiled egg that’s been peeled, covered in breakfast sausage, then breaded and deep-fried. It’s the perfect high-protein breakfast or snack. The roots of this dish are murky. Scotch eggs seem to have been around since the 1700s, with some claiming it was an Indian export due to its similarities to a dish called nargisi kofta.

Many of us turn to beans for our weekly meals. It’s a beloved pantry staple for hearty chili, winter stews, and comforting soups. Canned beans are no stranger to my pantry (there’s always a variety lining the shelves for an emergency), but over these past several months at home, I’ve become a dried bean convert.

It's perfect for St. Patrick’s Day or really anytime.

If you love creamy mashed potatoes, you’ll love colcannon, a traditional Irish dish. Keeping with tradition, we didn’t mess with the potatoes or cabbage, but swapped the plain melted butter that is typically served in a pool on top for fragrant browned butter. We just couldn’t help ourselves! The nutty browned butter is a wonderful warm contrast to the sharp green onions that get scattered before serving, giving this dish an easy, elegant twist.

If you’re skeptical about cabbage, this is the recipe that will turn you into a believer. And if, like me, you already adore cabbage (and are always looking for cabbage recipe ideas), this simple side will deepen your love. Simply put, Southern-style fried cabbage will forever change the way you think about this basic cruciferous vegetable.

It cooks in less than 10 minutes.

Do I have to share?

It’s the perfect vegetable side.

Oh, man, homemade meatloaf is amazing. I love this savory, flavorful, home-warming dish so much (the crispy bits! The ketchup glaze!) that sides are often an afterthought. When I think about what to serve with meatloaf, I’ll typically head straight for a pair of standbys: mashed potatoes and a side of green veggies ( like broccoli or green beans). But those are far from the only — or the best — dishes to pair with this perennial protein.

There are some dinners that you just know are going to be automatic wins. Chili is absolutely one them. When chili night falls into your meal plan, you can expect a dinner that’s warming, hearty, and filling. Sure, a Dutch oven loaded with chili is certainly meal-worthy all on its own, especially when it’s packed with beans, meat, or a combination, but I always think having one simple side is the ticket to rounding out dinner. Serving chili with a side dish balances the table.

“My husband ate more than half of the bowl.”

"This maque choux beats others I’ve had in Louisiana."

Meet your new favorite party recipe: slow cooker baked beans. Long loved for their sweet, tangy flavor and tender, creamy texture, baked beans for backyard barbecues, summer cookouts, and game day parties used to mean heating up the whole house to slowly cook the dried beans for hours upon hours. Here the slow cooker saves the day by doing all the work and keeping you cool at the same time.

And there isn't even heavy cream.

Scallops are one of my very favorite special-occasion dinners. They don’t come cheap, so my husband and I save them for celebratory meals, which makes them feel like a luxury when we do sit down to them. The best part? Whether they’re pan-seared scallops, baked scallops, grilled scallops, or air-fried scallops, they take practically no time to cook. That leaves you with time to focus on preparing a side or two to round out your meal.

Cooking eggplant is quite easy and works in a million different ways: grilled eggplant, crispy baked eggplant, stir-fried eggplant, and stuffed eggplant, to name a few. (You just want to know what mistakes to avoid when cooking it!) But whenever fall rolls around I find myself consumed by an abiding drive to roast things, and oven roasted eggplant is one of the best and easiest things to do. Globe eggplant: You’ll need 2 medium eggplants or 1 large eggplant.

While it may feel like kale has overstayed its welcome in the food scene, the hype over the leafy green is very much still alive. And knowing the right way to cook it is a total game-changer. (Don’t miss our in-depth kale guide to learn about the different types of kale and more! )Mastering this method will convert kale-haters, yes, but it will also inspire kale fans who feared they’d never be able to get it right at home.

Crispy outside + fluffy inside = perfection.

So simple, so satisfying.

Creamy, cheesy, and crowd pleasing dauphinoise potatoes are practically impossible to dislike. This classic French dish is simple yet indulgent, and pairs perfectly with showstopping mains like roasted beef tenderloin, glazed ham, or prime rib. With a few kitchen tools and a bit of prep work, you can easily make dauphinoise potatoes from scratch.Dauphinoise (DOE-PHEEN-NOWAAZ) potatoes is how the French say casserole of potatoes, heavy cream, and cheese.

There's so much to love even for vegetable haters!

Almost everything you need is in your pantry.

We love a classic lasagna, although we’ve never met a lasagna we didn’t like! Whether it’s an extra-cheesy white lasagna, a gnocchi lasagna, or a skillet ravioli lasagna, it’s the ultimate family dinner because it feeds everyone and it feeds everyone well.What to serve with lasagna, though? It’s usually packed with enough good things like cheese, meat, and even veggies to make it totally satisfying all on its own.

Steak isn’t an everyday dinner, so when you take the time to cook it, it truly feels like an occasion. It’s often made to celebrate special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries, but it also has a way of making a random Wednesday night feel festive. It’s hard to beat a perfectly grilled steak when it’s warm outside.

Who doesn’t like crispy cheese?

Mac and cheese is such a solid staple. You can make macaroni & cheese from scratch, find a favorite boxed variety, or go for pure nostalgia with the frozen kind that microwaves in minutes. While some might argue that mac and cheese is an entire meal (my second grader, for one), even on the most harried nights I still want a side dish to round out the table. So, what goes with mac and cheese? Side dishes for mac and cheese can be as easy as carrot sticks or a bagged salad.

Truly, pasta doesn’t need much to make it a crowd favorite at the dinner table. Grab a bowl and a fork and you’re pretty much all set. However, it never hurts to add a salad or cooked vegetable to the situation to make the whole meal feel a bit more, well, whole. Serving up pasta for dinner is actually a golden opportunity to get some extra vegetables on the table. And as for the very best pasta side dishes, know that the options are vast.

This will be your new favorite side.

So much better than chicken noodle.

It always feels like a treat when salmon is in my dinner lineup. I love it because it’s easy to prepare and there are so many ways to cook it. Take your pick between cooking salmon in the oven, under the broiler for an extra-speedy dinner, or on the grill. You can even cook salmon straight from the freezer.The best side dishes for salmon should be simple enough to make while the salmon cooks, and deliver plenty of flavor without outshining the beautiful fish.

This is a bowl of pure comfort.

What's a bowl?

I have the recipe memorized.

Our favorite way to eat cauliflower isn’t as a cauliflower pizza crust or cauliflower rice, it’s an extremely creamy mash. But before we designate mashed cauliflower as just a lighter version of mashed potatoes, let’s consider why it is a side dish with merits all its own. You can’t over-mash or over-whip cauliflower the way you can potatoes. Without potato’s starch to contend with, you can purée the cauliflower all day with no risk of gumminess.

These are beyond worth the effort.

You had me at crispy bacon and gooey cheese.

Fondant potatoes look like a dish you’d order in a fancy restaurant. But don’t be intimidated by their appearance — they take less than one hour to make and use humble ingredients you might already have on hand. They also come together using just one pan, making cleanup a breeze. Serve them with seared steak or roast chicken for a restaurant-quality dinner at home. Or serve them alongside prime rib for an impressive holiday meal.

I won't cook rice any other way.

Because we all know the sides are the stars.

It was only a few years back when my mom first decided to bake stollen for Christmas morning. Traditionally, she baked her signature coffee cake after stockings, but with a house filled with more holiday guests than usual, she decided to expand the morning menu.I can still remember her kneading the dough on the 23rd, and when I later walked past the countertop, I encountered the most supple, glistening dome of dough I had ever seen.

You've never had creamed corn like this.