Dinner for a Crowd

All your summer favorites packed into a crave-worthy side.

You're going to need A LOT of garlic.

It's easy, it's impressive, and every single bite is packed with cookies-and-cream whipped cream.

This citrus-chile marinade was born out of a need to impress my friends — and spoiler: it worked.

It's got a little something for everyone.

It's basically northern Italian lasagna's cousin, featuring layers of pasta, meat sauce, and the most delicious bechamel.

This pork shoulder ragù is so restorative that this is now the recipe I reach for time and time again when I need to come back to myself.

The recipe comes from Barefoot Contessa at Home, and it feels peak Ina with its everyday extravagance.

And there's endless ways to enjoy it.

It's packed with all the tangy, herby flavors you love.

Each plush and fluffy roll is filled with kimchi compound butter.

One smart step makes it the best vegetable soup you've ever had.

This bright and comforting meal is ready in just 30 minutes.

It's absolute bliss.

This retro appetizer is made with Bisquick, sausage, and cheese and is a hearty snack or starter.

It's the tastiest solution to an overflowing herb garden.

We'll show you how to eat it all week long.

This five-ingredient recipe is the fastest, easiest way to make enchilada sauce from scratch.

Plenty of melty cheese and lots of warm tomato sauce ensure this is comfort food at its best.

It deserves a permanent place in your fridge this summer.

It's packed with heaps of fruit, homemade pudding, and tender angel food cake.

Tender, flavor-packed carnitas in a fraction of the time.

Guaranteed to be the most comforting dish on the table.

Welcome to slow-cooked season.

One of the challenges of entertaining these days are the many food allergies, issues, sensitivities, and aversions guests can bring with them to the table. It’s impossible to please everyone, but this soup goes a long way towards universal satisfaction and joy. Made with ground cashews instead of cream and kicked up with an array of savory herbs and spices, it is the perfect thing to serve when you have mixed company. But don’t make it just because it’s vegan-friendly and easy.

This takes the classic treat to a whole new level of deliciousness.

One way to subvert the usual lettuce narrative is to do something wholly unexpected with it, as in the baked lettuce and onion tart we shared with you yesterday. Another way is to expand the idea of lettuce itself — as in this crisp, bitter chicory salad from the bright minds behind Bar Tartine in San Francisco. Chicories are bitter greens with a more assertive bite than sweet and tender garden greens, but that bitterness means they stand up well to a strong dressing.

There’s more to this pasta dish than just chicken, olives, and feta. There are some artichoke hearts, fresh oregano, and a lemon vinaigrette — a whole mess of salty, tangy flavors. The idea for this recipe started with a leftover container of olives. I was imagining a pasta that mimicked a Greek salad, so we shopped for some feta cheese and a few fresh (pitted) olives to supplement the ones we had (which we had to pit — whew).

When I ask fellow cooks about their favorite cookbooks of the last several years, there is one name that invariably comes up: Ottolenghi. Yotam Ottolenghi’s brand of Mediterranean, vegetable-forward cooking gained followers and fans at his London delis and restaurants, but it found an even wider and more avid audience through his books. What makes Ottolenghi so special?

Part bread stuffing, part French Onion soup, 100% delicious.

Did you forget to soak beans, but still need to get dinner on the table? The pressure cooker will come to the rescue, cooking dried beans in about 30 minutes. If you remembered to soak the beans, the time savings are even greater — the beans will just need five to 10 minutes of pressure-cooking time. And some legumes, such as lentils and black-eyed peas, can forego the soaking process altogether.

This recipe very handily fed almost a dozen people at a recent weekend get-together; there were even leftovers. It’s also a very easy and delicious recipe with terrific flavor. And yet it takes less than half an hour to put it all together. Perfect menu for company! This recipe is basically a riff on Elizabeth’s slow-cooked pork shoulder. Pork shoulder, also known as pork butt, is a relatively fatty and inexpensive cut of meat that is excellent for slow cooking and braises.

When I started planning the menu for the afternoon baby shower I hosted for our latest Gatherings from The Kitchn, I knew I wanted to serve salmon. High in omega-3 fats and low in mercury, salmon is a great choice for pregnant women who are confused about which fish they can and should be eating. But this recipe isn’t just for pregnant women, of course. On a bed of crisp greens, alongside cold roasted asparagus, a piece of this mustard-brushed salmon is terribly elegant.

When I go to the farmers market, new potatoes are one of my favorite things to buy. New potatoes, the tiny first potatoes of the season, can be found from spring through early summer, and I think they are simply the best-tasting potatoes of the year. I use them for many things, but my favorite is potato salad — especially this fresh and easy version, with handfuls of basil and crisp shallots. If you can’t find new potatoes, however, the smallest regular potatoes will do.

Risotto is one of the pressure cooker’s triumphs. It’s a dish that typically requires the cook’s attention from beginning to end, and at least two pans to make (one for simmering stock and one for rice). With a pressure cooker, you get the same creamy results in a fraction of the time (after the initial sauté). The 20-minute-add-broth-simmer-and-stir part of the recipe is reduced to just five minutes of pressure-cooking time.

This vegetarian chili is October in a bowl.

Come home from work, take a bowl from the cupboard, and proceed immediately to the table without even needing to turn on the stove.

In the nineties, I went to college in Canada, a long way from my home in South Carolina. One snowy weekend, my mother came for a visit. Because I was in class when she arrived — and you can’t skip class the day your mother arrives — I left her a key.

This slow cooker mac and cheese is so easy that it feels like it can’t possibly be right. Dry pasta, milk, and cheese go in, and a few hours later you’re scooping warm macaroni and cheese onto your plate. Ready for a little magic in your dinner? Let’s take a look at how this macaroni and cheese can be yours. This recipe makes a casserole-style macaroni and cheese with a sturdy (but still creamy!) texture that can be sliced into squares.

What if I told you that you could have a rich and creamy bowl of mac and cheese while also packing in over a pound of cauliflower? Sounds like a trick, right? No so fast! This recipe does just that, thanks to a base of cheesy cauliflower sauce. While I don’t believe in hiding vegetables, I do believe in adding them into dishes wherever I can to boost my intake. That is exactly why I love this macaroni and cheese.

Not quite ready to stop celebrating Cinco de Mayo? Well, look no further than these delicious salsa verde breakfast nachos! What I love about this breakfast dish is that it’s something you can easily enjoy on your own (if you’re ravenous) or simply share with a few friends. Not many breakfast options can do that. And because it’s nachos, it’s super easy to make.

I am a big fan of the classic Spanish tortilla, where eggs are cooked in a skillet on top of blanched, sliced potatoes. The resulting savory cake is good for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and midnight snack. I wanted, however, the adaptability of the tortilla and frittata in a somewhat simpler form, with more generous proportions. So here’s the casserole cousin of the Spanish frittata: a potato gratin, baked in golden eggs, with a touch of red pepper for color and taste.

When the temperature takes a permanent nosedive and fall is starting to look a lot more like winter, shepherd’s pie is one of the first things that I crave. One enormous square of this casserole, with its blanket of mashed potatoes and that savory meat-and-vegetable filling, sends a sigh of contentment through my whole body. One casserole makes more than enough for my household of two, so I can look forward to comfort meals all week long.

This version of a shepherd’s pie plays with the regional flavors of India, and in actuality, probably shouldn’t be called a real shepherd’s pie because it has no lamb. Perhaps an Indian chicken-wrangler pie would be a better name. Notwithstanding nomenclature and food history’s neurotic exactness, this dish embodies the flavors of the subcontinent.

Potluck dinners tend to resemble mini Thanksgivings most of the time — and I’m most definitely not saying that’s a bad thing. But with all the tried-and-true vegetable side dishes and casseroles that often show up at the table, it’s fun to tweak the traditions a little bit and stand out from the pack. A double dose of lemon in this veggie-loaded gratin keeps the mood light — even with the usual suspects of cream and cheese in every comforting spoonful.

When I entertain, I make drinks that can do double duty as delicious offerings and gorgeous centerpieces. Whether placed on my bar or in the center of the dinner table, this seasonal cranberry sangria is perfect for your next holiday gathering. Cranberry sangria is typically made with red wine, but I’ve been on a white cranberry juice kick lately.

It's the coziest way to feed your family of six (or stock your freezer with leftovers!) this winter.

Comfort food is an overused phrase, no doubt. But when I’m cooking for a large crew, I make a beeline to the cabbages and the butcher’s counter. As a kid, I ate my grandmother’s stuffed cabbage almost weekly. It was the sweet-and-sour Jewish-esque version, and I loved it. I’ve had Polish versions and Russian versions, and frankly there’s something synergistically wondrous about cabbage and beef or veal; they support and showcase each other.

These intensely fudgy brownies may be thin in stature, but they’re hefty in rich, chocolate flavor. This sheet pan-sized batch is great for feeding a crowd. (Pro tip: Freeze the pan before cutting the brownies into slices for perfectly clean edges.

Julia Child's coq au vin is all it is cracked up be: a cracking-good recipe.

I’ve never in my life come across bad mashed potatoes. (I take that back. Potato flakes and a blender are coming to mind.) But usually my taste buds do not discriminate: cream, buttermilk, garlic, and Parmesan are all welcome additions to my favorite spuds, and I will never turn my nose up at cream cheese, truffle oil, even powdered ranch. I can assure you that I will eat any mashed potatoes — all mashed potatoes — with joyful glee.

Classic chicken and rice is made a little lighter (but no less homey!) for the season.

Here's how to feed your family of eight (or stock your freezer with tasty leftovers!).

There’s nothing that pairs better with a scoop of ice cream than a slice of fruity pie or bowl of fresh, seasonal crumble. Today I bring you the first signs of summer; a downright plucky combo of just-cooked apricots and strawberries, playing host to a golden, almond cookie-enriched topping. This past weekend, I had plans to make a strawberry something or other when I stumbled across a small bushel of ripe apricots.

Let’s face it — hosting a holiday meal is a lot of work, usually relegated to one or two people spending hours in the kitchen. But if the point of the holidays is to spend more time with friends and family, why not make Christmas dinner an all-hands-on-deck affair instead? Making tamales is a Christmas tradition in many Mexican households, and a tamale party is the perfect way to have everyone pitch in to make a special meal together.

We are smack dab in the middle of the Dungeness crab season here on the West Coast. Which means, of course, it’s crab fest time! Boil ’em, steam ’em, or roast ’em, just be sure you get your fix while they’re here. A big batch of crabs requires company, of course, so here’s a menu to make it a crab fest to remember.

Making dinner in a strange kitchen is always a challenge, but it can be even more difficult in a vacation house. There’s the additional pressure of preparing meals for a larger-than-normal group of extended family or friends, plus the fact that you were hoping to spend more time in a hammock with a good book than in front of the stove.

I have four teenagers that love to eat a lot!

Prime rib is the ultimate Christmas feast — a grand roast brought to the table with pride and served with a luscious creamy horseradish sauce. You could serve almost anything else on the side and your dinner guests would still be quite impressed, but since you’ve likely gone to great expense and effort for the roast, filling out the rest of the table should be both easy on the cook and the wallet. Here’s what to serve with a classic prime rib roast for a luxe holiday party.

If you’re looking for a holiday menu that feels traditional with a few surprising elements and flavors added along the way, you’re going to love this meal centered around a golden, juicy roasted pork loin served with a vibrant and tart green apple sauce. In this menu you’ll find everything you need to turn this main into a meal, including a plan for sides, dessert, and even some suggestions on what to eat.