Main Dishes

If you’re like me, you’re always looking for a quick but filling and nutritious meal on a busy day. One thing I’ve learned to do is to tuck a few sweet potatoes into the oven whenever I’m baking something. That way, I have a head start on a delicious, nutritious meal, ready to go whenever I’m hungry but pressed for time. Read on for several suggestions for how to use a baked sweet potato.

In this week’s Cure assignment, Cure-takers are planning a menu. All along I’ve been encouraging people to cook by feel a little more and use formal recipes a little less, so I hope these menus involve some cooking by feel. The way this is done is by arming oneself with skills, but you also need ideas. Here’s a great idea for making pasta: bake it. Baked pasta doesn’t need to conjure up memories of school cafeteria baked ziti.

With no one to hold us accountable, my husband and I have been known to devour entire bags of chips with bowls of salsa and call it dinner. A household of two can sometimes lead to strange dining decisions. However, we do try to limit this kind of activity to the occasional dalliance by keeping the cupboards stocked with a few dinner essentials. Since I work as a food writer, you’d think that my husband and I would eat like rock stars all day, every day. Not so.

We’ve talked a lot about homemade pasta here on The Kitchn, but I had never made homemade pasta noodles myself. Well, that has changed, and now I’m wondering: why did I wait so long? I did have one secret weapon, though: my Italian mother-in-law. To see what I learned from her about homemade pasta, read on! When my husband and I were married, we received a wedding gift certificate to a major cookware shop, and I wanted to use it on something we’d both enjoy.

If you thought mac and cheese couldn't get better, think again.

The technique is inspired by In-N-Out.

Your pizza will taste better AND you'll save money. Win-win!

I'm a culinary school graduate, a food editor, and a cookbook author, and I *still* learned a ton.

It's supposed to make your ramen broth taste like it's been simmering for hours.

Everyone knows that anything with pockets is better — dresses, skirts, cardigans, AND sandwiches.

It's part science, part magic.

Many folks are scared of soufflé. And I get it. You hear stories all the time about a soufflé collapsing or simply not rising in the first place. If you’ve never seen anyone else make a soufflé, it can seem a little daunting to tackle the task from a simple recipe. But really, truly I am here to tell you that it’s absolutely do-able. Not only is it do-able, it’s something you can easily master on an average old weeknight.

There's a whole world of delicious (and approachable!) techniques and ingredients out there.

Beyond sauce!

Because some days, you just gotta have grilled cheese.

The verdict is in. We've been cooking pasta all wrong.

Quit throwing that magic water down the drain!

As bread bakers, the differences between these four breads has been a real source of confusion for us. They often seem to be used interchangeably in restaurants, bakeries, and even some cookbooks. It’s quite distressing to expect one kind of bread and wind up with something completely different, we think! So is there a difference?We would argue that, yes, there is definitely a difference. Or at least there should be!

How boring is it that I learned the secret to making perfect pasta in Italy? Yes, fresh made pasta is amazing, and no, that’s not the technique I’m about to share with you. (Now that you know I’m not going to talk about fresh made pasta, are you a) disappointed, b) disgusted, or c) totally excited, because pasta should be easy?) My friend’s Italian husband Peldi taught me the five steps to a perfect bowl of pasta: Use the biggest pot you have.

My sons are smart. They figured out how to make grilled cheese sandwiches on their own, but they were discerning enough to notice the sandwiches made by their parents were far superior. And they wanted to learn our secrets. We’ve had years of practice, and we agree that if there’s one thing we can teach our children, it’s how to make an excellent hot sandwich, any time of day, from breakfast to late-night snack time. Let’s start with breakfast.

Homemade soup is easy, and it’s always comforting. Whether or not my kids reach for the occasional can of soup, I want them to know how to make an economical, easy version from scratch, so they can have a healthy meal any day of the week. I like to make my own stock. (True story: I recently requested my fish in a restaurant be decapitated before it was cooked, so I could take home the raw fish head to make stock. Delicious!

My kids love pasta. When they found out I was writing this series, one of the things they wanted to know was how to make pasta into a meal. Pasta is a great one-pot meal, and the possibilities for it are endless. My lucky, lucky children learned how to boil pasta from an Italian, in Italy. We spent a few weeks there one summer. We stayed with a friend, and ate everything in sight. If the kids loved pasta before, they were connoisseurs after.

How often do you introduce new foods to your kids? If I’m being completely honest, my family falls into these deep seasonal ruts with dinner vegetables and it looks a lot like us eating broccoli once a week from January through April. Then when the markets overflows with radishes, spring greens, and asparagus, I want to go wild with new (or forgotten) vegetables. It can be frustrating to see tiny noses turn up at vegetables they loved last year but haven’t seen in months.

As a parent, I love pasta more than I ever thought possible. I keep plenty in the pantry and it solves many dinner (and lunch, and occasionally breakfast) dilemmas. Got a picky eater? Pasta. Trying to introduce a new food? Pasta. Just need a dinner that everyone will love so the dinner table is quiet? Pasta! There is a subtle art to making a pasta dinner that is tasty enough to satisfy grown-ups without alienating tiny diners.

And it's not calling out for delivery.

You really can't have too much of a good thing.

It's not just for pizza, okay?

You can make exquisite, crave-worthy pizza in your own kitchen without much more than some mixing bowls, a sturdy sheet pan, and your oven.

Frozen pizza can be a super satisfying meal with just a few upgrades.

Bonus: It supports your local businesses!

A recent Reddit thread unearthed a pasta-cooking hack courtesy of Alton Brown — and it’s going to turn your life around.

This combination is asking you to take two of life’s greatest pleasures — macaroni and cheese and avocados — and bring them together in cheesy, creamy harmony. When you’re running low on ideas for a fast and truly enjoyable dinner, this quick mac and cheese hack is the one to turn to. Avocado adds an extra dose of creaminess to your mac and cheese without actually throwing in any more cheese or milk — although that is always an option.

You just need 10 seconds and a knife!

Alton Brown said that if the world was about to end, he would calmly walk into the kitchen and make this cheeseburger.

Follow these guidelines for juicy, never-dry burgers.

Making such a basic pasta seems like it should be easy, but there’s a lot that can go wrong.

You can even use it with pork or steak.

See you later butter and cream.

Brioche is great, but not when I'm cooking for a crowd.

It’s true that you can actually get a good meal, maybe even a great one, with wine pairings to boot, on an airplane — that is, if you’re flying first class. For main cabin passengers, it’s another story altogether. Airlines have whittled down their complimentary onboard options to a selection of itty-bitty packets of peanuts and pretzels — and that’s if you’re lucky.

Q: Has anyone found good Kosher for Passover noodles? Years ago Manischewitz had great egg noodles, but now I can’t find anything that doesn’t taste awful. I even tried making some from scratch, which was a total disaster. Sent by try2cope The Gefilteria’s Jeffrey Yoskowitz: I think we need a quick intervention. Why do you want noodles for Passover?

Welcome to Snapshot Cooking, the home of Kitchn’s easiest recipes. These mini recipes are so simple you can practically cook from the before-and-after snapshot itself. If you’re on the market for a new winning chicken dinner, say hello to five brand-new contenders. These set-it-and-forget-it meals require just five ingredients, and the slow cooker basically does all the work for you. Sounds too good to be true, right?

Try these! You may find a new go-to noodle.

Make pasta more delicious — and have it ready when you are — without boiling.

Keeping meatballs stashed in the freezer makes last-minute dinners a breeze.

Did your pasta turn into a giant sticky ball? We can help.

You may never order delivery again.

It's a *lot* better than the original (and the original is pretty good)!

Whoa!

"Perfect pizza, like it just came out of the oven," was the promise.

A ball of store-bought pizza dough can help you make dinner. On busy weeknights, its versatility and convenience just can’t be beat. And while you can obviously make great pizza from pizza dough, the truth is that you can make a whole lot of great things beyond pizza from the dough. Here are five ingenious ways to turn a one-pound ball of pizza dough into dinner. A sandwich is one of the easiest dinners around.

In all their many forms, noodle soups are comforting and seriously delicious. But sometimes they can also prove a little confusing, especially when it comes to choosing the best type of noodle to add to your soup. Pasta or egg noodles? Soba or rice noodles? Wonder no more! Here’s your guide to picking the best noodles for any type of soup. While similar to traditional pasta, these noodles contain a higher egg-to-wheat ratio. There are two varieties of egg noodle.

We don’t eat like normal people around here. Oh sure, we eat recognizable food — we’re not 3D printing our meals or anything — but because of the particular needs and demands of our jobs, our schedules are a little out of whack. I work from home as a food writer, recipe developer, and photographer; he works during the evenings as an editor for a major online sports media company. There’s always a ton of food (and leftovers!

Cooking for two has its pleasures and its difficulties. One of the great things about my and my husband’s current situation is that we tend to eat whatever we want, whenever we want, wherever we want. I can try out new recipes on a whim, using flavors and ingredients from around the world, and though I may get the occasional raised brow from my husband, the freedom is exhilarating. Every day is different. But we still have our own challenges, even after all these years.

Dear Kitcheners,Paula Franzese (a lecturer with a company that gets future lawyers ready to sit for the bar exam), claimed in a lecture that her father invented Penne alla Vodka while working as a chef in an NYC restaurant in the 1970s. Could this be true? Does anyone know who invented the dish? When? Where?thanks, Sarah (photo: accompanies a Penne alla Vodka recipe at Williams-Sonoma.

It’s March 14, and we all know what that means, right? It’s Pi Day! (March 14 = 3.14. Get it?) Every year we like to use this as an excuse to pull up pi(e) recipes from our archives, but this year we’re forgoing the sweet in favor of the savory. Even better: all of these pies, quiches, and pasties would make great lunches. So here’s to infinite pie possibilities!

Q: A lot of my favorite casserole recipes call for all sorts of dish sizes. Any thoughts on how to modify the recipe or what to do with the leftover that you can’t fit in a pan that’s too small?I’d love to be able to fit a dozen shapes and sizes into my apartment kitchen, but space doesn’t allow. In that vein, any suggestions as to which two sizes are the most used?Sent by cfelliniEditor: cfellini asked this in the comment thread on this casserole recipe.

Normally, I stick with plain old ham and cheese sandwichesAll deli meats are cured in the sense that they are cooked and can be eaten cold. But meats that have been cured using classic methods of drying, brining, and salting will win in any taste test. Their flavors are deep and concentrated, while their textures are silky and tender.

Fresh udon noodles are thick, chewy, and delicious. Frozen udon noodles are very nearly as good. But dried udon noodles cooked like spaghetti in boiling water are notoriously sub-par. If dried is all you have access to, don’t give up hope! We recently learned of a different kind of cooking technique that might help!In How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, Mark Bittman describes a way of cooking dried udon that we’d never heard of before.

We picked up this tip in a blurb at the end of a recipe in one our favorite cookbooks, A New Way to Cook by Sally Schneider:If you simmer beans in an uncovered pot, they will end up firmer and more intact. This perfect for dishes where you really want the beans to keep their shape without smooshing, like salads and pasta dishes.

When we think of gnocchi, our mind jumps straight to those soft little potato dumplings served in a lot of Italian cooking. But did you know there are actually several different kinds of gnocchi, each one very different from the next?There are three main kinds of gnocchi that we see called for in recipes and on restaurant menus:Gnocchi di Patate – This type of gnocchi is featured in a lot of Northern Italian cuisine and is probably what most of us actually know as gnocchi.

It also doubles as the best-ever burger topping. Can you guess what it is?

We wish we’d discovered this one back during Vegan Week! The Italians might call this topping “poor man’s parmesan,” but toasting bread crumbs in olive oil until they’re golden and crispy sounds pretty rich to us. Who knows? We might ditch the parmesan altogether.We’re not sure that poor man’s parmesan was ever intended to actually simulate cheese or convince your taste buds that it actually is cheese.

From bread to burgers, if there’s a dish over which people can obsess, there’s likely a thriving community for it on Reddit. The subreddit r/Pizza isn’t just about people who love pizza — r/Pizza is a place for pizza disciples.

Remember a few years ago, when your Paleo-eating, Crossfit-obsessed friends invited you over for cauliflower crust pizza? And as you forced a smile through one damp, flavorless mouthful after another, you thought this will never catch on. Um, yeah, it seems to have actually caught on. Trader Joe’s and Costco both sell their own cauli-crusts, California Pizza Kitchen has made it a permanent menu addition, and even my fave local pizza joint offers it as a semi-regular special.

I’ve been to a lot of Japanese restaurants where the noodle soups have an option of udon or soba noodles. While they’re both Japanese noodles and are sometimes used interchangeably, there are quite a few differences between the two. Here’s what you need to know! Udon noodles are made by kneading wheat flour, salt, and water. These white noodles are sold dried, fresh or frozen. Dried udon noodles can vary in thickness and can be quite dense.

If you’ve been to Vietnam or even just the noodle aisle of your neighborhood Asian market, you might have been overwhelmed by the sheer variety of noodles available. Which ones are good for a stir-fry? Which should you buy fresh, and which are better dried? What even is the difference between all of those white, gray, translucent, and yellow noodles?

Fresh or dried, slurped or twirled, rice noodles are a great way to fill out a meal. They add texture and fun, no simmering required. What’s not to love? Here are five ways to eat more rice noodles this summer. Make a stop into your local Asian or Vietnamese market, and head for the refrigerated section first. If you’re lucky, you’ll find packages of fresh white rice noodles labelled bánh phở or bún, often translated to English as rice vermicelli.

Here's my go-to method.

“Resting time” in recipes is the bane of my existence. I’m a big fan of instant gratification, and I’m constantly forgetting to leave time for things like letting the meat rest or waiting for the cake to be completely cool before attempting to frost it. My puddings are always full of little fingerprints because I’m constantly poking them to see if they’re set yet, even though the recipe says they’ll need another three hours.

If I could ask the Pioneer Woman one question, I would probably ask her where she got her hand-painted orange KitchenAid. And if I got a second question, I would definitely ask her about sliders. Sliders just seem like they’d be her thing. Ree Drummond’s whole oeuvre is cowboys and classic Americana, so a very good burger has to be in her wheelhouse, and sliders are just regular burgers, but tinier and more adorable.

If there’s anyone who knows about making pizza at home, it’s Giada. Which is why she’s the first to admit that it’s not always a super-fast answer to getting dinner on the table. But she has a smart tip that’ll change that. From one of her recent newsletters: If you don’t have time for making dough, don’t despair!