Sara Dickerman

This slight riff on traditional miso soup is your shortcut to a flavorful, bone-warming snack when you need it most. Just pack a thermos with veggies, tofu, and miso in the morning, and when hunger comes knocking, all you need is a cupful of hot water and a couple of minutes. (Using homemade dashi instead of water, or adding instant dashi powder, brings it to the next level.)

We're a big fan of keeping some frozen mahi mahi on hand in case you don’t have time to run to the fish market. Feel free to substitute swordfish, ono, bluefish, or salmon.

The active cultures in kimchi and miso may also provide your body with an immunity boost. This recipe can also easily be halved.

Cooking grains in a bigger pot of boiling salted water is a great way to cook all of your grains from brown rice to barley.

Cacao nibs are unprocessed bits of the cacao pod. They are intensely flavored, not at all sweet, and give a wonderful depth and crunch to meals. Try blending them into smoothies, or use them to top a long-braised stew.

We’ve always loved the slightly sweet and nutty crunch of water chestnuts, which are actually the bulblike growth of a marsh-grown, grasslike plant. We use it unapologetically in spur-of-the-moment stir-fries. Learn how to make this recipe and more in our online cooking class with Sur la Table.

Name a more iconic trio than beets, quinoa, and goat cheese!

Avoid whole grain mustards that are aggressively sweetened with honey; you want a bit of sharpness here.

Portion out the oatmeal in individual containers so even if you're running out the door, you won't skip breakfast.

Regular old bark gets a bit spicier with a pinch of cayenne pepper and bitter orange.

You can find Chinese five-spice powder, a combination of star anise, fennel, cinnamon, Sichuan peppercorns, and cloves, at many supermarkets. We really like the fresh intensity and balance of the five-spice powder from World Spice.

This salad was inspired by the classic French bistro salad, in which sturdy winter greens are laced with crisp lardons of bacon and a silky poached egg. We’ll never begrudge you a bit of bacon, but here vegetables are roasted to give the salad a leaner form of texture, flavor, and color.

If you don’t have time to make a batch of flageolets from scratch, choose the best canned cannellini beans you can find. We're a big fan of Bioitalia beans.

Like many whole grains, Bhutanese red rice can be cooked in a bigger batch ahead of time. Reheat by steaming or microwaving in a covered dish with a spoonful or two of water.

If smoked paprika isn't your thing, you can use chile flakes or Aleppo pepper.

Mildly bitter radicchio, nutty hazelnuts, and pops of sweetness from pomegranate seeds and pears zhuzh up roasted turkey in this leftover turkey salad