Dinner

Whiz any cooked squash with tahini, lemon, and garlic for hummus-like spread that tastes great with roast chicken.

Rinsing the onions in cold water tames some of their bite.

Sometimes more is more: Brussels sprouts, with their bitter edge and stout texture, can take on big flavors like bacon, vinegar, or, in this case, abundant Indian-inspired spices.

A Korean stew made with an earthy red chile stock and delicate curds of silky tofu, sundubu is traditionally served in preheated stone bowls. You can re-create that effect by heating a stone bowl or a cast-iron pot in a 400° oven.

Orange-flower water is very potent, and a couple of drops can go along way. Don’t worry if you don’t have any on hand; the salad is lovely without it too.

Nuts and nut oils are an easy way to change up your weeknight grain game. Try tossing in different toasted nuts and drizzling with their respective oils.

Regardless of the color of quinoa, make sure you rinse it before you cook it.

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.

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!

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.

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