Weeknight Meals

Cabbage has emerged as the hero of weeknight pantry cooking. Inexpensive and infinitely versatile, with an impressively long shelf life, one head of cabbage goes a long way. In this recipe, half of a cabbage is bathed in a turmeric-accented coconut milk until it’s meltingly tender and sweet. 

Lara Lee’s meat-free version of the Laotian and Thai dish combines smoked tofu with pops of crunchy sesame seeds and a kick of lime dressing.

The ideal weeknight meal from Maneet Chauhan’s new cookbook Chaat. 

This sour-salty soup was made for using up sweet, late-season tomatoes.

Christina Chaey’s mushroom dashi can go with whatever vegetables and proteins you have in the fridge. It’s her favorite cold-weather meal.

“Something about this year makes me feel like: Screw it. I want to eat leftover turkey the way I want to,” says Mister Jiu’s chef Brandon Jew.

Hetty McKinnon’s showstopping tater tot casserole is directly inspired by, and strikingly reminiscent of, tortilla española.

Make this on a Monday and show Garfield what’s up.

Crisp, peppery radishes take center stage in this fresh limey Salvadoran salsa.

The curry and ground pork reference the origins of the dish, while the brussels sprouts and leeks are a nod to the local ingredients of Georgia, from chef Parnass Savang of Talat Market.

An ultralight and puffy Thai omelet with crispy golden brown edges.

My grandma used to make a version of this dish using pork and showers of Parmesan. I have updated it to include ground chicken and miso for a lighter, late-summer dish with equally deep flavor,  but feel free to use whatever ground meat you prefer. Gently poaching the meatballs is not only faster than roasting, but means none of their flavor is lost to a baking sheet.

For this dinner-worthy sandwich, you’ll sear the eggplant on the stove, then marinate it in oil and vinegar to make it silky-soft and flavor-packed. 

The key to stress-free stir-frying is all in the prep work. Be sure to chop, slice, and grate everything before even thinking about turning on the stove. Top this dish with fried eggs to put it over the top, but it’s also great without them.

A quick sear gives corn kernels caramelized edges and concentrated flavor. Here, they're cooked with crisp chickpeas, then tossed with za'atar and dressed with a mixture of ginger, jalapeños, miso, and tahini. 

This one-skillet dinner gets deep oniony flavor from lots of leeks cooked down to jammy tenderness.

Chef Lucas Sin of Junzi taught us this technique for fried rice in which every single grain is coated in egg yolk and fries up perfectly distinct and chewy.

Cod and other whitefish shine brightest when nestled into a rich bed of aromatics and steamed to tender flakiness.

Chewy wonderful Korean rice cakes soak up the flavor of a ginger-garlic-scallion sauce we can’t quit.

You’ll find a version of this quicker-than-quick dish on many Korean tables as a banchan, or small plate. But with rice and a side of greens, it’s dinner exactly when you need it: right now.

The zest and juice of lime and lemon deliver a simple but powerful flavor-packed punch to this everyday staple.

Saffron’s deep crimson threads add an intense sunset-orange hue and rich aroma to whatever it touches, but the downside is that it’s very expensive. This dish from recipe developer Yasmin Fahr uses a saffron technique taught to her mother by her mother and then passed on to her. By gently grinding the saffron threads, then mixing them with water, you can create a saffron liquid that makes a little bit of the expensive spice go a longer way (and it helps the threads dissolve better). If you don’t like fish skin, it’s easier to remove after you cook it.

Supremely beefy, not outrageously expensive, and fast-cooking, skirt steak is our favorite steak of all.