The five weeknight dishes I currently have on repeat
Hello! Mia here, filling in for Emily today. I’m always happy to write about weeknight cooking because — this might roll some eyes, but here goes — I genuinely love cooking on weeknights. I love cooking in general, but putting together something to eat, using my favorite flavors and ingredients, gives me a satisfying dose of creativity on days that can be overrun with emails, spreadsheets and “circling back.” So today I’m sharing five weeknight recipes that I’ve been cooking a lot lately, the dishes that I can’t help making on repeat because they’re so good and so easy. Maybe one is already a favorite of yours (hello, Sam Sifton’s oven-roasted chicken shawarma); maybe you’ll find something new that catches your eye and your appetite. And if none of them connect, we always have this very handy collection of 21 cheap, healthy dinner recipes for when you’re all out of ideas.
1. Oven-Roasted Chicken ShawarmaYes, the first step of this New York Times Cooking classic asks you to marinate your chicken in olive oil, garlic and spices for at least one hour. No, I don’t always do that, and will instead just let the chicken marinate as long as it takes me to preheat the oven and gather the rest of my things for this dinner: pita, sliced cucumbers, hot sauce, a quick tahini sauce. And I use a nifty shawarma spice blend I picked up from the grocery store; you could, too.
2. Caramelized Cabbage and Walnut PastaThere are so many good ways to turn a head of cabbage into dinner, and this is one of them. Leave it to the vegetarian cooking queen Hetty Lui McKinnon to transform a shaggy mound of sliced cabbage, leeks, garlic and cumin seeds into a really lush pasta dinner. No leeks? (Or: Don’t want to deal with washing leeks?) Speaking from experience, a yellow onion will work just fine.
3. Bean and Vegetable Japanese CurryMy love of Japanese curry bricks is steadfast and greedy. I snatch them up in multiples when they’re on sale at my local Asian supermarket. Spotting this new Eric Kim recipe felt like a lightbulb moment — of course large, meaty beans would like to be draped in that rich, warmly spiced curry gravy! Though my current favorite beans for this treatment are black-eyed peas; maybe it’s because they’re so similar in size to the frozen peas I always add in Step 4 along with the beans and spinach.
4. Dan Dan NoodlesThe grip that this Genevieve Ko banger has on me. The first time I made it, I used ground chicken instead of ground pork — excellent. Then I tried it with crumbled firm tofu — also great. I should add that these two rounds of dan dan noodles happened within one week of each other. That’s how craveable this salty, sweet, funky, umami-ful bowl of noodles is. (By the way, Genevieve shared an even faster, slapdash version of her dish in this newsletter.)
5. Pan-Seared SalmonAnd here’s the foolproof recipe that anchors my favorite quick dinner: seared fatty fish, white rice, quick pickles and umeboshi (Japanese pickled plums, ideally with pickled shiso leaves included, please). I make this simple Lidey Heuck recipe even simpler, just using oil, salt and pepper to let that salmon flavor sing. If you’re not feeling like pickled things, this easy cucumber-avocado salad would be a nice side, as would a tangle of spinach gomaae. For a limited time, you can enjoy free access to the recipes in this newsletter in our app. Download it on your iOS or Android device and create a free account to get started. Thanks for reading and cooking with me. If you like the work we do at New York Times Cooking, please subscribe! (Or give a subscription as a gift!) You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest. Previous newsletters are archived here. Reach out to my colleagues at cookingcare@nytimes.com if you have any questions about your account. View all recipes in your weekly plan.
|
