At Sap Sua in Denver, one of our Best New Restaurants of 2024, chef and co-owner Ni Nguyen wanted to include a version of his favorite Vietnamese meal, cá kho (fish braised in a clay pot), to the menu. Needing a precise approach so the dish could be recreated nightly by the restaurant’s cooks, Nguyen … Read more
Inspired by his mother’s favorite dish of tofu with scallion sauce, chef Ni Nguyen of Sap Sua, one of our Best New Restaurants of 2024, augments the original with extra aromatics like mint, cilantro, and chiles. The dashi powder adds a savory depth to the scallion sauce. Make a double batch of the sauce; it … Read more
“Bread is a staple in Iran, second only to rice,” Cody Ma says, who, along with his partner Misha Sesar, runs Persian all-day café Azizam, one of our Best New Restaurants of 2024, in the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles. “We really wanted to highlight bread from Iran outside of lavash, which is why we … Read more
When my partner and I first started dating, one of our go-to dinners—or appetizers, if we were really going for it—was steamed mussels. A mussel dinner feels cosmopolitan, but it’s actually pretty budget-friendly. Plus, you can buy, clean, and cook a bag of mussels in under an hour. We’d spoon the shellfish from their deep … Read more
There are hundreds of weeknights in a year. That’s a lot of dinner! Test kitchen editor Kendra Vaculin is here to help. In her series Speedy Does It, she shares whoa-worthy meals you can get on the table like *snaps fingers* that. I ate my fair share of green chiles on a recent trip to … Read more
Beets get the full luxe treatment here. First, they’re roasted, then torn into chunks and cooked in a sticky maple-Dijon-balsamic glaze until lightly charred. The craggy crevices of the torn beets allow them to absorb all the flavors of the tangy glaze, which mellows some of their natural sweet earthiness. The char brings a subtle … Read more
This gingery chicken stir-fry was born from my persistent craving for Chinese takeout—and from my digestive issues. You might ask why I’d want to strip a dish of all the aromatic flavor that alliums (like onion and garlic) can bring. Younger me would’ve asked the same question. But these days, my body has a tough … Read more
In a sea of short-lived cooking hacks, sheet-pan dinners are built to last. All that expansive, short-walled surface area gives you more pan contact and air circulation. And that means beautiful browning, minimal effort on your part, and very few pots and pans to clean up afterward. It’s a versatile approach too: Use your tried-and-true … Read more
This sweet potato cornbread recipe comes together quickly. After just 12 minutes in the microwave—though it also works with a leftover baked sweet potato (or even canned sweet potato purée)—the tubers emerge soft and steamy, ready to be mashed by hand and whisked into the wet ingredients. If you have trouble finding buttermilk, combine milk … Read more
When two of the best comfort foods on earth love each other very much, the result is this spicy, funky, cheesy, one-pot dinner. (Thank you to my husband for the inspired idea.) Mapo tofu–ifying the meaty base for Midwestern chili mac—as the name suggests, a cozy blend of chili and elbow macaroni—adds tons of savory … Read more