The most useful recipes — the ones that ferret their way into your brain and inform the way you cook — have light-bulb moments, details that you need to read only once to comprehend. Some of the ideas highlighted below are broad, like spotlighting the importance of salting layer by layer, while some are hyperspecific, like how chile crisp is delicious on vanilla ice cream. Some are simple, some are unexpected and all can make you a more creative cook.
Samin Nosrat’s butternut squash and green curry soup builds flavor in countless ways — aromatics are sweated, salty-sweet components compete, crunchy toppings provide unexpected texture — and proves a major point: One spoonful of a condiment — like curry paste — can radicalize dinner. A plop of red or green curry paste also lends personality to this Thai curry risotto from Hetty McKinnon, and a hit of it can provide a big flavor boost to meatballs, creamy pasta, grilled cheese, pesto or salsa verde. The possibilities are infinite.
This one is for the readers who automatically double the amount of garlic: Hetty McKinnon cooks sliced garlic in oil until crispy to make garlic chips, then cooks eggs in the remaining garlic oil. The method creates a crunchy garnish and a potent oil, a one-two punch that can be applied to asparagus and other vegetables, rice, seafood and more. (You’ll see the same concept used on scallions in Eric Kim’s gochujang-glazed eggplant, on shallots in Joan Nathan’s crispy fried shallots, or on leeks, in Alexa Weibel’s vegan creamy leek pasta.) Essential for garlic devotees, it makes every bite reverberate.
Recipe: Stir-Fried Lettuce With Crispy Garlic and Fried Eggs
Many people don’t love salads, but many salads are seasoned all at once in a way that leaves them tasting flat. The very best salads — and meals — build flavor, layer by layer, with components that are individually seasoned with salt. Sue Li’s cucumber salad with roasted peanuts and chile starts with salted cucumbers and douses them in a salty-sweet peanut dressing. A flurry of chopped peanuts and a drizzle of chile oil take it over the top. The lesson here? Season as you go for superior results.
Though many tofu recipes call for cubing and searing, doing so doesn’t maximize its potential. Yewande Komolafe’s recipe cleverly calls for searing the whole block of tofu until golden, then tearing the tofu into small pieces, giving them crispy edges and craggy, organic ones that readily soak up sauce.
The best nachos have it all: salt, fat, acid and heat (the spicy kind). Pati Jinich’s recipe is perfect — and a classic for a reason: The pickled jalapeños add flare, and a tanginess that offsets the melted cheese. Whether you’re piling on the toppings or sticking to the essentials, the best nachos are all about balance.
Recipe: The Original Nachos
“It’s not always the case that sensational, Instagram-famous dishes are carefully calibrated to taste so good, but this one breaks the mold: It’s as pretty as it is delicious,” wrote Tejal Rao of the famed sandwich from Konbi restaurant in Los Angeles. The restaurant from the chefs Akira Akuto and Nick Montgomery has closed, but its recipe remains. The egg treatment is detailed and deliberate: “Working directly in the bowl, peel the hard-boiled eggs, keeping them partly immersed (the water helps loosen the shells).” Once you’ve peeled hard-boiled eggs underwater, you’ll never struggle with the shells again.
Recipe: Konbi’s Egg Salad Sandwich
For bread crumbs that provide maximum crunch, look to crackers and other crunchy snacks. Eric Kim’s recipe involves crushing your butter crackers by hand — some “will turn to rubble while others turn to dust,” he writes. He then seasons the crumbs with cheese, garlic powder and onion powder and drags chicken through them to coat before baking. Potato chips, tortilla chips, cheese crackers, pretzels or other crunchy snacks are equally worthy bread crumb upgrades.
Recipe: Ritzy Cheddar Chicken Breasts
Though the vast majority of potato salad recipes combine cooked potatoes with mayonnaise-based dressings into a delicious-but-drab mass, this recipe might inspire you to stray from the standard approach. Drizzling your potato salad dressing on top looks fresh, allows the dish more variety in texture and taste with each bite — and yields a potato salad that actually looks something like a salad.
Inspired by a pairing of soft serve and chile oil popularized in Chongqing and Chengdu, China, J. Kenji López-Alt’s chile crisp sundae blankets vanilla ice cream with a crunchy peanut streusel and his own Sichuan chile oil recipe. His is lashed with smoky dried chiles and tingly Sichuan peppercorns, but you can drizzle any chile oil or chile crisp over vanilla ice cream for a dessert that thrills, a smoldering sweet that energizes as it cools.
