January is a great time for basics. After the excess and glamour of the holiday season (read: prime rib roast and rainbow rave cookies), the simplest no-fuss recipes can feel downright refreshing. Which is why we’re particularly excited to share Sohla El-Waylly’s recipe for roasted salmon, the sort of basic recipe you can turn to again and again. The genius trick here — it is Sohla, after all — is a quick dry brine, which firms up the flesh and helps prevent overcooking. The recipe is part of our new Cooking 101 video series; Sohla also makes a simple butter pilaf and roasted broccoli because, again, basic is not always a bad word.
Featured Recipe
Roasted Salmon With Dill and Cucumber Salad
Similarly basic in the best way are these baked chicken thighs from Lidey Heuck. It’s the sort of hands-off recipe that comes in handy (sorry) on nights when you can’t decide what to do with those skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs waiting patiently in the fridge. After a quick sit in a mustardy marinade, the chicken roasts at a high temperature to yield tender meat and crisp skin, ready to eat with greens or grains.
But maybe you’d like to do something that’s one, maybe two notches above basic. Melissa Clark’s coconut curry sweet potato soup is a rich, deeply spiced take on potato soup, and Hetty Lui McKinnon ups the nuttiness (and nutritional value) of a traditional pesto in her edamame pesto pasta.
It’s hard to tell if Kay Chun’s squash and spinach salad with sesame vinaigrette is a classic spinach salad punched up with hefty kabocha squash or a roasted-squash side made lush with spinach. Either way, it’s absolutely delicious.
Lastly, this bircher muesli recipe from Yossy Arefi starts off simple — oats soaked in yogurt and milk, with nuts and fruit — but can become as fancy as you feel. Swap the optional tahini for a different nut butter, use whatever mix of nuts and dried fruit you like and play with the variety of apple grated in for sweetness. A basic breakfast, it turns out, can be a pretty fun breakfast.
