5 Ingredients or Fewer

Zucchini bread is one of those things that is almost always good but rarely spectacular and a slice can serve as a breakfast, snack or dessert. Sprinkling it with sugar and grilling it so it becomes nicely caramelized moves it firmly in the dessert category (and, along with adding a spoonful of mascarpone, makes it much closer to spectacular). This recipe works with your favorite zucchini bread recipe or try it with this Spiced Zucchini-Walnut Bread .

Brown butter is easy to make and delicious over vegetables, fish and pasta. It's perfect tossed with asparagus and three cheese asparagus ravioli in this recipe.

Chef Rachel Yang likes her rice "chopstickready": sticky enough to hold together lightly, but with defined grains. To get that texture, rinse shortgrain white rice (a.k.a. sushi rice)—Alison Roman

Miso and hot pepper paste are at the root of every ssam sauce, but no two household's are the same. Tweak it to your liking.

Make sure to buy whole squid; precut rings will slip through your grill grate.

Solar salt is coarse and crunchy and keeps its shape; Asian markets stock it, but kosher salt is fine, too.

Rosemary, both herbal and floral, elevates the flavor of the Concord grape, while black pepper adds spiciness.

Stir the mushrooms and leeks frequently enough so they caramelize without burning, then serve on top of steak.

You'd think grown-ups wouldn't have to share this beautiful side dish, but the onions' crispy sweetness makes them pretty irresistible to kids.

When the raw slices are baked, they will shrink considerably, so use large beets.

These potatoes are typically roasted in a blazing wood-fired oven, but you can still get crispy, craggy edges in a home oven.

This fish is topped with cilantro, but it's also great with pickled ginger.

A touch of horseradish gives this cured salmon recipe warmth and a bit of bite, while the beets give it earthy sweetness and vibrant color.

Broccoli rabe and pasta, crowned with golden shards of garlic and zapped with a touch of chile heat, is one of the fastest dinners to make, and definitely one of the most satisfying. Because broccoli rabe is loaded with vitamins, minerals, and cancer-fighting bionutrients, I like to double up on the greens. Those who find broccoli rabe a bit bitter—it is a cousin of mustard—will find that the bitterness is greatly tamed by boiling it in lots of salted water with the pasta. You can embellish this basic rendition with bacon or sausage, but it's pretty darn delicious just as it is.

At Black Seed Bagels' shop in NYC, their wood-fire oven is critical to the bagel's shape, texture, and taste. Don't have one at home? No problem, we talked to head baker Dianna Daoheung about how to make the bagels in a conventional oven.