Make Ahead

There’s nothing quite like making your own granola. You can toss in as many nuts and fruits as you want and sweeten it to your taste. While the possibilities are endless, we love this honey-sweetened variation with sesame seeds. The cardamom clings to the almonds, dried apricots and pears, and oats, adding an exotic touch.

Known as pepitorias, these tasty caramel-filled wafer "tacos" embellished with toasted pumpkin seeds are a regular offering at Mexican markets and sweets shops, especially in the city of Puebla, which is famous for so many confections. The wafers are traditionally brightly colored, but we chose to stick with a more seasonal white-and-gold motif. Since tinted edible wafer paper is hard to come by in the United States, we used precut white Back-Oblaten, imported from Germany, and we explain how to color them. Painting them with food coloring or water softens them enough to fold around the caramel.

This is called a meringue buttercream because its foundation is egg whites, not the more traditional yolks. That makes it very light, satiny, and easy to spread—a plus if you're making a many-layered cake like the one in the preceding recipe. The base for this buttercream yields two different-flavored frostings: espresso coffee and bittersweet-chocolate mocha.

Test kitchen director Ruth Cousineau, who developed these recipes, says, "For a big dinner, you must include soup. Just don’t make it heavy." Here, she's created a chicken broth infused with the aroma of ginger and cardamom. Petite savory flans, studded with tender chives, lend a light creaminess to each mouthful.

Our love of lemon grows exponentially at the sight of these delightful melt-in-your-mouth sandwich cookies. It perfumes the tiny treats, which are put together with an easy icing that zings with zest and fresh lemon juice. Rolling them in brightly colored sanding sugar makes them sparkle like vintage Christmas ornaments.

These Mexican treats taste best when they are freshly fried (though we have given you some prep-ahead options), so make them when friends and family are gathered around for the holidays. Once the churros are made, everyone can get in on the action, dipping them in a choice of sugars and/or an easy warm chocolate sauce.

Every family has its own (ahem, best) version of these savory potato pancakes. We’re offering you a classic formula, though not everyone drains the potato mixture before frying—we find this prevents the latkes from absorbing too much oil and allows them to crisp into golden disks. Maybe this will become the new family favorite.

Grapefruit and oranges, at their peak around the holidays, are like a beam of sunshine in the bleak midwinter. Here, a beautiful salad of juicy jewel-toned segments swims in a bright simple syrup infused with the licorice notes of star anise.

Like Jell-O, but all grown up, these tart little puddings have a bracing fruitiness that is just what's needed after a sumptuous holiday spread. The scarlet juices of pomegranates, lingonberries, and raspberries are bound into a very soft gelée.

Shake up your casserole rotation with a Greek pastitsio. Layers of ziti, meaty tomato sauce fragrant with spices, and silky béchamel come together in this deeply satisfying yet simple meal.

This signature Payard treat delivers a delicious dose of heart-healthy fat and antioxidants, courtesy of the nuts and cocoa.

This recipe works with most fruit. For extra yum, add mini chocolate chips.

With their simple, homespun charm, these icebox cookies are just the nibble you'll want to have on hand as you do your Christmas gift wrapping. The thinner you can slice the dough, the crisper the cookies will be, so we freeze the dough for a bit (after chilling it in the fridge) before slicing. Plus, it will be much easier to cut through the almonds and get nice, neat rounds.

So easy! We couldn’t believe something this sweet and luscious made our healthy holiday dessert list.

It's a holiday party—you must have cookies. We double your pleasure by offering not one but two buttery, nutty shortbread rounds in each cookie. They sandwich tart berry jam under a drift of confectioners sugar.

One of the great things about a trifle is that you make it ahead of time, so the cake can soak up the flavors of the custard, fruit, and syrup. It’s a perfect holiday dessert.

Chicken soup is an automatic crowd-pleaser, but this Mexican-inspired tortilla soup does the classic one better. Homemade broth is key here, providing a base for brown rice, black beans, and chunks of sweet potato. Cooling pieces of avocado play off of a warm, earthy undercurrent of chipotle chiles.

This full-bodied stew will bring the crowd running when you lift the lid. First, pieces of chuck are browned to develop their flavor, then they’re braised in a red-wine beef broth. Adding the potatoes and carrots toward the end of cooking keeps their character and color bright.

A fun twist on tradition— cornbread stuffing molded into muffins.