Simple Cooking

Cooking summer squash low and slow yields sweet, nutty, tender—but not mushy—results. Fold them into pasta, top toast, or serve beside any grilled main.

Toss green beans with tons of olive oil and aromatics and surrender the whole thing to your oven for an hour or two until it becomes impossibly soft and caramelized.

Bell peppers get sweet and silky when they slow-roast. Then use them to top ricotta toast, or serve as a hands-off side, or chop them up and mix into your lunch bowl.

Douse squash in lots of oil and let it slow-roast to golden-deliciousness in this hands-off dish.

How to pull off a weeknight roast chicken: set it over a bed of peppers laced with thyme and chiles for a two-for-one deal.

If you love hummus or baba ghanoush, this dairy-free dip will become a new favorite. Just make sure you have plenty of warm flatbread to scoop it all up.

If eggy flan-like desserts are your thing, you are going to love this crustless vanilla-infused tart.

Cold noodles tossed in a bright citrus and chile sauce are the ideal canvas for jammy roasted tomatoes in this light summer dish.

When all the flavors meld, the dried mint blooms and transforms this dish into a refreshing slaw that pairs well with fatty cuts of meat.

Chef Sirichai Sreparplarn of Brooklyn's Ugly Baby doesn’t believe in using food processors for making curry paste, but we won’t stop you from using one. He also prefers a blend of two parts shorter dried chiles (prik haeng) and one part longer chiles (prik chee fah), but any Thai chile will work.

Nduja, a spicy salami now produced domestically, blends cured pork fat and chiles in a spreadable, meltable consistency. Combining it with lobster is transformative, taking this basic pasta Pomodoro to the next level.

Toast hazelnuts in a buttered skillet until the whole mix turns to a nutty golden elixir, then add lemon juice for a pop of freshness and spoon over perfectly crisped fish fillets.

Toss roasted squash and charred Brussels sprouts through a salad of chickpeas, salami, olives, and cheese; add a lemony oregano vinaigrette and enjoy.

Frying thick slices of bread in olive oil on only one side gives you a magical combination of crisp and soft so that the bread can soak up the tomato juices without getting soggy.

Sear squeaky, salty Halloumi cheese in a pan—it won’t melt, but will get a crisp golden crust—then douse in honey and a spicy nut and seed sprinkle and serve as an appetizer or with a simple green salad.

To make this silky pudding, whip up a custard of yolks, sugar, milk, and cream, then pour it over dark chocolate. Chill, and top with candied walnuts when serving.

Letting the chicken skin dry out before cooking really helps give it texture when cooked, as does the signature move of rotating the cast-iron skillet for even browning.

Feta and bread get roasted alongside winter squash, then tossed with pleasantly bitter greens for a salad that’s equal parts warm and cold, soft and crunchy, and sweet and savory.

Steam a mixture of corn, green beans, and tomatoes in a foil pouch alongside butterflied trout for an easy one-sheet-pan dinner.

Put your broiler to work for sizzling steak fajitas that cook on one sheet pan in just 10 minutes.