Quick and Easy – FoodWatcher

Sohla El-Waylly’s Trick for a Cheaper, Easier Risotto

“I was always taught that good risotto starts with high-quality bone broth, but what if I don’t want to spend twenty bucks on dinner?” asks Sohla El-Waylly in her just-published, debut cookbook, Start Here: Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook.

It’…

“I was always taught that good risotto starts with high-quality bone broth, but what if I don’t want to spend twenty bucks on dinner?” asks Sohla El-Waylly in her just-published, debut cookbook, Start Here: Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook.

It’s a fair question. Risotto is among the most comforting of foods, the kind of thing you want to eat when you’re sad, broke, and/or have nothing in your kitchen. But that quality feels somewhat incongruous with two of risotto’s most classic ingredients: good broth and wine.

These One-Pot Dinners Make Clean-Up So Easy

This holiday season, we’re teaming up with our friends at Finish, the #1 recommended dishwashing brand in America*, to share some of our favorite one-pot dinners that make cooking—and cleaning up—easy as can be.

There’s a reason one-pot (and pan!) m…

This holiday season, we’re teaming up with our friends at Finish, the #1 recommended dishwashing brand in America*, to share some of our favorite one-pot dinners that make cooking—and cleaning up—easy as can be.

There’s a reason one-pot (and pan!) meals have skyrocketed in popularity in the last few years. The tenets of these dishes are simple. They must come together in one cooking vessel, whether it be a Dutch oven, cast-iron skillet, or baking sheet. They must not have long ingredient lists—that would defeat the point—and, of course, they must be delicious.

This Marcella Hazan Recipe is Still Our Most Popular Tomato Sauce, Ever

There are a few things I always have in my kitchen: a can of tomatoes, butter, an onion, some pasta. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that those just so happen to be the exact ingredients needed to make a batch of one very special—and very simple—t…

First published in her cookbook Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking over 30 years ago and featured in Kristen Miglore’s Genius column in 2016, Marcella Hazan's Tomato Sauce With Onion & Butter has won the hearts of countless home cooks and inspired nearly 600 reviews on our site.

The Zero-Effort Summer Corn Recipe Our Community Loves

It doesn’t take much for summer corn to sweep us off our feet. It provides a crunchy, juicy element when served raw in salads; on the grill, it develops a smoky, charred edge. In corn chowder, it’s a creamy, starchy thickener, and in pastas, it adds sweetness and depth. Of all of these (admittedly) fantastic ways to serve corn, we’re particularly fond of this Effortless Oven-Roasted Corn, a recipe from community member Me Brumbaugh that couldn’t be simpler or more straightforward.

So, what makes this recipe so special? For starters, there’s only one ingredient: corn. After heating the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, just put the corn cobs (with their husks, silks, and all) directly onto the oven rack, spaced an inch apart from each other. Then, let it roast for half an hour. Once the corn is roasted, remove from the oven, and leave it to cool for 15 minutes. Use a kitchen towel to hold the base of each cob while pulling back the husks and silks with your other hand—you’ll find that they’ll peel away without any resistance.

Microwave Risotto Is the Ultimate Weeknight Dinner Shortcut

My microwave is reserved, almost exclusively, for reheating leftovers. Occasionally I’ll use it to thaw frozen meat or melt chocolate, but I have never felt particularly inclined to actually cook anything in it. Needless to say, I had some serious reservations the first time I made microwave risotto. But, as it turns out, you can make a pretty convincing risotto in your microwave—even if it is totally cheating.

Risotto is one of those simple dishes that manages to feel fancy despite its (mostly) humble ingredient list. In its simplest form, a risotto is made from just rice, broth, wine, cheese, and butter, though endless variations, featuring different aromatics, vegetables, and meats, exist. At its best, a risotto is creamy and packed with flavor, but the rice itself remains al dente. Containing no cream at all, its rich texture is purely a product of a slow cooking process that requires near-constant stirring.

Our Best Recipes for the Vitamix, From Breakfast to Dinner

We’ve teamed up with Vitamix to bring you a bevy of blender-friendly recipes that you can whip up morning, noon, and night. Even better? Their A3500 Gourmet SmartPrep Kitchen System does double duty thanks to the food processor attachment, leaving you …

We've teamed up with Vitamix to bring you a bevy of blender-friendly recipes that you can whip up morning, noon, and night. Even better? Their A3500 Gourmet SmartPrep Kitchen System does double duty thanks to the food processor attachment, leaving you with even more delicious possibilities.

As a general rule, I try to cook about 70 percent of the meals I eat. This means a lot of recipe planning, which happens like clockwork every Sunday in a version of groundhog day that's sometimes easy, but more often...not. Some weeks, I rely on my prized collection of cookbooks to help me out, other times I call my mom for help, and then there are times when I get my cooking inspo from the handiest gadgets in my kitchen: my blender and my food processor. Extra fluffy scrambled eggs? Please and thank you. Soup in a cinch? Yes please. Dessert that practically makes itself? Twist my arm!

A Simple-Yet-Brilliant Hack for Better Boxed Brownies

This article is a part of Chocolate Week—seven days of recipes and stories, all chocolate—presented by our friends at Guittard. A fifth-generation family business, Guittard has been crafting an array of chocolate offerings (like top-quality baking chip…

We know that adding coffee to anything chocolate will heighten and intensify those rich and, well, chocolatey flavors. A small amount of brewed coffee or espresso (or the powdered instant stuff) will make chocolate cakes, cookies, frostings, and other treats taste more like themselves, without contributing an overtly ‘coffee-ish’ flavor. It’s a baking trick we’ve relied on for years, which is why we were shocked to realize we’d missed a genius—and simple—opportunity to combine these magical ingredients: the humble boxed brownie mix.

11 Easy Dinner Recipes for When It’s Been a Loooong Week

As a line cook, I spent most of my time making dinner for other people, some time thinking about cooking for myself, and no time ever actually preparing dinner at home. When I stopped cooking in restaurants, this equation changed, slightly. While I now…

As a line cook, I spent most of my time making dinner for other people, some time thinking about cooking for myself, and no time ever actually preparing dinner at home. When I stopped cooking in restaurants, this equation changed, slightly. While I now give myself time to make dinner at home, most nights I’m not that interested in spending more than thirty minutes in my kitchen. (I guess Rachael Ray had it right all along.)

For me, weeknight dinners should be enjoyable to eat, but always easy to make. Though the possibility of the occasional weeknight kitchen catastrophe will never quite disappear, I can confidently report that the 11 recipes below will make easy, delicious meals after even the worst of weekdays.