Bean and Legume

Here’s the answer to your question: “What can I make on Sunday night that will taste great for my 10:30 a.m. desk lunch on Wednesday?”

Tearing the sweet potatoes creates more surface area to char and glaze. (It’s also fun.)

My grandma used to make a version of this dish using pork and showers of Parmesan. I have updated it to include ground chicken and miso for a lighter, late-summer dish with equally deep flavor,  but feel free to use whatever ground meat you prefer. Gently poaching the meatballs is not only faster than roasting, but means none of their flavor is lost to a baking sheet.

A quick sear gives corn kernels caramelized edges and concentrated flavor. Here, they're cooked with crisp chickpeas, then tossed with za'atar and dressed with a mixture of ginger, jalapeños, miso, and tahini. 

Top these creamy, beany enfrijoladas with a fried egg, chorizo or roasted vegetables, and queso fresco!

These impossibly creamy and saucy one-pot lima beans are richly flavored from smoked turkey tail.

This recipe was directly inspired by the wonderland of flavors and textures that is Korean bibimbap, a bowl or pot of rice topped with an assortment of vegetables, an egg, and (sometimes) meat that's mixed up right before it's eaten.

This vegetarian Thai curry comes together in about 30 minutes—and you don't need store-bought curry paste to make it. Our streamlined version is fresh-tasting and easy to throw together—just blitz cilantro stems (the most flavorful part of the herb!), ginger, garlic, shallots, and green chiles in a food processor or blender.

This herbaceous, crunchy, green riff on the iconic bread and tomato salad features all of our favorite spring vegetables, plus a tangy buttermilk dressing.

If you’ve ever been intimidated by the thought of making fresh pasta at home, look no further. Ricotta gnocchi is simple to make, and it’s faster and more foolproof than its potato counterparts. The only tricky part is adding enough flour so that your dough is easy to work with, but not so much that it becomes stodgy or tough. If you don't want to make the buttery herb and pea sauce, use whatever you'd prefer, be it marinara, pesto, or sage and brown butter. 

This recipe gives off major chicken-soup vibes but is entirely vegetarian—and you don’t have to simmer vegetables or cheese rinds for hours to get there. The lightning-fast broth gets its flavor from caramelized miso and nutritional yeast (a trick we picked up from Bay Area cookbook author and food writer Andrea Nguyen). The gluten-free dumplings are soft on the outside and pleasantly chewy on the inside. 

It’s okay to use frozen peas! We’ll never tell. We love ‘em.

Think of this as carbonara minus the eggs but still with massive amounts of flavor from guanciale, black pepper, and Pecorino.

Yes, turkey is a relatively lean protein, but when you pair it with white beans, a robust and concentrated chile purée, and simmer it for a short period of time, it delivers major body and richness. 

This winter salad with peak season bitter greens, salami, and crispy chickpeas is hearty enough on its own, but not so over-the-top that you can’t also pair it with pasta for dinner.

Crispy, creamy, chewy, bright, and about a dozen other wonderful (see?) adjectives apply to this easy dinner.

This deeply flavorful Puerto Rican rice dish is to pernil as stuffing is to turkey—a holiday meal wouldn’t be the same without it. 

This recipe is inspired by mujadara, a simple combination of lentils, rice, and onions that exists in various forms across the Middle East. It's comforting but not too rich, and it's fresh and vegetarian without relying on many perishable ingredients. In other words, it's the perfect meal for the nights in between holiday parties.

There are countless variations of arepas all over Colombia and Venezuela, but whether they’re stuffed with cheese, chicken, or pork, the dough starts in the same way: with arepa flour.

If you’ve ever tried maitake mushrooms, then you already know this, but they have an unbelievably rich flavor and aroma of piney forest floor and fresh fallen leaves. This recipe celebrates everything we love about them.