With all the decent pizza dough substitutes out there, I did not expect to enjoy this one nearly as much as I did. I knew it would be pretty good—it’s like a big chicken nugget after all—but I thought that much chicken would quickly become overwhelming. Nope. Chicken crust pizza is simply stupendous. So go on and grab a pound of ground chicken: It’s pizza night. 

One thing I’d like to get out of the way is that this is not chicken parm. While it has the components of chicken parmesan—breaded chicken, tomato sauce, and cheese—it’s made differently (using baked ground chicken instead of fried cutlets) and it’s eaten differently (like a pizza). Chicken parmesan is a dish with a history, and generations of Italian-American parents passing on very specific family recipes. While chicken crust pizza is damn good, it’s not exactly worthy of the same title. Would you dub a chicken nugget dipped in ketchup next to a string cheese "chicken parmesan"? I rest my case.

How to make chicken crust pizza

Now then, back to our chicken nugget—I mean, our high-protein, super satisfying pizza crust replacement. Essentially, you need to bread both sides of a very large chicken patty. I use the help of two sheet trays to do so. They also come in handy during baking.

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1. Make the chicken mixture

I seasoned a pound of ground chicken with salt, garlic powder, black pepper, and added an egg. Mix everything together thoroughly. It’s a mixture akin to a chicken meatball, but without any bread crumbs inside to tenderize the structure. There’s no need to over-mix, but at the same time, you also don’t have to worry about keeping it tender. It’s a pizza crust, so you want the meat to slice and hold up when it’s time to eat.

2. Shape the patty

On an upside down sheet pan, place a silicone baking mat, or a piece of parchment paper. Spray it lightly with oil (I used canola, but any cooking oil will do), or daub it on with a pastry brush. Dump the chicken mixture into the center and, using your fingers or a rubber spatula, press and shape the meat into a circle about a half-inch thick. My crust ended up about nine inches in diameter. 

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

3. Bread the chicken

While you could leave the bread entirely out of this recipe, I think it’s much more attractive and texturally pleasing with a crunchy, knobbly panko breading. There are a lot of accessible wheat-free options these days, so if you have gluten sensitivities, maybe opt for a gluten-free panko instead of forgoing the breading entirely. 

Make a 1:1 mixture of fine bread crumbs and panko in a bowl. Sprinkle half of the mixture over the chicken patty and use your hand to spread it out and gently press the crumbs so they adhere to the meat. Don’t forget the edges. Spray a light layer of oil onto the crumbed-side. It’s time to flip it. 

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

Put another silicone mat or piece of parchment on top of the chicken. Put another sheet tray, bottom-side down, on top of the mat. Grab both sheet pans firmly with both hands and flip them at the same time so you can bread the other side of the crust. Carefully peel the baking mat off (a spatula can help you if the meat is sticking a bit). Bread the other side and oil it. Replace the mat on top of the chicken and the sheet tray, bottom-side down. 

4. Bake the crust

Put the crust, sandwiched by the two baking mats and the two sheet trays, in the oven. Place a weight on top. (This can be another sheet pan or a heavy skillet.) This weight will force good contact with the metal tray to conduct heat to the crust, and keep it from shrinking or bubbling up. Bake the crust at 400°F for 25 minutes. Remove the weight, top tray, and top liner, and bake the crust for another 10 minutes.

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

5. Add toppings

Remove the pizza but keep the oven on. Leave the chicken crust on the pan and add a few spoonfuls of pizza sauce (it doesn’t have to be tomato), shredded cheese, and any pizza toppings your heart desires. Return the pizza to the oven and broil the pizza for three to five minutes. My oven has a “lo broil” option, and it took four minutes for the cheese to bubble. Cool the chicken crust pizza on a wire rack (there’s a lot of steam trapped under there) for five minutes before slicing and serving. 

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

The crust slices beautifully, and stands up to being held in-hand, as a pizza should. The breading crisps up nicely in the oven and, surprisingly, the chicken crust never feels too heavy despite that it’s, well, mostly a plank of chicken. If you’re trying to increase your protein intake, or just add some pizzazz to your pizza routine, this crust is a must-try. 

Chicken Crust Pizza Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 pound raw ground chicken

• ¼ teaspoon garlic powder

• ½ teaspoon salt

• A few cracks of black pepper

• 1 egg

• ½ cup panko

• ½ cup bread crumbs

• Pinch of salt

• A few spritzes of a neutral cooking oil

• 3 tablespoons of tomato sauce

• ½ - 1 cup of shredded mozzarella

• Pizza toppings (*optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. In a small bowl, combine the panko, bread crumbs, and a pinch of salt. Set aside.

2. In a mixing bowl, thoroughly combine the first five ingredients.

3. Place a sheet pan upside-down and lay a silicone mat on it. Spray it with some neutral oil, or if you don’t have any spray oil, rub a teaspoon-ish of oil on the mat. Pile the chicken mixture into the center of the mat and pat it into a circle, about 9 inches across and a half-inch thick.

4. Pour half of the bread crumb mixture onto the chicken patty. Spread it around the surface, pressing gently, until it evenly covers the chicken top and sides. 

5. Spritz more oil onto the breaded chicken and onto a second silicone mat. Place that mat, oil-side down, on top of the chicken patty. Place a second sheet tray, bottom-side down, on the mat. Holding both sheet trays, flip the chicken crust over. Take the tray and mat off so you can bread the other side. Spritz more oil onto the newly breaded side and replace the mat and sheet tray.

6. Place the double tray-ed, double matt-ed chicken into the oven and place a heavy skillet or a third sheet pan on top to weigh down the crust as it bakes. Bake for 35 minutes, taking the top pan and top mat off for the last 10 minutes to brown the crust.

7. Take the crust out of the oven and add the pizza sauce, cheese, and toppings (if using). Broil the pizza to brown the cheese and toppings lightly, about 3-5 minutes. Cool the pizza on a wire rack for about 5 minutes before slicing and serving. 

There’s a viral cottage cheese wrap making its way around the internet and it’s being touted as a high-protein bread replacement for sandwiches and wraps. Well, I love cottage cheese and I do love a sandwich, so how bad could it be? Well, folks, it’s not great. 

I don’t know if I’m surprised that the internet misled me, or just disappointed. I’m one of those weirdos that actually really likes cottage cheese—the 4% fat variety, of course. It’s one of my go-to warm weather snacks when paired with fresh fruits, so I was eager to buy my first tub of the season and enjoy it in this new application. It's not weird to try and pack in the protein and reduce carbs, but this creation really falls short. Not only does the wrap replacement suck in a practical sense, but I actually think it messes up the cottage cheese flavor too. 

What is the viral cottage cheese wrap?

The main idea seems to be that you can blend cottage cheese with some egg parts to make a loose batter of sorts. Spread the mixture in a flat rectangle on a sheet tray and bake it in the oven. Et voilà: A perfect, high-protein, gluten-free wrap that you can pack with many leafy greens, cold cuts, and maybe even more cottage cheese. There are many variations of this cottage cheese wrap including this one which only uses egg whites, this one which uses whole eggs, one that fries it all in a pan instead of baking it in the oven, and I even came across another that uses flour (which I can’t find at the moment)—so what exactly are we doing, then? 

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On TikTok, this process takes 12 seconds from blend to bite. What you don’t see is how damn long it takes to bake, and quite frankly, how you actually need to over-bake it for this to work at all. Throw out everything you know about cooking eggs with this “wrap.” Egg whites begin to set at 140°F, which is usually what we aim for because the proteins build tender bonds that you can easily break with a fork or with your teeth. 

The bread replacement, however, requires the proteins in the eggs to cook at high temperatures—some recipes instruct for 400°F—and form many strong, rubbery bonds. You know how sometimes when you fry an egg for a few minutes too long, and the edges of the white turn crispy and brown, and you struggle to break it even with a fork? Yep, that’s what’s required here. The high-moisture cottage cheese in the mixture interrupts some of the egg’s bonds, so the ones that are connecting need to cook until browning, or else the whole thing falls apart into a mushy, and quite unappealing, mess. 

The uneven results

I actually don’t even have a problem with cooking the “bread” until browning. Eggs are an incredibly versatile ingredient, and if you can cook them until they’re chewy enough to mimic bread, well, what wonderful innovation! I take issue with the wrap in practice.

The batter looks smooth and promising before baking. Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

I saw multiple TikTok videos that seem to have run into the same problem I did—my layer of cheese-egg batter spread out in the oven and became uneven. (This is almost guaranteed to happen if you have sheet pans that warp under higher temperatures.) The thin side burned and the thicker side was okay.

My batter creeped over to one side and part of it died. Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

The burnt and crispy section broke off when I tried to fill the wrap, and the thicker section was flexible but borderline mushy in parts. I ate half of it, generously offered the other half to my boyfriend (he declined), and tossed the other half. 

The second time I tried it with whole eggs instead of just egg whites, and the flavor improved slightly. Nonetheless, I still encountered the same issues with irregular cooking—burnt sections and mushy spots. If you chose to make this high-protein “bread,” I would recommend a recipe with whole eggs, and ditching a sheet pan to use a parchment-lined casserole dish instead. Then you don’t have to deal with warping. That said, I won’t be making this again. 

Make these high-protein options instead

Baking something for 35 to 45 minutes to get a product you might very well chuck is pretty much my definition of not worth it. You’re better off keeping it fast, simple, and—most of all—delicious. Make a stunning, fluffy omelette with some cottage cheese inside, or a frittata (which is an omelette for lazy people) which only takes about 10 minutes in the oven. These options are also high-protein and gluten-free, and you can fill them with veggies and meats too. If you must have a wrap, try pan-frying some plain ol’ egg whites, like with these dumpling wrappers, but use a larger pan. It’s way faster (we’re talking one to two minutes per wrap), about as high-protein and low-fat as you can get, plus you don’t have to bake these to hell and back just so they’ll hold some ham. Happy bulking, everyone. 

Hands-off dinners are a valuable part of any home cook’s bag of tricks. That’s usually where the instant pot and slow cooker step in, but I’m not always in the mood for something that needs hours of stewing or a lot of ingredient prep. My current easy favorite is a main course that gives me the freedom to go do something else—like heat up leftover rice, or sit and rest my weary bones—and it requires very little else from me. It’s air fryer roast pork tenderloin, and you should add it to your weekly rotation. 

The whole reason I bought the pre-trimmed package of pork tenderloin from Trader Joe’s was that I wanted a lean cut of protein on a tight budget. This pound of pork fit the bill. It was only five bucks, has low fat content, and it’s a mild protein that loves to be seasoned. On the subway ride home, I was pretty stoked to roast it. But then I thought of how long it would take in the conventional oven—45 to 60 minutes—and how that length of time in an arid environment would surely dry it out. This is where the air fryer saved me. 

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Air fryer roast pork tenderloin cooks in a jiffy, browns nicely on the outside, and stays tender and juicy in the center. The key is the convection heating of the air fryer: The fan whips hot air around the pork, rapidly cooking the protein on the outside while gently heating the inside. The typical air fryer basket, about ten inches square, is also the perfect size for a pound of pork tenderloin, perfectly fitting diagonally across. With almost no fuss (just a single flip halfway through the cooking time), you’ve got your main event set up for any accompanying side dishes. 

How to roast pork tenderloin in the air fryer

1. Season the pork

I like to marinate pork for at least 30 minutes prior to cooking, but if you only have time for a heavy sprinkle of salt, pepper, and oil, so be it. If you’re marinating it, set the loin in a deep container and add the seasonings. A simple mixture of soy sauce, a spoonful of sugar, MSG, and a bit of cooking oil is usually plenty. Use your hands to thoroughly coat the meat and leave it to sit in the fridge for 30 minutes or a couple hours. Flip it halfway through the marinating time.

2. Set it and forget it (but remember to flip, and then forget it again)

Set the air fryer to the “roast” setting for 350°F degrees. Arrange the pork in the basket and cook it for 20 to 25 minutes, flipping it halfway through. I recommend checking the internal temperature after 20 minutes to see if you’ve reached your desired temperature. The USDA recommends a temperature of 145°F with three minutes of rest time. 

While your pork is cooking, prepare other parts of the meal, or delegate those tasks to someone else and kick up your feet for a spell. A pound of pork makes about three comfortable servings with sides. (A real boss move would be to make two roasts in the air fryer and save one for some mean Cubano sandwiches the next day.) 

Air Fryer Roast Pork Tenderloin Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 pound pork tenderloin

• 1 tablespoon Bachan’s Original Japanese Barbecue Sauce 

• ¼ teaspoon MSG

• Pinch garlic powder

• 2 or 3 grinds black pepper

• 2 teaspoons vegetable oil

1. Marinate the pork for 30 minutes, or a couple hours, in a deep container with all of the other ingredients. Make sure to flip the meat around to thoroughly coat it in the seasonings.

2. Preheat the air fryer to 350°F on the “roast” setting. Arrange the tenderloin in the air fryer and cook it for 20 to 25 minutes, flipping it halfway through the cooking time. Check for doneness with a probe thermometer. Let the meat rest and cool for at least 3 minutes before slicing and serving. 

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Not only are meatballs something everyone looks forward to, they also go remarkably well with most dinners. Drop them in soups, nest them in pasta, or toss them in a green salad—there’s no bad place for meatballs. There is, however, the issue of the bad meatball. Since that is not a fate I want for your future dinner, here are my top tips for tender and juicy meatballs every time. 

Use bread crumbs

A few months ago, I was lifting more weight in my workouts and trying to eat more protein so I could build. In an effort to pack in as much lean protein as possible, I started to leave out the bread crumbs in my meatball mixture and go full-meat. These were the most dense and rubbery meatballs the world has ever known. Bread crumbs in your mix aren’t just nonsense, they serve a greater purpose for keeping the texture tender.

All animal proteins, whether it be egg proteins or muscle tissue, go through the same denaturing process when cooking. The protein strands tighten up, expel water, and become firmer. This is part of what you see when meat cooking in a pan shrinks. A meatball does all this too, and if there’s nothing breaking up those protein strands, you get a tight, rubbery meatball. 

You don’t need much—a quarter cup of breadcrumbs (or even graham crackers), with a bit of liquid for moisture is just the thing to break up these tight protein connections. When you bite into the meatball, the starchy pockets provide easy breaking points, which reads as tenderness to your palate.

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Go on, “over-do” the seasoning 

I recommend going heavier on seasoning meatballs, especially large batches, than you would with whole meat cuts. Since the seasoning is intended to permeate throughout the meat, instead of just sitting on top like with steak, what seems like a lot of flavor will actually be spread throughout quite a bit of meat real estate. 

When in doubt, set up a frying pan next to you while you’re seasoning the mixture. Fry a small patty (the size of a quarter), and taste it. If you need to adjust the flavor, you can do it now. This adds a few minutes to your prep time, but at least you can ensure a properly tasty meatball.  

Don’t skimp on the fat

While you can make meatballs out of any meat—beef, pork, chicken, or faux-meat—always consider the fat content. Fats melt down and become the juicy flavor you look forward to in a good meatball. If you’re using beef, pork, turkey, or any combination of these, look for packages labeled with at least 7% fat. In the event that you can only find lean meats, or you prefer proteins like chicken instead of beef, go ahead and add the fat yourself. Use the large holes on a box grater and add a few tablespoons of cold, grated butter to your mixture.

Use a light touch

Once you’ve got all the right ingredients in your bowl, it’s time to smash it all together. While your first instinct might be to reach for a spoon, stay your hand—and then put on a food-safe glove. It’s best to mix with your hands. 

Ensuring a tender meatball happens in each stage of its development, and that includes mixing and shaping. You made sure to incorporate breadcrumbs to keep the structure delicate, and add enough fat to avoid dryness; the last thing you want to do is over-mix. Over-mixing will compact the protein and minimize those perfect pockets of breadcrumb and fat you incorporated, sending the meatballs back into rubbery territory. This is all-too-likely with a spoon. Instead, use your hands to lightly break up the meat and gingerly blend the ingredients with your fingers. Shape the meatballs with a light touch too.

Portion the meat evenly

Not only is it important to gently shape the meatballs so they don’t become compacted and tight, but it’s vital to portion the meat into equal sizes. Keeping the meatballs uniform means that they’ll cook at the same rate. If you have large and small meatballs cooking together, the smaller ones are likely to dry out while the bigger ones cook through, especially if they’re baking in the oven. 

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There are two easy ways to keep the meatballs the same size. My favorite way is to use an ice cream disher because it’s quick and it’s easy to see if you're overfilling the scoop. Be sure not to densely pack the meat when you scoop. If you don’t have a disher or you don’t seem to have the right size, use this trick instead. No fancy tools are necessary, and you can make sure you’re using every last bit of meatball mix. With these tips in mind, you’re well on your way to a top-quality meatball dinner.

I’m not Swedish, but "fika" is one of my favorite customs that I never grew up with. It’s the simple and pleasant activity of having coffee and sweet pastries with friends. It’s a purposeful invitation to enjoy life for a bit of every day—plus cookies. What’s not to love about that? Hallongrottor cookies are often part of a classic Swedish fika, and one of my top five favorite cookies ever. Full stop. My guess is it might climb the ranks of your favorites too.

Before I had ever set eyes upon a single hallongrotta, I was always a sucker for raspberry thumbprint cookies. Buttery, tender, with a snap of raspberry jam—I’d always need two or three more thumbprints. In Swedish, “hallon” means raspberry, and “grottor” means caves. That makes these cookies “raspberry caves,” and that is what I’ve always wanted. Wee thumbprint cookies are great for dainty eaters, but I am no dainty eater. I need a buttery cave filled with raspberry jam, thank you so much.

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More tender than shortbread

These treats are quite similar to shortbread cookies with a few small additions. Shortbreads are known for their simple preparation and utterly tender, buttery texture. Hallongrottor share all the positives of shortbread along with a bright jammy center, and the addition of two ingredients that lighten the texture even more—baking powder and potato starch.

A bit of baking powder creates bubbles during baking, and as the cookie dough bakes and solidifies, these bubbles become tiny air pockets. The introduction of extra starch to the dough actually shortens the gluten strands in the batter by interrupting the gluten connections. Additionally potato starch has the wonderful ability to absorb water and gelatinize, helping to bind the dough without making it chewy. 

While potato starch is readily available in the baking aisle of most larger grocery stores, you can substitute an equal measurement of cornstarch in this recipe if you can’t get it. 

How to make hallongrottor

The recipe is pleasantly simple, and even though I modeled mine after the hallongrottor at Fabrique Bakery (with a swirled top), you can keep it classic with a round shape. 

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

1. Make the batter

With a rubber spatula, blend the softened butter with the sugar in a mixing bowl until well combined. Mix in the salt and vanilla paste (you can replace this with extract). In a smaller bowl, whisk the flour, potato starch, and baking powder together. Add the dry ingredients into the butter mixture and gently combine them until you have a soft dough.

2. Fill the cups 

Line a cupcake tin with paper liners. Using a spoon or ice cream disher, divide the batter among seven cups. (It’s a weird batch size, apologies.) The batter will puff, so only fill the cups about three-quarters full. For a decorative design, fit a large piping bag with a large star tip. Fill the bag with the batter and pipe the dough into the cups, finishing with one final swoop around the top.

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

3. Make the raspberry caves

Using the handle of a wooden spoon or a wine cork, press a deep divot into the center of each cookie. Fill the caves with raspberry jam. (It’s good to be generous here as they’ll sink a bit later.) Pop the hallongrottor into the fridge for about 10 minutes while you preheat the oven to 350°F.

4. Bake 

When the oven is up to temperature, bake the cookies for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the edges begin to take on some color. Cool them completely on a wire rack. 

As they cool, the raspberry center will sink slightly. Don’t worry—this is all part of the cave development. It’s hard to resist, but I do recommend waiting until the cookies are room temperature or even fridge cold so the butter can solidify a bit. Top these off with a light dusting of powdered sugar and invite a friend over to fika. 

Hallongrottor Recipe

Ingredients:

• 9 tablespoons butter, softened

• ⅓ cup sugar

• ¼ teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon vanilla paste

• 1 cup flour

• 3 tablespoons potato starch 

• ½ teaspoon baking powder

• ¼ - ½ cup raspberry jam (I recommend Crofter’s or St. Dalfour)

• Powdered sugar for garnish.

1. With a rubber spatula, mix the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until combined. Mix in the salt and vanilla paste. In a smaller bowl, whisk the flour, potato starch, and baking powder together. Add the flour mixture into the butter mixture and gently combine them until you have a soft dough.

2. Line a 12-cup cupcake tin with seven paper liners. Using a spoon or ice cream disher, divide the batter among seven cups. Only fill the cups about three-quarters full. 

3. Using the handle of a wooden spoon or a wine cork, press a deep divot into each cookie. Fill the caves with raspberry jam. Pop the hallongrottor into the fridge for about 10 minutes while you preheat the oven to 350°F.

4. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until just a hint of color appears on the edges. Cool the hallongrottor completely on a wire cooling rack. Dust the tops with powdered sugar before serving.

It’s rare that I’m not in the mood for potatoes. Even when perfectionist chefs and food blogs like to hate on “gluey” mashed potatoes, I look at that mound of burst starch molecules with only love. My latest spud obsession has been a three-ingredient masterpiece from Switzerland. It’s called rösti, and if you have potatoes, butter, and salt, you’re halfway there. 

What is rösti?

Rösti is a simple and hearty dish composed of grated, salted potatoes that are fried in a pan. If you’re thinking of potato latkes or crispy hash browns right now, you’re on the right track—but think bigger, and thicker. Rösti is a substantial cake of fluffy potato veiled in a crisp, butter-fried edge. It’s almost like a wink to the Spanish tortilla in shape, but straight-up potato business.

Rösti generally refers to fried potatoes in this cake-like shape, but surprisingly, there’s wiggle room in the texture. I’ve tasted rösti that has the texture of mashed potatoes inside, and ones composed of discernible, independent strands of firm potato. I don’t care what anyone says, both of those textures are perfect and delicious. 

This recipe below is a nice balance between the two textures I mentioned. The interior is soft, but not mashed, and you can still make out strands of the potato. The trick here is to boil the potatoes first. Hash browns or latkes might use raw shredded potatoes, but they’re much thinner; cooking those through requires less time. This cake is about an inch thick, and cooking that much raw potato without burning the outside is possible, but requires a lot more attention. Using cooked potatoes instead speeds up the frying time and allows you to prepare ahead of time. You can boil the potatoes the night before and keep them in the fridge until you’re ready to rösti. 

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How to make rösti

1. Boil and cool the potatoes

Add about four medium potatoes, skin on, to a pot. (Waxy potatoes will hold up best with this process, but you can make it work with starchy ones too.) Cover them with cool water and bring it up to a gentle boil. Boil the potatoes until a knife can be inserted to the center with little force, about 20 to 30 minutes. Rinse the potatoes in cold water to stop the cooking and put them in the fridge until chilled, at least two hours, but up to two days in advance. 

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

2. Shred them

Once the potatoes are cold, peel off the skins and shred them with the large holes on a box grater over a large bowl. You could use a food processor’s grating blade to do this, however I think it’s overkill for cooked potatoes. The machine might mash up the shreds a bit, so I recommend doing it manually. Sprinkle half a teaspoon of salt over the bowl of potatoes and gently toss them. Sprinkle a pinch more salt over the spuds and toss again. 

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

3. Fry the rösti

In a frying pan or cast iron skillet, melt two tablespoons of butter over medium-low heat. Swirl the pan to coat. Add the potatoes and gently form the mound into a thick cake. Fry the rösti for about 10 minutes to brown the bottom. If you see the edges are browning too quickly, bring the heat down. 

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

4. Flip it

Much like a Spanish tortilla, flipping is the hardest part. I like to use a large wooden cutting board for this, as I find plates are too slippery, the curved edge gets in the way, and I worry about the high heat of the cast iron against the glass glaze. 

Turn off the heat. Put a piece of foil over the potato cake in the skillet. (This will make sliding the cake back into the pan easier.) Put the cutting board over the skillet. Put one hand on top of the cutting board, and the other hand—with an oven mitt—under the bottom of the hot skillet. Flip the whole apparatus over in one swoop so the cutting board is now under the skillet. Place it on the countertop and return the skillet to the burner. 

Add two more tablespoons of butter to the pan to melt. Use a spatula to slide the rösti back into the skillet—it’s OK if it isn’t perfect. Turn the heat back onto medium-low and fry the other side for another eight to 10 minutes, or until nicely browned.  

Using the same technique as before, flip the potato rösti out onto a wire rack backed by the same cutting board. Allow the cake to cool for a few minutes before serving. Enjoy your crisp and tender rösti as a side dish for a hearty roast, or as a sizable platform for a pair of runny-yolk eggs. 

Potato Rösti Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds of potatoes

• 4 tablespoons butter

• ¾ teaspoon salt

1. Add the potatoes, skin on, to a pot. Cover them with cool water and boil the potatoes for about 20 to 30 minutes, until knife-tender. Rinse the potatoes in cold water, and put them in the fridge until chilled.

2. Peel the cold potatoes and shred them with the large holes on a box grater over a large bowl. Sprinkle half a teaspoon of salt over the bowl of potatoes and gently toss them. Sprinkle the last quarter teaspoon over the potatoes.

3. In a frying pan or cast iron skillet, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Add the potatoes and gently form the mound into a thick cake. Fry until the bottom becomes golden brown, about 10 minutes. 

4. Flip the rösti onto a cutting board and add two more tablespoons of butter to the pan. Slide the cake back into the pan to fry the other side for another eight to 10 minutes. Cool slightly before serving. 

The best stuffed mushrooms I’d ever eaten were packed with so much filling, they could have just as easily been called meatballs with mushroom bottoms. They were so savory, juicy, and delectable that I probably had half the platter; I was at a party, and this appetizer made me completely antisocial. But the good news is they inspired this simple recipe for air-fried stuffed mushrooms. 

Every time my boyfriend or I suggest stuffed mushrooms for a meal, it’s like announcing “Pizza Party!” to a group of 10-year-olds. There’s an excited gasp, eyes light up, maybe a fist pump happens—that’s how good this recipe is. We used to make them in the conventional oven, which is fine for large batches if you’re feeding a crowd, but for small to medium batches, the air fryer knocks off about 30 minutes of cooking time. And that, my friends, is great news.

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The key to great stuffed mushrooms is not just a tasty filling, but overpacking the filling. It ends up improving the stuffing-to-mushroom ratio, and makes this snack into something more substantial, something I like to call a mini-meal. At first, it’ll seem like way too much filling for those little cavities—and that’s the point. When filling the mushrooms, I like to add enough filling across all of the mushroom caps just to fill the divots, and in the odd event that you don’t have extra, at least every cap gets enough. Then go back with the remaining stuffing and pile it on top. They’ll end up looking like spheres if everything works out right.

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

These little umami bombs come out crisp on top but juicy on the inside. Large cremini or button mushrooms are ideal, but I always seem to end up with an irregular collection of large, medium, and pip-squeak. Normally this would be a problem since different sizes cook at different rates, but since the filling is pre-cooked, you’re just looking to soften the mushrooms. The air fryer only heats from the top, so even though the smaller mushroom caps may not need those last couple minutes, they’re protected by the filling on top and don’t overcook. 

Air-Fried Stuffed Mushrooms Recipe

Ingredients:

• 8-10 medium mushrooms

• Spritz of oil for the mushrooms

• 1 tablespoon butter

• 1 small shallot, minced

• 2 cloves of garlic, minced

• 4 ounces ground sausage (or turkey)

• ¼ teaspoon salt

• 1 ounce cream cheese

• ¼ teaspoon dried parsley

• 1 tablespoon shredded parmesan cheese (or grated)

1. Pull the stems out of the mushroom caps. Line up the mushroom caps, round side up, on a plate. Spray the bottoms with a bit of oil and flip them over so the de-stemmed side is up.

2. Chop the mushroom stems roughly until they’re about the same size as the minced garlic and shallot. Add the stems, shallot, and garlic to a frying pan with the butter. Sauté the veggies over medium-low heat until they begin to soften and sweat. Add the ground sausage and salt, and break it apart into small pieces while it cooks in the pan. Once the meat has just finished cooking, turn off the heat and pour the mixture into a small bowl.

3. Add the cream cheese to the warm mixture and stir it until well combined. Stir in the parsley and parmesan cheese.

4. Using a small spoon, add just enough filling to fill each of the mushroom caps. Press the mixture firmly with the back of your spoon. Divide the remaining filling amongst the mushrooms, mounding the stuffing on top. 

5. Set the air fryer to the “air fry” setting at 325°F and cook the stuffed mushrooms for 10 minutes. Then allow them to sit and cool off for 5 to 10 minutes. (This rest time allows the mushrooms to reabsorb any loose juices in the cap. Also those juices are hot, so this gives them a chance to cool.) Enjoy as a side to a larger snack dinner, or on its own as a mini-meal.

I often see pictures of crispy pork belly that show great slabs of meat topped with bubbly, crackling. It looks enticing, and intimidating: Preparing large cuts of meat for the first time can induce questioning and uncertainty, from “where can I buy pork belly that large?” to “If I mess up, I’ll waste all that meat.”

As we celebrate yet another Air Fryday, I’d like to invite you to make crispy pork belly in a lower-stakes manner that any first-timer can pull off. Treat your tastebuds to the indulgence of air fryer pork belly bites. 

The difference between pork belly and bacon

Pork belly is cut from the belly of the hog, and if it reminds you of bacon, there’s a good reason for that: Bacon is pork belly that’s been smoked, cured, and sliced into strips. A slab of pork belly is usually uncured and unsmoked, but you still get all of the same rich streaks of fat and meat that we all treasure in sliced bacon. 

Fatty pork does especially well under the convection conditions of the air fryer. The fan churns the hot air around the basket of the air fryer, and the fat from the pork begins to render and crisp under the extreme heat. Cutting the belly into 1-inch chunks creates more surface area for flavor and browning, speeds up the cooking time, and even makes eating it a bit more casual. Plus, you only need about an eight to 10-ounce hunk of pork belly to make two servings-worth of bites, and that’s much easier to find in local grocery stores than the more stately slabs. 

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How to make air fryer pork belly bites

You could simply cut up the pork belly and drop it into the air fryer. There’s enough fat marbled through the meat that it can just take care of itself. But when a flavor opportunity presents itself, I like to take it. So here's what you can do to make the most out of your belly meat.

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

1. Slice the meat

If your pork belly has a tough skin (or rind) on the fatty edge, cut it off. Slice the pork into one-inch pieces across the layers, so each piece will include all of the streaks of meat and fat. If the slab was a wide one, you can then cut the pieces in half. Mine ended up one inch in width and length, and two inches high. 

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

2. Season the pork

Add the meat to a mixing bowl and season it. I used some fish sauce, pepper, and sugar, but you could experiment with other ingredients like Worcestershire sauce or soy sauce. For a crisp-assist, I added a teaspoon of cornstarch and oil. Mix everything together until the meat is coated. 

3. Air fry the bites

Set the air fryer to 375°F on the “air fry” setting, and cook the meat for 15 to 20 minutes, shaking the pieces around every 5 minutes or so. When the fat is bubbly and the edges are crisp, the pork belly is finished.

The fat develops a tender crust, and the light seasoning boasts incredible umami. You can stuff these crunchy morsels into a pita with pickled veggies, nestle them onto some noodle soup, or walk around with a bowl-full and casually throw ‘em back while you carry out your business. (My favorite way to eat pork belly bites is with a heap of steamed jasmine rice and a drizzle of soy sauce.)

These are best eaten the same day, but they’ll keep in the fridge for up to five days. To reheat, just throw them in the air fryer again for about three minutes. 

Air Fried Pork Belly Bites Recipe

Ingredients:

• 10 ounces pork belly

• 1 tablespoon fish sauce

• 1 teaspoon sugar

• 4 or 5 grinds of black pepper

• ½ tablespoon cornstarch

• 1 teaspoon neutral oil

1. If your meat has the tough skin remaining on the fatty edge, remove it. Slice the meat into pieces, about one inch in width and length, and two inches high. Make sure each piece has all of the streaky layers. 

2. Add the meat to a mixing bowl and add the fish sauce, sugar, pepper, cornstarch and oil. Thoroughly mix it until all of the pieces are coated in a light layer of the mixture.

3. Preheat the air fryer to 375°F on the “air fry” setting. Add the pork pieces to the basket and cook the meat for 15 - 20 minutes, shaking the pieces around every 5 minutes or so. The pork belly is finished when the fat is bubbly and the edges are crisp. Cool briefly before enjoying.

It’s a terrible feeling trying to flip a steak, chicken breast, or piece of fish on your grill, only to find it fused the the grates—and I don’t like feeling bad. But sticking isn’t inevitable. You can save those delicious browned bits from this horrible fate; you just have to lube up correctly.

Grease the food, not the grill grates

I have always been a fan of greasing the food, whether that means rubbing steaks with a thin coating of vegetable oil, wrapping fish in fatty bacon, or brushing shrimp with mayo. It just seems a little less wasteful, though I had never given much thought as to which method was better for preventing food stickage.

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I reached out to Meathead Goldwyn of AmazingRibs.com and, sure enough, he had plenty of information to share. “I’m with you. Oil the food, not the grates,” he said before directing me to this article on his site.

There are a few reasons oiling the food makes sense. Unless you hate having eyebrows, spraying oil from an aerosol can onto a hot grill is a bad idea, as those little droplets are highly volatile, but even applying oil with a paper towel and tongs (or onion) doesn’t guarantee a nonstick surface. According to AmazingRibs.com science advisor Prof. Greg Blonder, results vary based on the temperature of the grates and smoke point of your oil:

Metal grill grates, even shiny clean ones, are not really smooth. Under a microscope there are numerous scratches, pits, valleys, and ridges. The compounds in food are much colder than the grates and when the two meet a bond forms between them. If you oil the grates, below the smoke point of the oil, let’s say 400°F, the oil actually does coat the grating and helps release protein and fat. But if you ‘keep it hot’, above the smoke point, the oil cracks, smokes, and carbonizes almost instantly. The carbon and smoke don’t taste good, and the dry uneven carbon layer simply makes sticking worse. Even at high temps if you brush on oil and then immediately add food, the oil and food cool the grate and if it cools enough, the oil may not burn off. But no way it creates a stable non-stick surface.

By oiling the meat (or other food), you have a little more control:

As you lay the oiled meat down, the oil fills the microscopic nooks and crannies in both the food and the grates and makes a relatively smooth, slippery surface. The cool food lowers the temp of the grates and will keep that burnt oil residue off the food. But you want to use an oil that has a high smoke point. Most refined cooking oils will do the job.

Keep your barbecue grates clean

Charred on gunk and carbonized crap are sure food-stickers, so clean your grates while they’re nice and hot (either before adding food or at the end of each cooking session).

How to keep fish from sticking to the grill

Fish is notoriously sticky and delicate, but you can ease yourself into cooking fish without tearing any filets. For extreme beginners, I recommend wrapping whole fish in bacon. The bacon protects the fish with fat, while adding a light, smoky flavor. I’m also a big fan of brushing seafood with mayo, which contributes a lovely crust, but not much flavor. You can also use a fish basket, which feels a bit more secure. This is one instance where Meathead recommends oiling something other than food, so give the basket a quick swipe with an oily paper towel before adding the fish. Having a fish stick to a grill grate is arguable worse than having it stick to a basket, but not that much worse.

Carrots are one of those vegetables that are often described as sweet, which is why carrot cake makes sense on paper. However, if you’ve ever grazed a crudité platter, you know that carrots are a gamble. The non-sweet carrots take a sharp turn toward bitter or downright soapy, and this is not how you want anyone to describe your cake. Instead of crossing your fingers, ensure a better cake by roasting your carrots first. 

Why roasting works

Roasting veggies evaporates water (excess water from raw carrots is one of the culprits of soggy carrot cake) and, thanks to the Maillard reaction, develops new, delicious flavors. Roasting also encourages caramelization of the natural sugars to occur, so even the soapiest carrots will transform into sweeter morsels after a thorough roasting. 

To do this, I’ll line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and drop the carrots onto it. If you’re using baby carrots, there’s no need to cut them, but if you’re using larger carrots, break them down into roughly two-inch chunks. Drizzle some oil on the carrots and toss them with your hands to ensure they’re thoroughly coated in oil. Bake them in a 350°F oven for about 30 minutes, or until a knife can pierce through the center and the bottoms have browned (that’s a sure sign flavors have developed). The best part is that you can roast the carrots in advance and keep them in the fridge until you’re ready to use them. 

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Carrot cake made easier with a food processor

I’m rather particular about how I like carrot cake. I hate when it’s too dense with additional ingredients, or sodden with moisture from pineapples, raw carrots steaming in the mix, and raisins. And the shredding? Forget it. 

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

I wanted a carrot cake that would come together quickly. Taking a cue from Milk Street’s blender cakes, I figured this would be a great time to dump a bunch of ingredients into my food processor. No shredding half a pound of carrots for me: My carrot cake takes the best parts of the classic American-style carrot cake (without quite as many mix-ins) and uses the food processor to chop up the carrots right in the batter. This method results in a gorgeous orange hue, enhances the carrot-y flavor, and even makes it easier to slice the cake without all the stringy fibers tearing the crumb out. 

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

The recipe below produces a springy cake and, thanks to the Greek yogurt, a moist yet light crumb. Although you can always add embellishments if you really want, this cake isn’t overwhelmed with spices and raisins—the roasted carrot flavor has the spotlight. This recipe makes one nine-inch round snack cake, and it’s phenomenal with just a dusting of powdered sugar. However, I understand that carrot cake also tends to be most loved with cream-cheese icing, so there’s a quick three-ingredient recipe for that, too. 

Roasted Carrot Snack Cake Recipe

Ingredients:

For the cake

• 8 ounces carrots, roughly cut into 2-inch chunks

• A spritz of neutral oil to roast the carrots

• 1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour

• ¾ teaspoon baking powder

• ¼ teaspoon baking soda

• ½ cup canola oil (or other neutral oil)

• 2 eggs

• ½ cup Greek yogurt

• ½ teaspoon salt

• ¾ cup sugar

• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

• ½ cup walnuts pieces

• ⅓ cup sweetened coconut flakes

For the icing:

• 6 ounces cream cheese

• 2 cups powdered sugar

• 1 teaspoon lemon juice

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter a 9-inch cake pan and dust it with flour. Additionally, I like to line the base with parchment paper to ensure an easy release. 

2. Line a sheet pan with foil. Put the carrots chunks on the tray and spritz them with enough oil to coat them. Massage them with your hands to ensure thorough coating. Roast them in the 350°F oven for 25 to 35 minutes. They should be knife-tender and brown on the bottoms. Set them aside to cool. (You can also do this part in advance and store them in the fridge for about four days.)

3. Whisk flour, baking powder, and baking soda in a large mixing bowl. 

4. In a food processor, add the oil, eggs, yogurt, salt, sugar, vanilla extract, and roasted carrots. Blend the ingredients until the carrots are in small bits and the rest of the liquid is smooth, about 20 to 30 seconds. Add in the walnuts and coconut flakes. Pulse the mixture about five times, just to break up the coconut strands and walnut pieces.

5. Pour the wet mixture into the bowl of dry ingredients and whisk until combined. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan. Bake the cake for 30 minutes, or until the center springs back when you gently press it. Loosen the edges with a knife and turn it out onto a wire rack and remove the parchment. Flip it right-side up, and allow it to cool to room temperature.

6. To make the icing, place the cream cheese in a microwave-safe bowl and nuke it for 30 seconds, stirring halfway through. The cream cheese should be soft, spreadable, and silky. Mix in the powdered sugar and lemon juice until well-combined.

7. Slather the cake in the cream cheese icing and enjoy. 

I despised pizza as a child. For some reason bread, tomato sauce, and cheese held no appeal. And the ring of dry, flavorless crust attached to every single slice? Disgusting. Even into adulthood, as I eventually built up a love for the pie, I happily left the crust behind as a spent handle for the edible part. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Crust shouldn’t be left behind. Take matters into your own hands and flavor your pizza crust. 

Sometime after culinary school, I became obsessed with making pizza at home, and though my pizzas were fantastic—even the dough made from scratch—the edge crust was still lacking. I don’t remember what spurred this change, but I started treating the crust like a different component of the pizza, deserving of its own special toppings. First I started with a simple swipe of olive oil, and the pizza would cook with its very own accompaniment of frybread. Then I started adding garlic powder. Garlic salt. Onion powder. Sesame seeds. The crust suddenly became the exciting part to experiment with—and eat. 

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Although a few pizzerias are hip to seasoned crust, I think overall there’s still a big opportunity missed here. At least when you’re slingin’ pies at home, you’re in charge. To make the very best pizza, season the crust. You don’t have to be extreme (though adding hot dogs is never a bad idea), but start with a few seasonings that you like. 

First, build your pizza as usual, with sauce, cheese, and toppings. Then pour a bit of oil into a small bowl. Vegetable or olive oil is fine, whatever you have handy. Use a pastry brush (or your fingers) and swipe the oil all around the outer crust. This will give the crust flavor, aid browning, and most importantly, help the seasonings stick. Sprinkle on spices, seeds, or even extra bits of cheese. Try garlic salt for a garlic bread vibe, or everything bagel seasoning. Sometimes I’ll even add finely chopped cooked bacon. 

Whatever you add, I do recommend a sprinkle of salt if it isn’t already included in the mix. If you have a family of crust-abandoners, sit back and watch how that changes. Just when you thought it wasn’t possible, pizza night is about to become even more popular.

Potato salad is one of those foods I really only love one way—it’s the way my mom makes it. It’s a simple concoction of russets, onions, celery, mayo, and mustard, with a smattering of seasonings, and chunks of boiled eggs. It’s perfect. Other salads out parading their sweet pickle relish, olives, or bacon can take a hike. (And trust me, I love bacon.)

Recently though, my stubborn potato outlook was challenged. An account I follow posted something intriguing: a salad with boiled and roasted potatoes. I set out to try it, and I’m happy to report that this is a fantastic way to explore something different for a person who’s not interested in doing so.

I forget what exactly Yotam Ottolenghi called his dish, but I keep referring to it in my head as "double potato salad." His was beautiful and polished—a salad of lightly dressed boiled potatoes, and crisp, roasted baby spuds scattered over the top. I don’t remember what the dressing was, or any other ingredients. I was transfixed by the idea of having a potato salad with a potato garnish. And with that, I made his stylish salad something a bit more “backyard.”

Choose the right potatoes

The key to making this salad great is to use the right potatoes. Since they’re getting different treatments (one will be boiled and the other roasted), it’s best to choose varieties that perform well under these conditions. I recommend waxy potatoes, like fingerlings or Yukon Golds. Their flesh holds up better to boiling, and they won’t break apart as easily when you toss them with mayonnaise. However, if all you have are starchy russet potatoes, don’t let that stop you. Like I mentioned, my mom always uses russets. Just don’t overcook them, and they’ll mostly hold their shape.

For the roasted toppers, I chose colorful red baby potatoes. They roast quickly in the air fryer because of their petite size and deliver a pleasant sweetness to balance out the salty and rich salad. 

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How to make double potato salad

1. Prepare the potatoes

For boiling, peel the potatoes and cut them into approximate 1-inch chunks. Add them to a pot and cover them with water. Bring the water up to a gentle boil and let them cook for about 10 minutes. To test for doneness, pierce one of the largest chunks. The knife should easily cut through to the center. Drain and rinse the potato pieces. Allow them to cool.

For roasting, cut the baby potatoes in half and put the halves into a bowl. Spritz or drizzle them with a teaspoon of cooking oil and a few pinches of salt. Toss the potatoes in the bowl to evenly coat them in the oil. Put the baby potatoes in the air fryer set to 375°F for five to seven minutes, or until crisp and browned on the edges. Let them cool to room temperature.

2. Mix in the other ingredients

Put the boiled potatoes in a mixing bowl. Stir together the chopped celery, minced onion, mayonnaise, mustard, seasonings, and a chopped boiled egg. Scatter the roasted potatoes over the top of the salad along with roughly chopped parsley. Refrigerate or serve immediately.

This salad has all of the nostalgic goodness of a classic, mayonnaise-forward potato salad, and the roasted potato toppers add a welcome texture and subtle sweetness. I think the double potato element and fresh chopped parsley makes this potato salad certifiably fancy, so go ahead and serve this at your niece's graduation party or your finest barbecue. 

Double Potato Salad Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 large Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled

• 6-8 baby red creamer potatoes, halved

• 1 teaspoon cooking oil

• ½ teaspoon salt

• 1 rib celery, diced

• ¼ small red onion, minced

• ¼ cup mayonnaise

• 2 teaspoons spicy brown mustard

• ¼ teaspoon paprika

• ¼ teaspoon salt

• ¼ teaspoon ground white pepper

• 1 boiled egg, roughly chopped

• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

1. Cut the Yukon Gold potatoes into 1-inch cubes and add them to a pot. Cover the potatoes in water and bring it up to a boil. Boil the potatoes until fork-tender, about 10 to 15 minutes. Drain, rinse, and cool the potatoes.

2. Add the halved baby potatoes to a small bowl and drizzle them with the cooking oil. Add a half-teaspoon of salt and toss it all together to coat the potatoes in oil. Put them in an air fryer set to “air fry” at 375°F for 5 to 7 minutes or until crisp and browned on the edges. Allow them to cool

3. Put the boiled potatoes in a serving bowl. Add the celery, red onion, mayonnaise, mustard, paprika, salt, pepper, and egg. Stir gently until well-combined. Scatter the roasted potatoes over the top along with the chopped parsley. Serve immediately, or store in the fridge to chill.

When I think of the perfect diner breakfast, there are always over-easy eggs and hash browns involved. Rare is the diner that makes hash browns (I usually see home fries), and rarer still are they made the way I like them best—super crunchy on the outside. I get i: Diner service is hectic and the potatoes come out quickly. So when I make them at home, I make sure there’s a riotous crunch when I eat my breakfast potatoes. My trick to the crunchiest hash brown exterior? None other than cornstarch. 

Starch makes the best crust

Starches have phenomenal crisping abilities. That's why potatoes are so good for french fries—they're full of starch, specifically amylose and amylopectin. (Here’s a bit of information on amylose and amylopectin.) Essentially, these two starch molecules form new links together around 350°F, and those brittle connections give us that crunchy sensation when we eat them. Cornstarch and potato starch have more of these molecules than flour.

Hash browns are made of potatoes, of course—and potatoes bring their own starch. Technically, you can keep a potato patty simple and just smash shredded taters into a pan of oil. You'll get an okay hash brown. But I like to augment the potato's natural starches. Dusting the patties with cornstarch effectively creates a wall of crunch for you to break open. It’s wonderful. It’s satisfying. It’s my ideal hash brown. 

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How to make the best hash browns

You can use potato starch for this if you have that on hand—the flavor matches up better—but I find that cornstarch is more of a pantry staple. You can use starch to intensify crunch with other foods too. (Here’s how to use starch to your advantage when frying up some of the crispiest chicken you’ve ever tasted.)

1. Shred the potatoes

Shred two large russet potatoes with the large holes on a box grater, or with a food processor. Some recipes will instruct you to rinse the potato pieces to remove some of the starch, but I think they cling together better if you keep the natural starches involved. 

2. Form the patties

Season the potatoes however you like. I use a bit of salt and garlic powder and toss it all together. A lot of it will drain out with the water, so don't be shy. Squeeze a handful of the shredded potatoes to drain out excess moisture. Place the clump on a piece of paper towel and fold it up around it to press out more moisture and help shape the hash brown. Unfold the top of the paper towel.

3. Dust with cornstarch

I put a layer of cornstarch on a plate and smothered my first hash brown in starch. This made for an incredibly crisp layer, but I think it was overkill. Instead, use a sieve and dust the top with a layer of cornstarch. The application is more even and you can control the amount. Flip the patty over, using the paper towel to help hold it together, and dust the other side. Repeat with the rest of the hash browns.

4. Fry the hash browns

In a frying pan, add about a tablespoon of oil and a half tablespoon of butter. Heat the fats over medium heat and fry the hash browns until crisp and brown, about two or three minutes per side. Cool them on a wire rack for a few minutes before serving.

You’re well on your way to a classic diner breakfast. Enjoy your cracklin’ hash browns with eggs any style, sausage, bacon, toast with little packages of jam, and a ridiculously tiny glass of orange juice. 

Better-Than-Diner Hash Browns Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 russet potatoes, shredded

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• Sprinkle of garlic powder

• Cornstarch for dusting

• Neutral oil for frying

• 1 or 2 tablespoons butter for frying

1. Toss the shredded potatoes with the salt and garlic powder.

2. Squeeze out a handful of the potatoes and press it into a piece of paper towel. Use the paper towel to shape the patty and dry it off.

3. Unfold the paper towel on top and dust the surface with a light layer of cornstarch. Use the paper towel to flip over the hash brown, and dust the other side with more starch. Repeat this with the rest of the potato mixture.

4. Add a half tablespoon of butter to the frying pan along with about a tablespoon of frying oil. Heat it over medium heat to get it up to frying temperature. Add the starch-coated hash brown to the hot fat. Fry for two to three minutes per side, or until golden brown and crisp. Cool for a few minutes before serving.

I have no dietary issues with eating heavy cream, but if I’m scrounging around trying to puzzle together a last-minute dinner idea, pasta with vodka sauce rarely materializes. Not because of the vodka aspect (I happen to have plenty of that at the moment), but because I rarely have cream on hand. By a happy accident, I ended up making a simple pantry pasta that convincingly emulated the boozy cream sauce without the cream.

The concept is simple: Add canned cannellini beans to your tomato sauce and let it simmer away. Cannellini beans are prized for their velvety texture, and even the aquafaba (the cloudy water in the can) is creamier than most other bean varieties. The beans eventually break apart, releasing their silky starches and thickening the sauce while tempering the tangy tomato flavor. Don’t think of this as a way to fool anyone into ditching cream; there’s no mistaking that this gravy has beans in it. Instead, I like to appreciate this as simply a scrumptious vodka sauce recipe. 

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How to make dairy-free vodka sauce

This recipe begins with the same preparation as any vodka sauce recipe—softening the aromatics and adding the vodka and tomatoes after—but instead of stirring in cream, the cannellini beans take a bit of simmering at the end. (To make a vegan vodka sauce, just omit the pancetta.)

1. Sauté the aromatics

Coat the bottom of a medium pot with a drizzle of olive oil and turn the heat to medium-low. Add the garlic, shallot, and minced pancetta with a pinch of salt. Sauté these ingredients until the pork begins to crisp and the aromatics become translucent. 

2. Add the liquids

Stir in the red pepper flakes and add the vodka. Allow the vodka to reduce by half. This doesn’t take much time—about a minute or two. 

3. Crush the creamy beans

Add the crushed tomatoes and canned cannellini beans with their aquafaba, and a bit of water. The beans will thicken the sauce and the water will prevent any starch from burning onto the bottom of the pot. Cover the pot with a lid and set it to simmer gently for 15 minutes. Every five minutes or so, stir the sauce and smash some beans with your spoon. Sometimes I use a potato masher if I have stubborn beans. If your sauce is getting too thick add a couple tablespoons of water. Once most of the beans have broken up and the sauce is the right consistency, taste it. If it needs more salt or seasonings, adjust it now. Then toss in the pasta and serve.

Note that the beans will leave behind their skins, so the sauce will always have some subtle texture to it. This doesn’t bother me, but if you want the sauce to be silkier, push the beans through a strainer (the holes shouldn’t be too small) before you add them to the sauce. The starchy pulp will go through and the skins will be left behind. 

The following recipe makes two servings, and it’s my lazy version of the above. I don’t always have the perfect ingredient list, but the lesson here is that there’s usually some kind of replacement in my kitchen. If you think, “this could function the same way as that,” give it a try. Instead of pancetta, I had cold cut sliced ham. Instead of crushed tomatoes, I had a random unfinished jar of tomato sauce. And you know what? It rocks. 

Lazy Dairy-Free Vodka Sauce Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil

• 1 shallot, minced

• 2 cloves garlic, minced

• 2 slices ham, chopped

• ¼ teaspoon salt

• ¼ teaspoon pepper flakes

• ¼ cup vodka

• ½ cup jarred tomato sauce

• ⅓ cup water

• ½ can cannellini beans with aquafaba

1. Add the olive oil to a medium pot and set the heat to medium-low. Add the shallot, garlic, ham, and salt. Stir and sauté for a couple minutes until the shallot becomes soft and translucent. 

2. Add the red pepper flakes and the vodka. Stir, and let the liquid reduce by 50%. This will only take about a minute. 

3. Stir in the tomato sauce, beans and aquafaba, and water. Cover the pot with a lid and reduce the mixture to a simmer. Stir the sauce every five minutes, crushing beans as you stir. If the sauce ever gets too thick, add a splash of water to the mixture. After about 15 minutes the sauce should be thick, creamy, and ready to eat. Toss in your favorite pasta and serve immediately.

Take a French pastry that’s been painstakingly shaped; flawless in its simplicity—and then stuff it with an American sugar-and -utter bomb. The TikTok viral cookie croissant feels slightly blasphemous at first glance, but that’s part of the fun of it. What’s even more fun is that it’s a great way to use past-prime store bought croissants. Here’s my favorite way to make them (and then make them even better). 

This instance of pastry profanity is actually credited to have started at a French bakery, Maison Louvard. It’s not even too off-brand for French croissant treatment in general—take the almond croissant, for example, which is stuffed with a flavorful almond batter and baked to sweet, caramelized perfection. Stuffing sweet dough or batter into the center of a second-rate packaged croissant and baking it again creates a marriage of crisp, toasted pastry and soft—or even gooey—cookie. It only requires two ingredients and about 12 minutes in the oven. 

How to make a "Crookie” at home

I choose the path of least resistance. Instead of making my own cookie dough, I bought one of those sausages of Toll House chocolate chip cookie dough. 

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

1. Split a store bought, packaged croissant (those need improving anyway), and stuff it with about a tablespoon of cookie dough, flattened. I used mini croissants, so if you have full-sized ones you may want to use more cookie dough.

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

2. Put the “lid” back on and secure another flattened spoonful of dough on top. Bake the whole monstrosity in a 350°F oven for about 12 minutes. Alternatively, you can use an air fryer set to “air fry” at 325°F for about eight minutes. 

Pillsbury Reese's Mini Pieces Peanut Butter Cookies

Ready to bake cookies.

$12.70 at Walmart

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$12.70 at Walmart

$3.88 Save 0.00

Keep the grocery list simple:

• Petite Butter Croissants 12-count

• Nestle Toll House Cookie Dough

Tips to improve your cookie croissant

My biggest problem with this preparation is that it’s hard to bake the cookie center all the way through. Any cookie dough that doesn’t bloom out to the surface stays gooey. It’s so gooey, actually, it’s basically liquid. Most packaged cookie dough is safe to consume raw (it’ll say so on the wrapper if it is), so safety isn’t an issue, but personally, I like cooked cookies. 

Actually cook the cookie dough

If you’re in the same cooked-cookie-boat with me, it’s a simple fix: Proceed to press cookie dough onto the cut-side of the split croissant’s bottom half, and onto the exterior of the top half, just like before. This time, don’t stack the layers. Instead, place the two halves onto a sheet tray, cookie-side up, and bake them. Use the same temperature, and the same amount of time. Since the cookie dough is exposed, they’ll bake through completely. Stack the halves once the croissant comes out of the oven, and enjoy.

Why stop with the basics?

Cookie dough alone is good, but I’m in the business of great, dammit. Croissants are a versatile buttery dough, so anything pairs well with them. Cookies are also, oddly, rather flexible. Anything you’d stir into your cookie dough can be tucked it into your crookie. Anything. You can switch up the cookie dough flavor too. Chocolate chip cookie dough pairs well with crispy bacon crumbles, pretzels, potato chips, or corn flakes. Sugar cookie dough is a friend to granola, cashews, or rosemary. My favorite pairing today was adding a long slice of banana along with Reese’s Pieces cookie dough. With just a little experimentation, you’ll have your next favorite snack ready in less than 15 minutes. 

A well-constructed meatball is an inherently perfect food. Tender, flavorful meat gently compacted into a burly sphere—big or small—always feels like a special reward. Improving upon it isn’t necessary, so I consider the following embellishment as a way to honor the meatball’s innate perfection: You should try deep frying your meatballs.

The idea of breading and deep frying the illustrious meatball didn’t come to me the usual way (a stroke of inspiration bestowed upon me by the angel of food). Instead, I caught news that this season, Yankee Stadium is serving up fried meatballs. Meatball makers everywhere know that technically all the best meatballs get a quick pan-fry before being finished off with a sauce (unless you’re baking them so there's less mess, which I respect), and the stadium’s preparation method remains a bit unclear.

Whether or not Yankee Stadium’s fried meatballs are just regular meatballs dunked in a fryer, the idea certainly inspired me to step it up and create my own vision for the perfect fried meat orb.

How to make deep-fried meatballs

The whole point of deep-frying anything is to get a crunchy crust on the outside and a tender interior. While something like a falafel doesn’t need extra starch on the outside to develop a crispy shell, meatballs do. I breaded the outside of my meatballs with a panko and fine bread crumb mixture, and the results were incredible. The meatballs had a crackling crust yet retained plenty of moisture. It was, frankly, one of the juiciest meatballs I’ve ever had.  

Here's how to recreate it:

1. Make your meatball mix

Deep-fried meatballs can be made with any recipe, so I suggest you use your favorite. That said, it’s helpful for the breading step if the mixture has an egg in it, so if you can add an egg to your recipe, great, but it isn't essential. Raw meat is usually sticky enough anyway. Once you've made the mix, roll the meatballs and place them on a foil-lined sheet tray.

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

2. Coat them in crumbs

In a bowl, add an equal-parts mixture of panko and fine breadcrumbs. I used store bought Kikkoman panko and Progresso breadcrumbs. If you’re feeling inspired, add a spoonful of grated parmesan to the mix. (I only had shredded, but I managed.) Thoroughly roll each meatball in the breading mixture and return it to the sheet tray.

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

3. Fry ‘em up

Depending on how big your meatballs are, add enough neutral oil to a pot to cover them. Bring the oil up to 350°F. Use a deep frying thermometer or candy thermometer to monitor the temperature. Ideally, you’ll keep it around 335°F to 350°F. This frying range will ensure the meatballs cook through to the center without over-browning. Fry the meatballs for three to five minutes, depending on the size of the meatballs. Use a probe thermometer to test the internal temperature if you’re unsure about doneness. 

If you’ve ever experienced the sadness of dry meatballs, deep frying is the remedy. I’ve never had a juicier meatball, and the initial crunch creates a swoon-worthy textural juxtaposition. My meatballs were two inches in diameter—perhaps a tad large. If you want them any bigger than that, I’d recommend breading and baking them on a wire rack over a sheet tray for 15 minutes at 400°F before frying to ensure they cook through. That way when you get to deep frying them you can focus on forming a nice crust and trust they’ll be safe to eat.

(Also, because I know you’re wondering, air frying them is just okay. They'll develop a subtle crust—and again, meatballs are always flawless—but a deep fry just hits different.)

Take the guess-work out of deep frying with these tools:

• Candy Thermometer with Pot Clip

• ThermoPro Digital Meat Thermometer

• Hamilton Beach Electric Deep Fryer

Deep-fried Meatball Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 slice of sandwich bread, toasted

• 2 tablespoons of grated onion (juice included)

• 2 tablespoons milk

• 8 ounces ground beef

• 8 ounces ground pork

• ½ teaspoon salt

• ½ teaspoon garlic powder

• 2 teaspoons soy sauce

• 3 dashes worcestershire sauce

• 1 egg

• ½ cup panko

• ½ cup breadcrumbs 

• 2 tablespoons grated parmesan

• Neutral oil for deep frying

1. Crumble the slice of toast into a medium mixing bowl. You want small pieces; about the size of a pea or smaller. Add the grated onion and juice, and the milk. Stir to moisten the bread. Feel free to add a splash more milk if there are any remaining dry hunks of bread. Add the beef, pork, salt, seasonings, sauces, and the egg. Mix until combined. 

2. Divide and roll the mixture into balls (the size is up to you). Place them on a foil-lined sheet tray. 

3. Combine the panko, breadcrumbs, and cheese in a small bowl. Roll each meatball in the breading until well-coated. Replace them on the sheet tray. 

4. Add enough oil to a pot to cover a meatball, about two inches of oil. Heat the oil to 350°F and deep fry a couple meatballs at a time for 3 to 5 minutes, or until well browned and the center registers a safe temperature (usually 160°F) for your mixture. Cool the meatballs for about five minutes on a wire rack before serving with your favorite sauce and a dusting of grated parm.