The New Essentials: 29 Recipes That Define the Way We Cook Now

We don’t cook like we used to. Our pantries, our techniques, and our cravings take us on new culinary adventures. It’s hard to pin down the exact moment we noticed things had changed. Was it the first time we saw kimchi in the refrigerator case of a mainstream supermarket? We knew something was up when whole grains were making guest appearances in our pancakes, meaty main courses were made solely out of vegetables, and tahini showed up in our desserts. Suddenly everyone was brown butter–basting steaks like it was a perfectly normal weeknight-dinner thing to do. We started throwing seedy sprinkles onto salads and making extra cooked grains to use in quick stir-fries, soups, and bowls. We went from putting an egg on it to putting toast under it. Our standard kitchen equipment now includes a mandoline for shaving vegetables and a pressure cooker—er, make that an Instant Pot—for perfect beans. Fatty richness and labor-intensive methods have given way to bright, bracing flavor and low-effort recipes. And you know what? We couldn’t be happier about it. What follows are the dishes we might not have been making a decade ago but can’t imagine our lives without today. So join us in a celebratory spritz and let’s toast our new way of cooking. — Carla Lalli Music