Cheese

This cheesecake has a vanilla pound cake base, because why the hell not? You bake the cheesecake first, then the pound cake on top, and flip the whole thing over before decorating and serving. Room temperature eggs, cream cheese, and butter are vital to an evenly mixed cheesecake and fluffy pound cake. If you’re in a hurry, place the eggs in a bowl of hot tap water and zap the butter and cream cheese in the microwave in 10-second increments to quickly warm them up.

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?”

For this dinner-worthy sandwich, you’ll sear the eggplant on the stove, then marinate it in oil and vinegar to make it silky-soft and flavor-packed. 

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

It’s almost silly how easy this dish of impossibly delicious, ooey-gooey cheesy chiles is to execute. 

Swapping traditional ingredients like guanciale and pancetta for vegetable-based umami bombs (hello, garlic and smoked paprika) isn’t the only thing to consider when making a vegetarian carbonara. Many hard cheeses (including Parmigiano-Reggiano) use animal rennet, so if you want to seek an alternative, ask your cheesemonger.

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. 

The classic reconsidered: less pasta, more crispy-chewy strips of guanciale, and more silky creamy egg to hold it all together.

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

A weeknight pasta that utilizes simple pantry ingredients in a luxurious way. 

Here's a fun party trick: Ask your friends to guess how many pounds of greens went into this supremely cheesy gratin. Three huge bunches of kale (and/or chard) get drowned in garlic- and rosemary-infused cream, then blanketed in cheddar cheese and panko and sent into a hot oven, where they sizzle and shrink. 

The most impressive appetizer to “casually” pull out of the oven when your friends come over (and it also happens to make a nice Thanksgiving snack for while the turkey rests—just sayin').

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.

The flavors in this sandwich get more delicious and concentrated as it sits, so assemble it in the morning and take it with you for the perfect lunch in the afternoon.

Roasted lemony broccolini, lentils, and salty feta are doused in a spiced oil that’s even better on day two.

Like your empanadas fried? This dough was specifically developed to withstand hot oil, and it works beautifully with any filling of your choosing.

Starting your grilled cheese (slathered in mayo, obviously) in a cold nonstick skillet, then slowly and gently heating it up is the trick to achieving evenly golden brown, supremely crisp exteriors, with molten cheesy interiors.

Whether you know it as American Chop Suey, Chili Mac, or American Goulash, this deeply flavorful, super-comforting pasta dish is greater than the sum of its humble parts.

Everything you love about Mexican elote—the charred kernels, the creamy-spicy-salty sauce, lots of lime—without the grill.