Dairy Free

You get great flavors in this Cajun dish from the spices. Be sure to smash some of the cooked beans to thicken up your stew. Serve over brown rice, quinoa or sorghum for a change of pace.

Cauliflower is a magical vegetable. It’s tasty on its own, but it can transform into oil-free creamy sauces and even replace meat. In this recipe, it’s the base for a creamy, cheesy take on queso dip. This is great on chips but even better on top of burritos and enchiladas. Best of all, you can get the pickiest of eaters to eat their veggies this way.

This cultured coconut milk yogurt is lightly sweetened and perfectly topped with grain-free granola!

The essential ingredients for this Portuguese-inspired Indian dish are wine, vinegar, and garlic. Additions of mustard seeds, cumin, turmeric, and chiles make it specifically colonial Goan.

This is a South Indian–inspired sweet, mild curry. Serve it with steamed white rice and a tangy fruit chutney like cranberry or mango for a perfect rainy day meal. The recipe calls for a rather small quantity of butternut squash, so you may want to reserve the rest for another recipe.

Shrimp are quick to cook, but still manage to feel rather special. This recipe borrows spices from the southern shores of India; I tasted a dish similar to this when I was learning about the local cuisine. At first, you get pure heat from the chiles; when it subsides, you're left with delicate and delicious flavors. Here, I have toned down the chiles and added some background warmth by using fresh ginger instead. I’ve used tiger shrimp and removed most of the shell, apart from the tail. I prefer to leave the tail on, as it means that you have something to hold on to when biting into the shrimp, but you can take the entire shell off if you prefer. Just make sure the shrimp are raw and that they have been deveined.

Make your own fizzy refresher using grapefruit peel for tons of floral flavor and grapefruit juice for just a hint of sweetness.

This blend of onions, scallions, garlic, parsley, bell peppers, and other spices is the foundation for most Haitian dishes, and many Haitians have it in their refrigerator at all times. Even in recipes that do not call for it specifically, it can often be added. Basil brings a freshness to this version; you can also add thyme. In Haiti, a mortar and pestle is used to mash the ingredients together, but a food processor or blender makes it come together much faster. Make a big batch and use it to season meats, soups, rice, and more.

Known as mendiants in France, these adorned chocolate bites are a holiday tradition.

This ambitious Mallomars-inspired recipe is a project: Make the (wheat-free!) cookie base and top with marshmallow on day one; enrobe in chocolate on day two.

Both types of tahini should be roughly the same consistency for this halvah recipe—ideally pretty loose and pourable—which makes it easy to marble them. Most black tahini will be great, but Roland and Whole Foods 365 Organic were the best of the white tahini we tested.

Mix equal parts blue with red food dye to make purple.

Mix equal parts yellow and blue food dye to make green.

Natural dyes work best in royal icing or buttercream frosting, not cake batter.

Instead of deep-frying the broccoli in this sesame noodles recipe, we used a high-heat roasting method.

The best way to tackle this duck recipe is to braise the legs and make the relish in advance, then cook the breasts and crisp the legs on party night.

A warming stew of quick-cooking lentils, pearled couscous, and canned chickpeas topped with tangy lime yogurt, crunchy sliced almonds, and fresh herbs.

This sauce—developed for our #cook90 initiative—is a kitchen workhorse. Use it to marinate fish, season rice, top a pizza, stir into scrambled eggs, or to add a final punch of flavor to a soup.

Don’t have an acorn squash for this chicken thighs recipe? Use butternut. Not into mustard greens? Use kale, Swiss chard, or spinach.