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Washington Post •

Column | Summer peaches and corn shine in an end-of-season bread salad

September always makes me a little wistful. Whether it’s because of the deep-seated childhood memories of going back to school, the fact that my birthday is mid-month or merely the seasonal change in the air, I find myself reflecting on Septembers past — and wondering what fall might bring.It’s also when I try to get my fill of my favorite farm-fresh summer produce, before it disappears for another 10 months or so.You might expect me to be talking about tomatoes, but I’m not. Every year, in fact...
Washington Post •

Column | Plant-based cooking is its own cuisine. We all can learn from it.

Editor’s note: This is an edited excerpt from “Mastering the Art of Plant-Based Cooking” by Joe Yonan (Ten Speed Press, 2024).Of all the eating trends over the last few decades, few have gotten more traction — or press — than the move toward plant-based cooking.The truth is, vegetarian and vegan diets date back millennia, to the Buddhism and Jainism of the Indian subcontinent and to ancient Greece. And what’s really grown over the last decade or two is not the number of people who label themselv...
Washington Post •

Vegan Buttermilk

This vegan buttermilk brings its characteristic tangy flavor and thick texture to a variety of plant-based recipes, including biscuits, cornbread and pancakes. It’s made by combining pureed cashews with full-fat coconut milk and letting the contents of a probiotic capsule transform the mixture through fermentation.

Make ahead: The cashews need to soak for at least 2 hours before blending. The buttermilk needs to ferment for at least 1 day to develop flavor.

Storage: Refrigerate for up to 2 wee...
Washington Post •

Fluffy Vegan Pancakes

By Joe YonanHomemade vegan buttermilk and a little vinegar give these plant-based pancakes the flavor and lift you want. A generous amount of vanilla and a little sugar give them family-friendly appeal. They also take beautifully to additions and other flavorings; see Variations.Storage: Refrigerate for up to 4 days, or freeze for up to 3 months.
Adapted from “Mastering the Art of Plant-Based Cooking” by Joe Yonan (Ten Speed Press, 2024).Ingredientsmeasuring cupServings: 4 (makes 8 pancakes)1 1...
Washington Post •

Jerk spice adds spark to this vegan, teen-approved Rasta pasta

“He doesn’t like vegan food.”That was what my husband has said multiple times about our son, and just about every time I have to correct him. Doesn’t he remember the vegan sausages the teenager destroyed on a fridge raid, or the red beans and rice that almost always prompt him to go back for seconds, even thirds?Besides, saying someone doesn’t like vegan food is saying that they don’t like, say, rice. Or strawberries. So many foods, of course, contain no animal products at all, and pretty much e...
Washington Post •

Rasta Pasta With Tempeh Crumbles

By Joe YonanThis vegan version of a popular Jamaican vegetarian dish — pasta with multicolored bell peppers in a creamy sauce — adds crumbled tempeh, which takes well to the intense jerk spice, for an extra dose of protein and texture. (According to one story, the dish earned its name because the peppers reminded eaters of the Rasta flag of the Rastafarian movement.) If you prefer a milder dish, feel free to leave out the habanero.Storage: Refrigerate for up to 4 days.From Food and Dining editor...
Washington Post •

Sumac unlocks the flavor in this Turkish chickpea salad and a lot more

It’s awfully tempting to refer to it as lemony, but I think that sells this spice — a Middle Eastern staple — woefully short. Sumac, ground from a berry, is more than tart. It’s also a little floral, a little fruity, and a little earthy, maybe something like Meyer lemon mixed with Aleppo pepper. And it possesses a gorgeous deep purple color.My favorite thing about it, beyond the flavor, is that it’s shelf-stable. So even though I use it in plenty of Middle Eastern dishes, sumac is also at home a...
Washington Post •

Chickpea Salad With Sumac Onions

This refreshing variation on Turkey’s classic bean salad, fasulye piyazi, uses chickpeas along with tangy sumac-infused onions. The sumac, which is not just sour but also fruity and a little floral in flavor, is crucial to this dish. Rubbing the sumac and salt into the onion slices causes them to wilt and pick up maximum flavor, so don’t skip it.

Storage: Refrigerate for up to 4 days.

Where to buy: Sumac can be found at well-stocked supermarkets; at Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and global spe...
Washington Post •

Channel summer in Nice with this breezy French couscous salad

Some foods just don’t get a fair shake. I’m thinking about how cooks scarred by, say, the canned beets or mushrooms of their youth can’t bring themselves to revisit the root vegetable or funghi, even when in its fresh form it bears little resemblance to what tormented them.We all do it. I’m not a purist (anymore) about too many dishes, but tabbouleh is one of them. Ever since I had the Levantine original, with its bounty of parsley combined with a fairly small amount of bulgur, I haven’t been ab...
Washington Post •

Column | Greek salad is perfect, if you make it right. Here’s how.

The first thing Diane Kochilas does when our conversation starts is turn her laptop around so I can see what she sees: the waters of the Aegean Sea. She is just back from a swim on the remote Greek island of Ikaria, her hair is damp and her smile is wide. On my end of the Zoom, the view is of my home-office wall, so let’s just say my jealousy is palpable.Kochilas, prolific cookbook author and host of the public-television series “My Greek Table,” was born and raised in Jackson Heights, Queens. B...
Washington Post •

Gordon Ramsay helped me unlock the secret to homemade vegan ‘bacon’

I never thought I would utter the following words, but here goes: Thank you, Gordon Ramsay.A few years ago, Ramsay posted a TikTok for his version of a vegan BLT, and, no, it wasn’t just an LT. He started by showing how he makes vegan “bacon” with rice paper. The first time I saw a reference to it, I figured it was pretty much the same idea I had tried a few years before: whisking up a smoky-salty-sweet marinade for rice paper strips and baking them until crisp. Been there, done that, liked it.I...
Washington Post •

Chickpea quinoa cakes are like a grain salad in crispy-patty form

What’s in your cooking repertoire? Do you have one?When colleagues Becky Krystal, Aaron Hutcherson and I talked to host Cristina Quinn for the third season of her Post podcast, “Try This,” the subject came up quickly. The podcast’s goal is to help listeners learn how to overcome a common challenge, and this season is about finding joy in cooking. Becky (The Post’s recipes editor), Aaron (our Dinner in Minutes columnist) and I found ourselves beating the same drum: We made the case for cooks to l...
The Washington Post •

Three-bean salad sandwiches have the makings of a new picnic classic

I can no more remember the first time I tasted a three-bean salad than I can remember the first time I breathed. It’s always been there, at every picnic, every cookout of my life, as unchanging as the air. And for the longest time, I loved it. My mother, like so many of her generation, would combine three kinds of canned beans — including green — in a sweet-tart (let’s be honest: mostly sweet) dressing, along with chopped onions and celery. But as I grew up and my palate matured, I had to admit
The Washington Post •

This cherry gazpacho is my new favorite summer dish

Fruit is overtaking my family’s yard. And I love it. This year, for instance, I learned just how invasive raspberry plants are. I let them double their footprint on one side of our backyard, and this year’s harvest, at its peak, has hit almost 2 pints a day. Every morning of their run I gathered berries as soon as I had my coffee, putting them right in a bowl that I filled with yogurt and granola for breakfast.

Down the fence a ways, the fig tree is finally looking like, well, a tree. In the fr
The Washington Post •

This Cava-inspired salad bowl boasts spicy feta and a date vinaigrette

I have two businesses to blame for this idea, both of them born in the D.C. area: Cava and Sweetgreen. I’ve been a longtime customer at both, but these days I tend to gravitate to Cava, perhaps because of my genetic predilection for Middle Eastern flavors and perhaps because it’s one of the few places that’s just as beloved by my husband and teenage son. I’m not alone: Yelp recently named Cava, which now has more than 300 locations in 25 states (plus D.C.), the nation’s fastest-growing brand.

M
The Washington Post •

Pav bhaji is a saucy, spicy Indian classic to riff on at home

In her stellar first cookbook, “Amrikan,” Khushbu Shah takes aim at one of the tropes of Western food writing: describing a foreign dish by tying it to an American equivalent, however much of a stretch it might be. Take pav bhaji, toasted bread (pav) topped with mashed, seasoned vegetables (bhaji), for example. She writes: “People like to describe it as ‘Indian sloppy joes,’ and while visually they have similarities, the taste could not be more different.”

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with
The Washington Post •

10-minute hummus and vegetable wraps can cure what hangers you

You’d think that when your home office is upstairs from your kitchen, you could take advantage of the times you work remotely and slide cooking tasks more or less seamlessly into your day. I love the idea of starting a pot of beans midmorning, for instance, and knowing they’ll be ready just in time for lunch. But most days, that remains an idea, because I’m too busy hopping among emails, Slacks, invoices, pitches, recipes, stories, meetings and more to add one more thing to the mix. I don’t usua
The Washington Post •

Jamie Oliver’s lemony arugula pasta is a refreshing 20-minute meal

Arugula must be the ultimate palate cleanser. With its peppery bite, the green — especially when dressed simply in lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper — is my absolute favorite accompaniment to pizza or pasta, because it cuts through that carby and sometimes-cheesy richness we all love. It gives your taste buds a contrasting flavor, a little shock to the system that helps them head back to the main course for another round, as bracing as an ice plunge in between sauna sessions.

This pasta d
The Washington Post •

Cauliflower gets the Marbella treatment in this satisfying sheet-pan dish

Cara Mangini has heard the question before: If I eat this vegetarian meal, will I end up still hungry? The question would sometimes come up when she’d serve an entirely plant-based menu for catered corporate events. Some attendees would invariably be worried; unlike at a restaurant, they wouldn’t have a choice. But Mangini’s answer, told definitively through her Little Eater catering company and her cookbooks, is a resounding no.

Those worried attendees, she told me in a Zoom interview from her
The Washington Post •

Escape the red-sauce rut with this punchy chili crisp-tahini pasta

Americans have a funny relationship with pasta. It has become such an integral part of our cooking, but we tend to fall into one of two camps: We either depend on recipes that are rooted in Italian tradition, or we’ve strayed — or perhaps galloped! — so far from tradition that we don’t even think of pasta as necessarily Italian anymore. For both groups, it’s all too easy to get into a rut.

Dan Pashman felt this a couple of years ago. He had just developed a new pasta shape — cascatelli — that h
The Washington Post •

From a forgotten Indian cookbook, a deeply flavored chickpea curry

Years ago, I was in a used-book store when I came upon an 800-page treatise I had never seen before: “Lord Krishna’s Cuisine: The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking.” By Yamuna Devi, the 1987 book was emblazoned with a starburst announcing it as Cookbook of the Year by the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP), and on one flap was a black-and-white photo of the short-haired author in a bookstore. In quotes on the back, cookbook authors Deborah Madison, Barbara Kafka and even J
The Washington Post •

Air fryer tofu nuggets get flavor from a freezing trick — and a sauce

You may have heard of a trick involving freezing tofu that magically transforms it into something palatable. I have some issues with that framing, namely that tofu requires any transformation whatsoever to taste great. Apologies to Billy Joel, but I love tofu just the way it is: clean and mild and able to fit in with the flavors of whatever dish it’s in. It’s the fresh mozzarella (or the boneless, skinless chicken breast, if that’s more your speed) of soy products. For some 2,000 years, Asian re
The Washington Post •

Asparagus mimosa is France’s sunny, eggy ode to spring

Come spring, who can’t relate to asparagus? It hibernates all winter — the “crown” and its roots lurking underground — and only when the soil warms and the light changes does it send shoots upward until they poke through the surface and start stretching toward the sun, painting the brown garden in shades of green and purple. Sunlight is crucial: The chlorophyll that gives most asparagus its green color converts the sun’s energy into sustenance. (White asparagus is such because growers keep it in
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