Sarah DiGregorio

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

This tart-sweet braise is inspired by porc aux pruneaux, a classic French dish, which usually involves soaking prunes in tawny port before adding them to a sauce for pork. Here, the prunes are soaked in a mix of vinegar and brown sugar, a more economical way to amplify their mellow sweet-sour flavor. (But by all means use tawny port instead of the vinegar-sugar combo if you like!) This one-pot version is fragrant with orange and contains an assertive amount of sherry vinegar to balance the richness of the pork and dried fruit. Serve the pork and sauce over polenta or with seeded bread.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

This spicy-tangy vegetarian skillet comes together quickly, helped along by pantry ingredients and a few hardy vegetables. Don’t skimp on the butter! Classic Buffalo flavor depends on not just the vinegary hot sauce but also a rich butter base. Celery leaves make a fresh herbal topping; if your stalks don’t have leaves, grab some extras from the middle of the bunch.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

Tortilla soup, or sopa Azteca or sopa de tortilla, is a classic central Mexican dish. It’s often characterized by a brothy chicken base flavored with puréed roasted tomatoes, chiles and garlic, and is topped with fried tortillas. In this weeknight-friendly version, tomatoes, onion, garlic and chile are charred under the broiler, on a foil-lined sheet pan for easy cleanup. You can customize the recipe by adding sliced zucchini or epazote leaf with the chopped tomatoes, or stirring in fresh or frozen corn kernels at the end. For a vegetarian version, use cooked black beans instead of chicken. (You can also click here for the slow-cooker version of this recipe.)

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

Chana masala, or chickpeas with spiced tomato gravy, has regional variations all over India; chole is a related, but specifically Punjabi, dish from northern India. It’s ubiquitous at snack shops and often served alongside bhatura, a puffed fried bread. While chole is traditionally made with dried chickpeas, canned chickpeas streamline cooking on a weeknight. Chole has numerous versions, but it is characterized by a rich, tangy flavor from black tea and amchur powder, which is made from green mango.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

These superfast, incredibly delicious beans are inspired by pasta alla gricia, a classic Roman dish that is similar to pasta carbonara but without the egg yolks. Because the dish is so simple, it helps to use good pancetta (or guanciale, if you can find it) and not the pre-diced kind. (It often comes in a roll; just unroll it and slice it up. You could even use good thick-cut bacon instead of pancetta, if that is easier to find.) Cut into fat batons, the pork crisps up into chewy, salty little nuggets that contrast with the soft beans. The starch from the beans along with the fat from the pancetta plus Pecorino cheese and hot water all emulsify into a creamy, peppery sauce when stirred together vigorously. Because of its salty ingredients, this dish is unlikely to need added salt, but taste at the end and add it if you like.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

These zesty, pan-fried shrimp are inspired by the cuisine of Maharashtra, the state on the west coast of India that includes Mumbai. Maharashtrian cooking often features lots of seafood and bright, fresh flavors, like the wallop of cilantro that flavors this dish. (Puréeing cilantro, as in this recipe, changes the enzyme that makes it taste soapy to some people, and reveals a deeply savory, almost mellow side to the herb.) A coating of farina, of which Cream of Wheat cereal is made, gives a dramatically craggy, crunchy texture; rava or semolina flour also work well. Be sure to pat the farina onto the shrimp before frying to help the coating adhere. Serve the shrimp with flatbreads, like chapatis.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

This 25-minute meal channels all the herbal, tangy richness of green goddess dressing in one-pot dinner form. The effect is akin to a big salad, complete with a cool, tart drizzle of buttermilk over the warm vegetables, but it’s satisfying enough for cooler weather. Searing the chickpeas in butter builds a toasty, nutty flavor in just a few minutes. Using an entire bunch of scallions ensures big allium flavor, and as a bonus you won’t be left with stragglers in the crisper drawer. Top with the fresh herbs you like best, adding a smaller amount of the more assertive herbs, like tarragon, chives and dill, while basil can go on in heaps. Any kind of buttermilk will work, but thicker versions are best for this.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

If your favorite Greek foods are the lively vegetable dishes, this meal-in-a-bowl stew is for you. A simple mix of lemon, garlic and lots of herbs enliven the potatoes and spinach and using ground meat ensures a lot of flavor in very little time. Ground turkey or pork would be just as good, if you prefer. Russets can be substituted for Yukon golds, but their texture will be more grainy and less creamy. Mature spinach or frozen spinach works best here because of its mellow flavor, as opposed to baby spinach, which is more tannic. Add the amount of dill that sounds best to you, or if you don’t like it, swap in a few tablespoons of fresh parsley or mint.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

With only five ingredients, these easy patties are tender with olive oil and frizzled scallion and pleasantly nubbly with mashed chickpeas. The recipe uses a whole bunch of scallions, so there aren’t any stragglers left to languish in the fridge, and it also calls for both the zest and the juice of a lemon. The earthy savoriness of lamb is delicious with lemon and turmeric, but feel free to substitute ground beef or dark-meat ground turkey. (White meat will be too lean.) Serve patties tucked into pita bread with hot sauce and tomatoes, or put them on top of rice or arugula (or both!) with a drizzle of olive oil and yogurt.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

For effort-to-flavor ratio, you can’t really beat a jar of kimchi and a pack of bacon. This five-ingredient dinner is a riot of deliciousness: Sweet potatoes roasted in bacon fat provide a sturdy base for bacon-enriched kimchi and pillowy mozzarella. (You can use low-moisture, pre-shredded mozzarella in a pinch.) The drizzle of honey amplifies all the other ingredients, much like honey on pepperoni pizza does. Any variety of sweet potato will work nicely, but if you have a choice, look for garnet sweet potatoes. They’re a darker orange-red than other varieties and have very sweet, creamy flesh.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

Broccoli is delicious with a little char from the grill, but often that high, direct heat can render the vegetable tough and dry. Enter mayonnaise: The silky emulsion of eggs and oil sticks to the nubby florets and insulates them, ensuring that the broccoli gets tender, rich and sweet while also developing deep charred flavor and crispy bits. Plus the mayonnaise acts as a nonstick coating and seasoning, all in one. (It also works beautifully on grilled proteins.) Be sure to cut the head of broccoli into large, long florets, including the stem, and lay them perpendicularly across the grill grates so they don’t fall into the fire.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

This soup is a British-Indian cuisine hybrid, the result of colonizers’ encounters with rasam — a spiced, soupy dish often enriched with lentils, sometimes served over rice — from Tamil Nadu, a region in southern India. “Milagu tannir,” which means pepper water, was how Tamil people described some versions of rasam; it morphed into mulligatawny when the British made it thick, chunky and meaty. In the cookbook “Classic Indian Cooking,” the author Julie Sahni wrote that she fell in love with mulligatawny when she first encountered it in Germany. “The present version bears no resemblance whatever to the traditional rasam,” she said, adding, “Because of its unorthodox origin, Indian cooks have had a field day exercising their creative genius with it.” This version is thickened with a roux, masoor dal and coconut milk, and bolstered with chicken thighs and tart apple. Curry powder is not a traditional Indian ingredient, but it reflects the dish’s British influence.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

This six-ingredient pasta is reminiscent of an intensely creamy and savory mac and cheese thanks to just two ingredients: umami-rich miso and milky-rich mascarpone. The dish comes together quickly with pantry ingredients and with no need for chopping or grating. It is delicious simply as it is, but it’s also easy to add your own flourishes: Top with chile crisp, store-bought fried shallots or both. Or, make it more of a complete meal by adding mushrooms: Before starting, melt 2 tablespoons of butter in the pot and saute eight to 10 ounces of chopped mushrooms over high heat for about 8 minutes. Then add the water, miso, salt, oil and pasta and proceed with the recipe from Step 1.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

The best parts of porchetta — an Italian pork roast — are the darkly crisped skin and the punchy seasoning, often rosemary, fennel, garlic and red pepper. This 20-minute vegetarian recipe channels those pleasures into a super-fast, high-protein chickpea and egg skillet that’s made from pantry ingredients. First, half of the chickpeas get coarsely mashed and seared in olive oil to create browned, crisp bits and then the other half are stirred in whole, so you get different textures from one ingredient. Be sure not to disturb the chickpeas as they sear so they get deeply browned. It might seem counterintuitive to then add water, but it soaks into the chickpeas almost immediately, leaving the nubbly bits intact while also making sure the chickpeas don’t feel dry. Serve this dish as it is, or over olive-oiled arugula.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

Sautéing kimchi brings out its mellower side: a delicious, cabbage-y sweetness. In Korean cuisine, stir-fried kimchi (kimchi-bokkeum) is a classic staple served with rice. In this recipe, the kimchi is cooked in a fragrant mix of butter and toasted sesame oil along with just a touch of sugar, making a four-ingredient seasoning and sauce for salmon filets. Often, jarred cabbage kimchi is already chopped into large bite-size pieces, so you can simply empty the jar into the skillet. If your kimchi has very long or unwieldy pieces of cabbage, you may want to use kitchen scissors to snip them up in the jar (or chop it on a cutting board). Serve the salmon and kimchi with rice.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

This one-pot pasta is inspired by New England-style sausage with peppers and onions, the kind sold outside Fenway Park: The soft, slightly charred vegetables sit in a tangle on a juicy grilled Italian sausage, served on a roll. Here, the onions and peppers get a quick, hot sauté to brown them. Use loose, raw Italian sausage (either sweet or hot), or use raw sausage in casings and squeeze the meat out of the casings and into the pot. The pickled peppers added at the end give a nice pop of tangy heat, but if you don’t have them in your pantry, just squeeze in the juice of half a lemon instead.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

Everything — the shrimp, the beans and the garlic bread — cook together on one pan for an under 30-minute meal that requires very little cleanup. Canned cannellini beans get a little crispy in the high heat and their mellow creaminess serves to bring the other ingredients together, but you could also use any cooked bean you have on hand. The only real bit of work is making a pungent paste of garlic to spread on the bread, but if you are really pressed for time, just rub each piece of bread with the cut side of a garlic clove. (The flavor will be milder.) If you keep shrimp and bacon in the freezer, just thaw the shrimp in a bowl of warm water while you prep the garlic bread, and no need to defrost the bacon; just cut it up and use it frozen.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

Crispy on the outside and creamy at their core, socca are thin, olive-oil-rich chickpea pancakes. In Provence they’re often made on wide, flat copper skillets, but a screamingly hot sheet pan works extremely well, too — and makes an extra-large chickpea cake that can serve as a light dinner or an easy appetizer. Socca are usually not topped with anything more than black pepper; they are delicate and can’t support more than minimalist additions. However, a light scattering of toppings — like anchovies, pecorino and scallions here — makes socca qualify as a simple and delicious meal. A handful of chopped olives added before baking would also work, as would a garnish of torn slivers of prosciutto, draped on top just before serving.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

Similar to vermicelli, fideo are short, delicate noodles that are often used in Spanish and Mexican cooking, as in the Mexican classic, sopa de fideo. This nontraditional slow-cooker dish puts fideo to good use in a medium-spicy, smoky chicken and bean braise. You can dial the heat up and down by including more or fewer chipotles in the mix. It’s a comforting stew of tender chicken, pinto beans (you can sub in black beans) and toasted noodles. The toasting step adds a deeper flavor to the finished dish, but you can skip it if you’re pressed for time and simply break the noodles up directly into the slow cooker. Serve with plenty of cilantro and avocado.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

This easy stew has all the gentle pleasures of creamed chicken and creamed corn along with the zip of maque choux, a Cajun sauté of corn and peppers that is often enriched with cream. This slow-cooker recipe combines the best of both dishes for a rich braise, good on its own or served over buttered toast or biscuits. Because it is not as thick as a roux-thickened version, this dish feels right for corn season. It’s lightly creamy and full of sweet corn flavor thanks to the cobs, which cook alongside the other ingredients. There is no need for liquid; the chicken and vegetables give up theirs, making this essentially self-saucing. Add the reserved corn kernels just before serving so that they retain their sweet pop.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

This pantry-friendly, one-pot meal is inspired by Italian chicken diavolo, a chile-slicked grilled chicken dish. But it’s most similar to the Italian-American invention fra diavolo, a spicy, tomato sauce often served with seafood. Here, chicken thighs braise in a rich, olive-oiled mix of tomato paste, peppers and sun-dried tomatoes. There’s no need to add extra liquid because all those ingredients give off their moisture as they cook, creating enough sauce to cook the orzo that’s added at the end. Enrich with a splash of cream to bring it all together and tame the heat, just a little. If your crushed red pepper flakes are fresh, one teaspoon will yield a medium spicy result. Feel free to adjust up or down, depending on your taste.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

This recipe is inspired by green (or hara) masala, a cilantro-forward seasoning used in many regions of India. Here, a quickie version gets blitzed in a blender, which reduces any chopping. The bright and tangy masala lavishly seasons the chicken thighs while the cumin-scented rice steams on top. If you are cursed with the cilantro-tastes-soapy gene, don’t automatically skip this recipe — there’s evidence that crushing the leaves reduces or eliminates the soapy taste. Take care with rinsing the rice: It can get gummy in the slow cooker if you don’t remove the starch. Top with a crunchy nut of your choice — almonds or cashews are great — and more cilantro.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

This tangy and rustic soup tastes like a loaded baked potato, especially when topped generously with Cheddar and bacon. (The Cheddar is especially key, a quick addition that takes this simple soup to another level.) Buttermilk is often thought of as a baking ingredient, but here it adds a welcome acidic tang to the potatoes. (You can substitute heavy cream, half and half or whole milk if you don’t mind losing that tang.) Leave the potatoes unpeeled for a fuller, richer potato flavor in the finished soup, and as a bonus, doing so makes the prep extra fast and easy. Before serving, coarsely crush the potatoes and fold in the buttermilk for a creamy soup that has lots of appealing texture. (If you prefer a smoother potato soup you can blend it with an immersion or regular blender.)

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

A summer soup is not an oxymoron. Take this lively lentil soup, rich and aromatic from both fresh and cooked tomatoes, and basil. Adding fresh tomatoes and basil at both the beginning and end of cooking ensures you get both their mellow, sweet side as well as their fresh, zingy side. The tomato paste and cream lend their sturdy flavors in a way that’s reminiscent of vodka sauce, while the lentils almost melt away into the background. The slow cooker is actually a great warm-weather tool, because it doesn’t heat up your kitchen the way the oven does, and it uses very little energy. This soup holds very well on warm before you add the finishing ingredients, making the timing flexible and weeknight-friendly.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

The seasoning of this rich garlic and herb braise is inspired by escargot butter, which famously makes everything delicious, and is easy to make with just a few impactful ingredients. A generous dollop of sour cream added before serving brings it all together and makes it feel a little fancy. Top bowls generously with croutons, which lend crunch and soak up the flavorful sauce, or serve with thick slices of crusty bread.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

This weeknight-friendly stew is loosely inspired by North African tomato and bean dishes, like loubia. The stew has minimal prep, aside from soaking the beans, so it’s easy to throw into the slow cooker in the morning. Just before serving, it’s enriched with pearl couscous and a generous dose of zippy parsley. Harissa pastes differ in flavor and saltiness; taste yours before using it to make sure you like it, and adjust the amount of salt added at the end if necessary. You can always stir in more harissa before serving for extra spice. Orzo or ditalini can be used instead of couscous.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

Best friends of cooks who are short on time but unwilling to sacrifice flavor, boneless, skinless chicken thighs are slow-cooked to tenderness with hoisin, garlic and tomato paste for an incredibly easy, saucy braised chicken that is subtly sweet and just a little spicy. Make a big pot on the weekend and use it all week for topping rice or noodles, or stuffing in tortillas. You could even shred the chicken more finely and tuck it into a bun with hot sauce, like pulled pork. The ingredients go straight into the slow cooker with hardly any prep at all, making it doable in the morning before work or school. The finishing step of reducing the sauce is necessary to create an appealingly glazed, sticky texture.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

Italian wedding soup has many variations, but it is characterized by a rich broth, hearty greens and bite-sized meatballs. It’s a beloved part of the Italian-American canon, derived from minestra maritata, or married soup, which is not a soup served at weddings, but meaning that meat and vegetables are joined together. For this easy slow cooker version, instead of taking the time to make meatballs, use loose Italian sausage rolled into balls. (If you can’t find loose sausage, buy it in casings and then just cut the casings open, discard them and use the meat inside.) Italian wedding soup often features a small pasta, like couscous or ditalini, which makes for a heartier, less brothy soup. If you are using the optional pasta, use 7 cups of broth instead of 6.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

This simple stew of long-simmered beans and tiny pasta is one of the world’s great comfort foods. Like many cucina povera classics, it is both affordable and adaptable, designed to use what you have. White beans, such as cannellini, are typically used, but just about any medium-size dried bean, like borlotti (cranberry) beans or even pinto beans will do. Beans have a wide variation in cook times, so start checking at 6 hours if you can, and know that some batches can take up to 10 hours. Fresh or frozen green beans popped in at the end of the cooking time add a welcome texture and sweetness, but feel free to omit them or to use whatever you have: shredded cabbage, broccoli rabe or fresh or frozen spinach would all work beautifully. This recipe feeds a crowd, and if you plan to have leftovers, cook the pasta separately and stir it into each serving, otherwise the pasta will soak up all the broth as it sits and become too soft.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

The unexpected combination of red lentils and canned pumpkin make the base of this richly spiced, hands-off soup, seasoned with earthy turmeric, smoky paprika and citrusy coriander. The slow-cooker recipe leans on budget-friendly pantry items for a lot of flavor payoff with very little work. Before serving, it takes just 10 minutes to toast pepitas with cumin and fry some chopped red onion, quickly yielding finishing touches that make an outsize contribution. You can also make this soup on the stovetop: Just combine the ingredients in a large pot as you would the slow cooker, bring to a low simmer and cover the pot. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the lentils are tender, about 30 minutes. (You may need to adjust the texture for the stovetop by adding a little bit more water.)

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

This ultrasimple bean soup has been on the menu at the U.S. Senate Dining Room and served to senators and their staff for more than 100 years. Even as politics have changed, this soup has remained basically the same: navy beans simmered to creamy tenderness with ham hocks, butter and onion. Fittingly, there is no consensus on where exactly the soup came from: Some say it dates back to the early 20th century, when Senator Fred Dubois of Idaho passed a resolution making it a menu staple. This slow-cooker version has updated the classic slightly, with the addition of carrots and smoked paprika. If you’d like more vegetables (how modern!), stir in about 8 ounces of chopped kale before serving. As a nod to Idaho, this version contains a single russet potato, which gets mashed at the end of cooking and thickens the soup beautifully.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

Lentils check so many cooking boxes, they feel like a minor miracle: If you’re in a hurry, on a budget, vegetarian, health-conscious or just want to eat something really delicious, lentils are your friend. This lush, easy soup partners red lentils with rich coconut milk and earthy turmeric. Frozen greens are an easy addition, but you could also throw in one large bunch of chopped fresh hearty greens about one hour before you want to eat. The slow cooker works beautifully here because lentils love braising, and it makes the timing very forgiving: You can set this in the morning and let it cook and then hold on warm until you’re ready to eat. (In that case, pick the recipe up at Step 2, cooking on low.) If you’d prefer to cook this on the stovetop, sauté the onion and the ginger and garlic in the coconut oil, then add the remaining ingredients and let the soup simmer over medium heat until the lentils are tender, about 35 minutes.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

This easy braise is generously spiked with Tajín, the chile-lime salt that is often sprinkled on fresh fruit but can also be used as a punchy, one-stop seasoning for grilled chicken and salads. You can eat the stew in bowls, with tortilla chips on the side, or on top of rice, or use a slotted spoon to tuck it into tortillas for tacos, burritos or enchiladas. Mild or hot cans of roasted, chopped green chiles are usually stocked near the canned chipotles and pickled jalapeños, and are a versatile pantry item to have on hand.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

These simple, savory chicken breasts are money in the bank on a weeknight: Chop them for a salad, tuck them into quesadillas or tacos with cheese and salsa, add to a ready-made simmer sauce, or toss with pasta. The seasoning is punchy but neutral enough to work in many preparations, and you can easily tweak it to your taste by, for instance, slightly increasing the cumin and red pepper to make tacos, or decreasing the cumin and increasing the thyme to make a classic chicken salad. The real key to this recipe is checking the internal temperature of the chicken. White meat will dry out if overcooked, so pull the chicken out of the slow cooker when the thickest part of the breast reaches 155 degrees for about a minute, which will ensure juicy, tender meat that’s fully cooked.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

This tart-sweet braise is inspired by porc aux pruneaux, a classic French dish, which usually involves soaking prunes in tawny port before adding them to a sauce for pork. Here, the prunes are soaked in a mix of vinegar and brown sugar, a less expensive way to amplify their mellow sweet-sour flavor. (But by all means, use tawny port instead of the vinegar-sugar combo if you like!) This slow-cooker version employs a quick microwave roux for just a bit of thickening power, and is fragrant with orange zest and tart from a generous amount of sherry vinegar to balance the richness of the pork and dried fruit. Serve pork and sauce over polenta or with seeded bread.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

These luscious beans are inspired by pasta alla gricia, a classic Roman dish that is similar to pasta carbonara, but this recipe doesn’t require any egg yolks. The no-cream creaminess is created by vigorously stirring pecorino, sizzling pancetta and its fat into the warm, brothy beans, all of which emulsify into a spoon-coating peppery sauce. Serve the beans with bread to mop up the sauce. Try to use good pancetta, guanciale or thick-cut bacon — the kind of pork product is less important than its quality. (A similar stovetop recipe can be found here.) This dish is unlikely to need added salt if you are using salted broth; if you use low- or no-salt broth or stock, add salt to taste at the end.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

Chicken and dumplings are a mainstay of the American South—though similar dishes exist worldwide—where there are generally two versions: stewed chicken with unleavened, chewy, noodle-like dumplings that are rolled out before being dropped into the broth; and fluffy leavened dumplings that are much like drop biscuits, which get dolloped on top of the stew, where they puff up as they poach. The dish works beautifully translated to the slow cooker because the chicken and vegetables can braise slowly, intensifying the flavor of the chicken broth. This variation uses leavened drop-dumplings with a touch of cornmeal for sweet-earthy flavor and buttermilk for tenderness and tanginess. This dish is traditionally made with a whole chicken cut up into parts, but this streamlined adaptation uses boneless, skinless chicken thighs.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

Gumbo is a celebrated Cajun and Creole stew of many variations, often starring meat and seafood, all richly flavored with a toasty roux. The precise origins of the word gumbo are often debated, but it’s likely derived from West African, Central African and Choctaw languages. Okra and roux are fundamental to gumbo; filé powder, or ground sassafras leaves, is sometimes added to help thicken the stew. It is certainly not traditional to make gumbo in a slow cooker, but it works beautifully: Microwaving the roux and precooking the vegetables in a microwave-safe ceramic (check your manual, and never use metal) insert minimizes hands-on time and clean up without sacrificing that deep flavor. This recipe is highly customizable: Add sliced andouille sausage before cooking, or toss in raw shrimp 10 minutes before serving. Use bone-in, skin-on chicken if you prefer, and fresh okra instead of frozen.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

This meal-in-a-bowl is inspired by Greek-style vegetable dishes like lemony potatoes or garlicky spinach. Here, potatoes and chicken thighs slow cook in a punchy mix of lemon, garlic and herbs; add the spinach at the very end so that it retains its freshness. Russets can be substituted for Yukon golds, but their texture will be more grainy and less creamy. A bunch of mature spinach or frozen spinach works best here because of its mellow flavor, as opposed to baby spinach, which is more tannic. Add the amount of dill that sounds best to you, or if you don’t like it, swap in a few tablespoons of fresh parsley or mint.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

While the origins of tortilla soup (also known as sopa Azteca or sopa de tortilla) can be traced to central Mexico, it has many variations, often characterized by a brothy chicken base flavored with puréed roasted tomatoes, chiles and garlic, and topped with fried leftover tortillas and other garnishes. In this nontraditional slow-cooker version, tomatoes, onion, garlic and chile are charred under the broiler (on a foil-lined sheet pan, for easy clean-up), then go straight into the slow cooker, where they add savory depth to the chicken soup. (No slow-cooker? Use the stovetop version of this recipe.)

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

The rich flavor of this lightly creamy chowder comes from slow-simmered corn cobs. After the kernels are removed, the cobs go into the slow cooker along with the potatoes and aromatics, where they infuse the broth as it slow-cooks. The corn kernels are added at the very end, so that they retain their fresh, poppy sweetness. Canned green chiles lend mild heat and tons of mellow, peppery flavor to go along with the sharper jalapeño. (If you come across fire-roasted canned green chiles, snap those up.) The miso adds a sweet-savory note that reinforces the corn flavor; but if you don’t have it on hand, add about two additional teaspoons of salt.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

This glossy, risottolike dish is inspired by the French bistro classic of chicken in tarragon-mustard sauce. Here, those flavors are transformed into a whole-grain, one-pot weeknight meal: The barley, mushrooms and chicken cook together first, then just before eating, finish with a bag of frozen peas and a tangy mixture of crème fraîche (or sour cream) and Dijon. Make the dish vegetarian by omitting the chicken and using your favorite vegetable broth, but add about ½ cup more liquid, to substitute for the chicken juices.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

This recipe, which is adapted from “Classic Indian Cooking” by Julie Sahni (William Morrow, 1980), a treasury of foolproof recipes for home cooks. Masala dal is a staple of Indian cuisine and one that has infinite variations, but the basic technique is to simmer legumes until tender, then finish with a swirl of a tadka, ghee or other fat that’s infused with aromatics like onions, cumin seeds and chile. In the original recipe, the dal is boiled on the stovetop, but in this adaptation, the split peas are cooked in the slow cooker, which works beautifully, and has the advantage of making the timing a bit easier, as you can throw the peas into the slow cooker in the morning, and they will hold well until dinnertime. The success of this dish hinges on two key steps: First, be sure to beat the legumes to a creamy purée with a whisk before adding the tadka. Second, cook the onions on a higher heat and until darker in color than you might think: Ms. Sahni calls this technique “brown frying,” a

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

Mojo is an enchantingly simple, intensely flavorful Cuban marinade, traditionally made with sour oranges, lots of garlic and oregano. Sour oranges are hard to find in many parts of the US, but a punchy mix of lime, orange and lemon is a great substitute. This easy slow-cooker version of the classic is ideal for weeknight dinners: Just set it before you leave for the day. The mixture holds well on the warm setting after the six hours of cooking have elapsed. Adding beans to the rich pork makes it a meal, versatile enough to go on top of rice or tortillas, or to be tucked into rolls or enchiladas. It also freezes well.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

This soup is the result of British colonizers’ encounters with rasam, a souplike dish from Tamil Nadu, a region in southern India, that’s often made with lentils. “Milagu tannir,” or pepper water, evolved into mulligatawny when the British made it thick, chunky and meaty. In her book “From Curries to Kabobs,” the author Madhur Jaffrey wrote that mulligatawny was “an essential part of my childhood,” as she ate it at the homes of Anglo-Indian friends and in hotels on vacation. Mulligatawny now bears no resemblance to rasam and has many variations; it is a dish that was invented and modified for colonizers’ palates, and thus it has few rules. Ms. Jaffrey noted that “some curry powder has to be included for a true East-West flavor,” as curry powder is more British than Indian. This slow-cooker version is thickened with masoor dal and coconut cream, and enriched with chicken thighs and tart apple.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

This is a simple, slow-cooker version of picadillo, a beloved comfort food popular across the Caribbean and Latin America. (“Picadillo” roughly translates as “mince,” referring to the use of ground meat.) Its deep flavor comes from sautéed aromatics and tomatoes, simmered gently with ground beef and spices. Raisins and green olives give this Cuban-inspired version its distinctive sweet-salty-tangy pop, and here, they are added toward the end of the long cooking time so they retain their intensity. Picadillo is traditionally served with beans and rice, but you could also scoop it up with tortillas, or use it as a filling for empanadas or enchiladas. Some versions of picadillo include slivered almonds, so feel free to stir in about ¼ cup of slivered almonds just before serving, or sprinkle them on top as a finishing touch.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

This browned and succulent, slow-cooker roast is largely hands-off and can solve several Thanksgiving conundrums, such as lack of oven space and a majority of white meat lovers at the table. Make it in addition to a whole turkey or as a substitute for it. The herbed dry brine helps to ensure moistness and flavor, but white meat doesn’t cut you much slack, so make sure to check the internal temperature: Pull the turkey out as soon as the thickest part of the breast is 155 degrees, or even a few degrees cooler. (Food safety is achieved by both heat and the amount of time the meat stays at that temperature, so the long cooking time plus carryover heat ensure safety here.) This recipe calls for a whole, skin-on, bone-in turkey breast. Standard slow cookers are between 6 to 8 quarts. If yours is 6 quarts, be sure to look for a breast on the smaller side, as anything more than about 6 ½ pounds may not fit. If you plan to serve fewer people, see the tip for variations.

Sarah DiGregorio · NYT Cooking

Pasta primavera, the creamy, vegetable-heavy pasta dish popularized in the 1980s at Le Cirque, in New York, is a little too fussy for a busy weeknight, but this reimagined white bean version comes together in less than a half-hour. The simple beans and vegetables feel fancy in their robe of cream, Parmesan, lemon juice and mustard. The dish is best with fresh spring vegetables, and it’s also very flexible: Substitute spinach for the peas, a handful of halved cherry tomatoes for the carrot, and sugar snap peas for the asparagus. Drained jarred artichoke hearts wouldn’t be out of place, either.