Green Sauce Tofu and More Recipes We Made This Week

It’s no secret that Bon Appétit editors cook a lot for work. So it should come as no surprise that we cook a lot during our off hours too. Here are the recipes we’re whipping up this month to get dinner on the table, entertain our friends, satisfy a sweet tooth, use up leftovers, and everything in between. For even more staff favorites, click here.

Recipes June 12

Camera-ready fattoush

I was filming a social video about my favorite air fryer and needed a side to serve with crispy chicken thighs. This fattoush salad was an obvious choice—colorful enough to look great on camera and easy enough to throw together while the chicken cooked. I used a mandoline for the vegetables and whisked together the dressing, a sweet-tart mix of pomegranate molasses, lemon juice, and sumac. We recommend making your own pita chips, but I bought a bag of Stacy’s and had the whole thing done by the time the chicken came out of the air fryer. —Olivia Tarantino, senior shopping editor

Blissful skillet cherry cake

I don’t often feel meditative when I’m cooking. I wish I did, but something in my core is too neurotic to feel calm as I’m chopping or dicing or watching for proper browning. At least, that’s what I’ve always thought. But this week, I discovered the zen of pitting cherries by hand, as I prepared to bake a skillet cherry cake. Sitting at my kitchen table, I found myself blissfully blank-brained and in a rhythm: slice, rotate, pit, toss. For what might be the first time in my life I wasn’t thinking of…anything. I plopped the cherries on top of the buttery batter and everything was ready to go in the oven—wait…why isn’t this batter sweet? Ah, I forgot to add sugar. Cherries back in the bowl, mix sugar into batter, re-plop cherries. In the end, this mercifully forgiving recipe still turned out great. —Sam Stone, staff writer

Heat-wave spring rolls

The erratic heat waves of spring have made me want summer rolls for dinner on a weekly basis. Velvety lettuce and crunchy vegetables, sweet-spicy dipping sauce, and hardly any cooking are compelling reasons to heed the call of my hyperfixation. I only turn on the stove for a little bit of steak that appears, finely chopped up, inside the rolls. My colleague and station-mate Jesse Szewczyk’s soda-marinated skirt steak is excellent for this, caramelizing quickly in a hot cast-iron pan, after its overnight slumber in miso and soy. —Shilpa Uskokovic, senior Test Kitchen editor.

One-and-done pork shoulder

When I’m hosting friends for dinner, I have a rule for myself: Whatever I’m serving has to be 80% done before my guests arrive. I’ll happily slip away to do small tasks before the meal, but I don’t want to spend any time actively cooking dinner. To abide by this self-imposed standard, one of my go-to meals has become Alison Roman’s Harissa-Rubbed Pork Shoulder With White Beans and Chard from her cookbook, Nothing Fancy. (Roman made a video with Bon Appétit featuring a very similar dish, though this version omits the chard and preserved lemon.) After putting it in the oven, it’s basically done. And with creamy beans and wilted chard (I sometimes use kale), this is a one-pot dinner that feels fancy, at least to me. —Carly Westerfield, associate manager, audience strategy

Peruvian-style tofu

I just returned from days of backcountry camping in Maine. The trip had a musk of intensity: We forded rivers, hiked 10 miles every day, saw a moose—quite the adventure. With a 30 pound backpack, food was purely fuel and had to weigh close to nothing. That means meat sticks galore. But by the time we returned to civilization, I couldn’t bear the sight of beef anything. Vegetarian it was (for now). Scouring the Epicurious app for dinner inspiration that could make food feel exciting again, I landed on this Peruvian-Style Tofu With Creamy Cilantro Sauce from senior Test Kitchen editor Shilpa Uskokovic. Charred planks of custardy tofu plunge into a tangy green sauce with a whisper of heat. I ate them alongside a crisp peach kombucha, because health. —Nina Moskowitz, associate editor, cooking

Recipes June 5

Birthday cake and pancakes

A celebratory weekend away called for making birthday cake and pancakes. With no fancy kitchen equipment in sight, this two-tier no-mixer vanilla cake was the move. For the filling, I turned to this smooth and buttery lemon curd (a request from the birthday girl) and topped the whole cake with the lightest whipped-cream-turned-frosting that came together with just a whisk and a bowl. Morning meant one thing: fluffy pancakes that I could whip up quickly and throw on a griddle, while still being able to reminisce with friends around the breakfast table. —Marisa Alia Malanga, research fellow

Three-ingredient noodle sauce

True to form, New York City has experienced nearly all four seasons in the span of a single spring week (yes, the meme is real). The first time we hit an 85-degree day, cold watermelon and even colder soba were on the menu at my place. My Zaru Soba (Cold Buckwheat Noodles) are a delightful throw-together meal. The refreshing savory dipping sauce is made with just three ingredients: mirin, soy sauce, and instant dashi powder, but I sometimes pick up a bottle of store-bought tsuyu dipping sauce on the way home from work to make things even quicker. I always throw in an extra bundle of soba; any leftover noodles work surprisingly well the following day for a not-sad desk lunch. —Hana Asbrink, deputy food editor

Instant chocolate mousse

A chocolate craving struck. But after an absurdly long week, I had no interest in baking cookies or a cake or the like. (Too many dishes.) Instead, I turned to a recipe from my friend Ella Quittner’s Obsessed With the Best, one of our favorite cookbooks from this winter. From the chapter entitled “Whipped Cream Should Be the Whole Dessert,” the dish is called Depression Pudding. I stirred together a few spoonfuls each of cocoa powder and maple syrup, plus a pinch of salt. Poured in a lot of heavy cream. Whisked by hand—Ella’s rec and my personal pref (it’s fun)—until billowy as mousse. And, most important, devoured on the couch with a Yankees game. —Emma Laperruque, cooking director

A rainbow salad

Around this time every year, I issue one very clear directive to my boyfriend: Anytime you see Champagne mangoes at the store, cradle home as many of the chubby crescent moons as you can carry. They’re a coveted treasure, tasting like they’ve been lacquered in honey. Once ripe, I stash them in the fridge (cold fruit simply tastes better), then I slice off the two cheeks, score a grid pattern, and eat them straight from the skin. But on the rare occasion I save some for a recipe, they go into my Crispy Rice Salad With Spicy Tahini Dressing. Loaded with nearly every color in the rainbow and golden pucks of pan-fried rice, it’s as fun to look at as it is to eat. —Nina Moskowitz, associate editor, cooking