How To Make Flaky Pie Crust — Cooking Lessons from The Kitchn

I am very worried, friends. Worried that the fear of pie crusts may be keeping a great many of you from making your own pies at home. Is this true? Does this sound like you? Do debates over butter vs. lard or tender vs. flaky make you want to run and hide? Well, take a deep breath and grab your notebook — today we’re going to go over how to make a pie from start to finish, one step at a time.

READ MORE »

10 Easy Lunch Box Ideas for Vegetarians — A Lunch Box for Everyone

Get ready, fellow lunch packers! Your bento boxes are about to be bursting with vibrant veggies and creative meat-free mains. Whether you follow a vegetarian diet full-time or are simply interested in cutting meat from your midday meal, these veg-heavy boxes are sure to satisfy.

Our 10 quick and easy ideas for vegetarian lunches feature an assortment of ingredients rich in iron, fiber, and protein (including quinoa, beans, nuts, and nut butter), ensuring you’ll stay full and won’t get bored. No sad salads here — we promise!

READ MORE »

Next Week’s Meal Plan: 5 Easy Slow Cooker Recipes for Back to School — Next Week’s Meal Plan

This week my big kid starts first grade, and my littlest heads back to pre-k. I’m welcoming the return of our routine with open arms, despite the fact that back to school also means back to packing lunches and snacks, and getting up a little earlier to prep breakfasts and dinners before drop-off.

Of course, we’re still in the midst of warm weather that is keeping me from cranking up the oven and sweating during dinnertime, so this week I’m reaching for my slow cooker to assist me in making five easy dinners.

READ MORE »

10 Healthy Side Salads — Recipes from The Kitchn

You’re almost guaranteed to find a salad on my dinner table every night. It’s the easiest way for me to add vegetables to the meal and round things out, no matter what I am serving. And these 10 recipes, in particular, feel extra healthy to me: They’re heavy on the vegetables, dressed in light vinaigrettes that embrace good fats like olive oil, and are dotted with wholesome things like avocado, nuts, and fresh fruit.

They’re also fast to assemble and pair with everything from chicken and fish to pasta and pizza — and anything in between!

READ MORE »

This Is Why Aluminum Foil Is Shiny on One Side — Storage Smarts

In my household, the “right” way to use aluminum foil — shiny side-up or shiny side-down — is the subject of much debate. (My vote is shiny side-up.)

As it turns out, we’re not the only ones who have spent time thinking about this. There’s a lot of speculation on the internet, where different theories abound. I admit that I fell down the rabbit hole of considering different kinds of heat, the possibility of a coating, and clever marketing gimmicks before I finally landed on a reliable source, the Reynolds Kitchens website, and got an answer.

READ MORE »

This Mayo Essay Shows Why You Shouldn’t Fall for Millennial Clickbait — Food News

Here at The Kitchn, we’re fascinated by grocery trends. We have Google alerts for the most obscure of topics, talk to experts about new product releases, pore over the nitty-gritty details within industry reports, and are constantly conducting feet-on-the-ground trend analysis (when we grocery shop, of course).

So when we came across this buzzy essay in Philadelphia Magazine arguing how and why millennials killed mayonnaise, we eagerly clicked to learn more.

READ MORE »

20 One-Pot Suppers for When You Don’t Want to Cook — Recipes from The Kitchn

As sure as there are seven days in the week, I can count on the fact that at least one of those days, I’ll come home from work feeling totally drained. On these nights, I want nothing more than to plop on the couch with Netflix and takeout. And, I’ll be honest, sometimes that is exactly what I do. But most of the time, the thing that saves me from blowing my budget on egg rolls and Kung Pao chicken is the one-pot dinner.

When dinner comes together in a single pot, it means a low-fuss meal that’s better for my wallet and probably better for me, too. So, when you just don’t feel like cooking, consider these 20 dinners your lifeline. With options like zoodles and meatballs, burrito bowls, and a savory Dutch baby, they’re delicious and totally doable.

READ MORE »

The 10 Most Popular Kitchen Items on Amazon Right Now — Shopping

At Kitchn, we’re committed to finding cool, useful, and wildly popular products we think you’ll like, which is why we have Amazon’s best-seller pages bookmarked on our computers.

See, Amazon has lists of the most popular items in categories like electronics, cookbooks, and furniture. All these lists are updated in real-time, so it’s a pretty cool way to see what the rest of the Ama-verse is buying and liking.

Some best-sellers seem obvious. (The first two slots on the page for best-selling small appliances go to two different Instant Pot models.) But, for the most part, the lists are kind of surprising.

For your viewing pleasure, we’re sharing Amazon’s current top 10 best-sellers in “Kitchen & Dining.” Who knows, maybe you’ll find something you didn’t know you needed and add it to your cart.

READ MORE »

The Best Snacks on Amazon for Your Keto Diet — Shopping

It seems like everyone is “going keto” these days, right? If you’re not familiar, the ketogenic diet (keto for short) is a high-fat, moderate-protein, and low-carbohydrate plan. “It’s typically rich in foods like eggs, meats, nuts, butters, cheeses, seeds, oils, and a few low-carb green vegetables. It does not allow fruits, most vegetables, grains, potatoes, sweets, or other carb-rich foods,” says Alyssa Ardolino, RD, nutrition communications coordinator at the International Food Information Council.

According to Ardolino, the goal of the diet is to produce ketone bodies (metabolites of fatty acids) and use them instead of glucose to fuel your cells, which is meant to lead to lower inflammation and, for some, weight loss.

Because the diet is fairly restrictive and excludes most carbs and many fruits, it can be tough to find snacks that are keto-compliant.

READ MORE »

How To Make Easy Caprese Salad with Balsamic Glaze — Cooking Lessons from The Kitchn

Few ingredients showcase the magic of eating with the seasons better than the humble summer tomato. A ripe, juicy, perfectly imperfect mid-August heirloom is so vastly superior to the sad, mealy, flavorless supermarket tomato you’ll find come December that they may as well not be related at all. Your friends who claim they despise raw tomatoes? Feed them one in August and they’ll likely change their minds.

The end of summer is pure euphoria for tomato lovers — it’s when you’ll find plump, sweet-smelling tomatoes in a stunning array of shapes, sizes, and colors at the farmers market that are begging to be toted home and devoured. Because they’re so darn scrumptious on their own, the best summer tomato recipes let the tomato take center stage — which is where this easy caprese salad comes in.

All we’ve added is a milky mozzarella, fragrant fresh basil, a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil, a spoonful of balsamic glaze, and a shower of flaky sea salt to help draw out the sweet tomato juices. It’s so incredibly simple and quick, there’s no reason it can’t be on your table tonight.

READ MORE »