Salad

People tend to skip toasting nuts in recipes or before adding them to salads because it seems time-consuming and the margin for error is high. However, skipping this step is a big mistake. Why? Because when you skip toasting your nuts (go ahead, you can laugh, we're all doing ...more

At first glance, mandolines seem like such a good idea. After all, who wouldn't want a tool that can create picture-perfect and paper-thin slices of fruits and vegetables that would put even the sharpest chef's knife to shame? Your French fry game would never be the same. Sala ...more

Hash browns are a breakfast staple and for good reason: they're simple, salty, and crispy, and so delicious that you can easily down several servings of them in one sitting. Basically, they're the French fries of breakfast. Despite their simplicity, hash browns can be difficu ...more

As a kid, my mother would always bring the noodles onto the table in a colander, then bring the pot of sauce she cooked separately. So I grew up with the idea that pasta and sauce were two separate entities that you combined table-side, and continued to eat pasta that way well ...more

The airline is not your friend. It will do anything it can to gouge your dignity, time, and most of all, money. One of the biggest scams to get a few extra bucks out of you are those dreaded baggage fees. If the lines, security, "random" screenings, and unwanted fondling aren' ...more

I was a vegetarian from age 6 until age 23. When I started eating meat again for the first time in 17 years, most people I knew (including me) expected me to be pretty conservative about it: chicken breasts, hot dogs, and all the other "basic" meats that everyone loves. Don't ...more

Eggs are incredibly important to cooks, and not just because they're tasty and a complete protein (many erratic genius/artist types make a point of eating an egg or two for breakfast). Yes, they are great when perfectly poached, scrambled, hard-boiled, and even scram-boiled, b ...more

Unlike wine, you can't re-cork or stopper leftover bubbly after you've opened it, but all is not lost even if you haven't managed to finish every last drop. You can use your leftover champagne to make light-as-air crêpes or pancakes, to create a detox face mask, to cook seafoo ...more

If you've already read the first part exploring what geniuses actually eat as opposed to what the rest of us are told to eat for brain health, you've noticed that there are some big discrepancies. Instead of favoring healthy, wholesome foods high in antioxidants, lots of high- ...more

Lasagna, that layered, creamy baked pasta dish, is a lovely comfort food that's great for a crowd. But if you've ever made it, then you know you're usually left with some leftover lasagna noodles. (Although that's always better than the frustration of running out of the noodle ...more

We love shredded chicken in our tacos, casseroles, quesadillas, salads, sandwiches... okay, we just love shredded chicken. What we don't love is the actual process of shredding it. Don't Miss: Save Money by Breaking Down Your Own Chicken Often, we use the ol' forks method o ...more

Fall is a time of change. The leaves change color, the weather changes from warm to cool, and we change our clocks to fall back an hour. This last change means that many of us will get home from work in pitch-black darkness; for me, the early onset of night makes me less inter ...more

A few years ago I went hog-wild trying to achieve a zero-waste lifestyle. I didn't succeed, but the experiment taught me that we throw away things we could—and should—be using more. In ye olde days of our forefathers, people generally used every part of the animal in cooking. ...more

Delicious hash browns are ridiculously easy to make at home. So skip the diner and save your money—use this salad spinner trick instead to make crispy and seasoned hash browns quickly and with ease. Don't Miss: The Potato Cheat Sheet: When to Use What Kind & Why Remove Excess ...more

Ah, ginger. From stir fry to smoothies, ginger is a reliably sharp and refreshing flavor that adds zing to everything it touches. It may be a pain in the ass to remove the skin from ginger (or not), but the zest it brings to food is well worth the trouble. Don't Miss: How to B ...more

Marinades are among my all-time favorite tricks as a cook for several reasons. They're easy like Sunday morning, they let time do what it's supposed to, which is work for you, and you get a huge return for relatively little effort on your part. In a pinch, I've used store-bou ...more

Imagine you're holding a cookout with family and friends. You're having a good time—the grass is green, the sun is shining, and the smell of the burgers sizzling on the grill is irresistible. There's creamy potato salad, mountains of golden brown chips, and a hefty watermelon ...more

Great news: you don't have to give up grains if you're avoiding gluten. Whether you've got celiac disease, gluten sensitivity, or simply choose to avoid gluten, you probably keep a wide berth between your diet and grains. But not a lot of people are familiar with the fact tha ...more

Fresh herbs can be delicate, and it's not always easy to figure out how to cut, crush, or muddle them to make the most of their flavors. Get too rough, and you have a bunch of bruised and muddy-tasting herbs, which is due to too much chlorophyll being released. Don't do enough ...more

This is a refreshing spring update on your classic hamburger slider. Instead of using a ground beef patty, I am using shrimp tempura. This recipe calls for fresh truffles, but fresh truffles are hard to come by so feel free to use truffle oil (it is much more affordable and wh ...more

During our high school years, one of us (hint: her name starts with a B) worked at Cold Stone Creamery. She loved working there, and from this love emerged a fascination with adding creative ingredients to plain ol' vanilla ice cream. We now keep this blank palate of frozen g ...more

Flowers may be beautiful, but they're not usually appetizing. Sure, nasturtiums are hip in fancy restaurants, but they're primarily used as a garnish. Granted, fried squash blossoms are incredible, but the point remains: flowers are usually reserved for looking at, not mastica ...more

Home cooks are often quite intimidated when trying to reproduce the delicious ethnic dishes they enjoy at various restaurants. Thankfully, there are definite flavor profiles and spice/seasoning/herb combos that are very specific to various regional cuisines and cultures; with ...more

Don't leave your tongs out by the grill, as they are one of the most useful and versatile cooking tools to have in your kitchen. In my house, they come in a very close second to chopsticks, which I cook with everyday. Like chopsticks, they make it easy to delicately flip and t ...more

The order was given months ago: Build me a royal garden. and less poetically expanded, I dunno, with crops n stuff. Those were the words of my (formerly serial killer) uncle, whose castle sits in the middle of everything, requiring a garden fit for a king. The yard behind ...more

It's Friday night, you're in the kitchen, and your guests are arriving way sooner than you want them to. The soup is not thickening like it's supposed to, the salad still needs dressing, and the pine nuts for the salad are... wait, what's that smell? Crap, the pine nuts! No, t ...more

I have to confess: my egg slicer has been neglected ever since I bought it. I had ambitious dreams of using it to slice perfectly symmetrical slivers of hard-boiled egg into my salads... but the truth is, once I tucked it into a kitchen drawer, I completely forgot about it. Th ...more

Most of us love Ikea because it is cheap, contemporary design-conscious, and the megastore's cafeteria serves 15 delicious Swedish meatballs for the low price of $4.99. Now there's an even better reason to love Ikea: why not treat their goods as raw materials, a good starting ...more

We're always looking for great food hacks to help us become better cooks who can create delicious food with less waste, fuss, and hassle. You never know where the next good tip will come from, so we've all learned to keep our eyes and ears wide open. A few weeks ago I was hav ...more

I grew up eating Korean, Japanese, and Chinese food, but it wasn't until college that I experienced Thai and Vietnamese cooking. Once I started, I couldn't get enough of these cuisines. The dishes had an incredible richness and savor that I couldn't identify, but whatever it w ...more

Mold making is pretty thrilling—the ability to replicate objects right down to every little crack and crevice seems like something only a machine would be able to do. But in many cases creating a replica from a mold is surprisingly simple. Found on Tasteologie, La Receta de la ...more

"You can even eat the dishes," claims the song "The Candy Man Can" from 1971's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The idea of edible cups, even back then, grabbed my attention—any kid would much prefer to eat her dish instead of clean it afterward, of course! Don't Miss: ...more

Make a beautiful heart-shaped hard-boiled egg. Add it to a salad and surprise your Valentine! You'll need an egg, saucepan and cooker, drink carton, pair of scissors, chopstick, and elastic bands. Full instructions are shown in this short and simple video tutorial. Video: .

As a species, our cells are designed to use sugar for energy. Is it any wonder that as humans evolved, we grew to love the taste of sugar? Nowadays, we're the victims of our own efficiency at making foods sweeter. Now that morbid obesity and type 2 diabetes are common issues ...more

The way in which cooking can be used to both illustrate science and create a beautiful bite of food is fascinating to me. And emulsions, the results of combining liquid fat and water, are a fantastic example of science in harmony with great cooking. In layman's terms, an emul ...more

If you're on a tight budget for food, whether you're in college, or someone just starting out living on their own, you're probably low on money and sick of ramen noodles. Don't get me wrong, ramen can be tasty and filling, and there is almost nothing cheaper. Sadly, people ar ...more

At this point, you probably think that you've read everything there is to read about different ways to prepare eggs. There are the usual ways (scrambled, soft-boiled, hard-boiled/steamed/baked, sunny-side up, poached, the "overs") and the more unusual ways (in clouds, crispy p ...more

Whether you call them chickpeas, garbanzo beans, or Egyptian peas, these little morsels are one of my favorite snacks—when properly seasoned, that is. Being mild in flavor on their own, they're incredibly versatile and fun to experiment with. (They're also incredibly healthy.) ...more

We admit it: we are ranch dressing fanatics. We like to put it on our simple salads, spread it across our chicken wings, and dip homemade sweet potato fries in it. Plus, since childhood, neither of us can eat pizza without ranch dressing to accompany it. Don't Miss: How to M ...more

Koji is a culture made up of a certain fungus (mold) called Aspergillus oryzae, which has been used to ferment rice and soybeans in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean kitchens for centuries. Koji can actually have other involved fungi, but Aspergillus oryzae is the most common, and ...more

There seems to be a nearly cult-like craze surrounding those glasses filled with summery, pink-hued rosé wine. From picnics in the park to long days spent on the beach, rosé wine offers light, warm-weather refreshment to its lucky imbiber. With these 10 fun facts about this e ...more

We all know that it's important to drink water regularly throughout the day. After all, it has so many benefits, including flushing toxins out of the body and maintaining kidney health and good bowel movements. Turns out that's only part of the story. While being properly hydr ...more

In addition to keeping your cold drink from turning lukewarm, ice cubes are also surprisingly useful for removing gum from your carpet, keeping your hollandaise sauce from curdling, skimming fat off your soup, and watering your hard-to-reach hanging plants. Drinking some vile ...more

Ant-Man isn't one of the most famous Marvel superheroes. In fact, with the news of his individual movie came great doubt that the comic book legends could succeed in telling the tiny story of an oddball hero on the big screen. Yet with its humor and unique story, Ant-Man has b ...more

Eggs bring life to almost any dish. Toast with avocado? Put an egg on it. The same old salad you eat for lunch everyday? Put an egg on it. Stir fry leftovers? Put an egg on it. Don't Miss: How to Make Heavenly 'Eggs in Clouds' Better yet, put a crispy battered poached egg o ...more

"The best season for food is the worst season for cooking." These words, spoken by food blogger Dave Klopfenstein of Dave's Kitchen, couldn't be more true. As spring turns into summer, farmer's markets and grocery stores are loaded with fresh, juicy fruits and vegetables—but ...more

A perfectly ripe avocado half is a lovely snack, and a creamy bowl of homemade guacamole can make a meal. But the following ten ideas take green-eating up a notch by stuffing avocado halves with your favorite salads and ingredients, turning them into a snack or side dish fit f ...more

Who doesn't enjoy sitting down to a nice dinner with a cocktail in hand? After a long day, a drink is a great way to unwind. Yet your favorite spirits can do more than just help you relax after work. By utilizing alcohol in the kitchen, you can enhance everything from how food ...more

Imagine you have mastered the perfect cherry pie for your annual work picnic but, upon taking it out of its airtight pie carrier, your heart sinks as you realize the crust has turned to mush thanks to the moisture from the filling. Sound familiar? Well, I have news for you: i ...more

Is Epic Meal Time a little too bro for you? If you're looking for something more extreme, with a hint of violence, headache-inducing screams, and endless rage, you have a couple options... Regular Ordinary Swedish Meal Time Between the Swenglish and extreme screaming, see if ...more

The Spanish and Portuguese introduced many things (some desirable, some not, depending on your POV) to Mexico in the sixteenth century: Christianity, language, and lots of flora and fauna. Among the flora were radishes, a root vegetable which was briskly inducted into the loc ...more