NYT Cooking

“Everything’s better with feta” has long been my motto. One of my test kitchen colleagues, Katja Tausig, took this idea to its limit by embedding a whole block of feta in this frittata, which appears in my cookbook “Ottolenghi Simple Too” (Ten Speed Press, 2026). Make this for Sunday supper or an easygoing brunch, take it on a picnic, play around with the herbs (chives and cilantro work well), and it might well become a keeper. It can be served warm or at room temperature.

This silky, sweet-tart applesauce is a class above anything you'll find in the supermarket and an absolute cinch to make, owing to a couple of clever kitchen moves. First, using unpeeled apples as a base not only saves big on prep time (and even more so if you use the slicing blade on your food processor instead of a knife), and helps retain fiber and nutrients. It also turns the finished sauce a lovely shade of blush. Second, enlisting a slow cooker to handle the leisurely simmer makes the process almost entirely hands-off. Using a mix of apples as a base will produce the best flavor and texture: McIntosh, Honeycrisp and Granny Smith are all good options, but if you want to try heirloom apples, dark-skinned varieties like Blue Pearmain and Black Oxford will yield especially striking results. Adding a few spoonfuls of maple syrup helps balance the tannins, but feel free to use less or more according to your taste. A pinch of salt and a sprinkle of lemon juice before the final purée wake everything up.

These protein-rich meatballs are remarkably tender for turkey meatballs. They skip the usual egg and bread crumbs and instead use cottage cheese to bind them and add moisture (much like ricotta). How they’re cooked also guarantees their juiciness: Broiling them until the tops are just browned, then simmering them in store-bought marinara sauce locks in their moisture — and means they’re ready in just 30 minutes. Eat these over pasta, polenta or braised beans and greens.

This super-crunchy, potato-crusted take on schnitzel started as a latke-inspired Hanukkah treat, but this version is easy and delicious enough to make year-round. Store-bought frozen shredded hash browns, quickly thawed in the microwave, form the base of the coating. The chicken follows a standard dredging procedure: The cutlets are tossed in flour and dipped in eggs to help the hash browns adhere. Press the chicken right over the hash browns to coat both sides and watch the potatoes instantly cling to the cutlets. Using a large turner spatula makes transferring the cutlets to the frying pan seamless. The result is a juicy chicken cutlet with a crispy potato crust that’ll make you want to go in for another bite.

Versions of this three-ingredient cookie recipe — just peanut butter, sugar and egg — have appeared in community cookbooks and newspapers for decades, and for good reason: Because there isn’t any butter or flour, their flavor is purely peanutty. This rendition is not too sweet (some recipes call for double the sugar) and best made with white sugar and conventional peanut butter, though they are still great with brown sugar or natural peanut butter. This riff also makes a slightly bigger cookie than the old-school recipe, so you get a more tender result. Feel free to add ½ teaspoon vanilla extract to the dough, or flaky sea salt to the tops before baking.