Buttermilk

Homemade cottage cheese just tastes better than store-bought. Use the best dairy you can find for the creamiest flavor.

Meet your new favorite birthday cake.

The most substantial lunch bowl of your life.

Like the song of summer, but pancakes.

You'll love this riff on classic peaches and cream.

You can replace some of the cilantro or parsley with other tender herbs—basil, dill, chives. Just make sure to include the tarragon; it gives the dip an anise-y, bittersweet punch.

Using bruised berries, that last little bit of buttermilk in the container, and a scoop of tahini will make you feel both resourceful and well fed.

What makes this salad special is the miso ranch dressing and the pulverized nori.

This soup is inspired by Ash Reshteh, a thick Iranian soup made with chickpeas, a boatload of herbs, and noodles, with one big exception: We omitted the noodles.

This will take you back to the flavor of all those canned cream-of-mushroom-soup-based casseroles, but without all the weird ingredients!

If you want to make this bread the same day, sub old-fashioned oats for the steel-cut.

These pancakes make an addictive snack: Freeze any extras and toast gently to reheat.

You can create a variety of shapes and colors with a cookie press. We love OXO’s cookie press for this recipe since it has sturdy metal plates and all the parts unscrew easily for cleaning.

We combined two great Thanksgiving traditions in this recipe—deep-fried whole turkeys (which requires an outdoor cooking vessel and a scary amount of hot oil), and the flavors of stuffing, which are worked into a crunchy coating for these tenders.

Use this creamy slaw as one of the toppings for the Ranch Dog, or as a condiment or side next to pretty much anything else!

The nostalgic yellow cake flavor in cupcake form. If using a darker muffin tin, keep an eye on the edges—those pans encourage more browning, and you might end up removing these from the oven a few minutes earlier. Get the recipe for vanilla cream cheese frosting here. This is part of BA's Best, a collection of our essential recipes.

Cake flour gives these classic white cupcakes a very fine, tender crumb, and the high ratio of egg whites to yolks ensures a snowy hue. Get the recipe for vanilla cream cheese frosting here.

Non-Dutch-process cocoa powder is sometimes labeled “natural,” and since all of the chocolate flavor depends on what kind you use, quality matters for these devil's food cupcakes. Get the recipe for vanilla cream cheese frosting here.

Mature spinach has a stronger flavor than baby spinach and holds up better to this creamy dressing. 

The dough will seem fairly wet when shaping into rounds, but the high hydration is key to forming those trademark nooks and crannies. This is part of BA's Best, a collection of our essential recipes.