Rice

Tarator is usually made with tahini, but the base for this recipe is almonds. It serves as both a binder for the rice cakes and as a sauce.

Keep frozen shrimp in your freezer and a few staples like rice and coconut milk on hand and you can whip up this one-pot dinner any night of the week.

This robust dinner (or lunch!) salad is a little Southern, a little Southwestern and a lot delicious. Save time by using leftover cooked chicken from another meal or store-bought rotisserie chicken.

You won't miss the meat in this hearty vegan soup inspired by stuffed peppers. Cut day-of prep time by making a big batch of rice in advance and using it in multiple meals.

This chicken-and-rice dish, made in the Instant Pot, is inspired by mulligatawny soup, with fragrant spices, creamy coconut milk, bright ginger, and fresh lime juice.

This is the dish that first got me into cooking. Talking about it got me my first job in a kitchen, and together with the help of friends, local restaurants, and family it’s the recipe we have worked on the most for this book, because we all know how good it should be. If I could only eat one thing in the world it would probably be my grandma’s jollof. She would regularly cook a big pot with care and patience and insist that everyone took home a small container of it. Cooking the rice and storing it for the following day or to give to friends to take away is part of a sharing culture that surrounds jollof—just remember to return the Tupperware!

These bibimbap-inspired grain bowls are brimming with bright vegetables and spicy marinated steak.

Store-bought rotisserie chicken brings you one step closer to this nourishing grain bowl dinner.

Kimchi can be made and eaten any time of the year, but I really crave it in the spring. In this recipe, the kimchi and assorted quick-pickled vegetables are the dominant flavors, making a bright-tasting, tangy bowl. Pickling chard stems is a great way to use them up—they’ll add bits of celery-like crunch, and using rainbow chard means lots of extra color, too. Furthermore, the pickled components and the sautéed chard both keep well, meaning that they can be made in advance or packed up as good leftovers. Let the toppings come to room temperature before serving, so that they don’t cool down the bowl drastically when you stir all the ingredients together.

If you feel like experimenting, try using cashews or pecans in place of the almonds.

Long-grain rice is not starchy enough to hold together, so make a batch of short-grain a day ahead and you’ll be good to go.

This hearty burrito comes together in just 22 minutes, but it's still full of flavor.