Meals with meat - quick and easy recipes - page 83

If you’re hankering for a great steak but don’t have access to a grill, try this soy-sauce-marinated rib-eye recipe from Le Pigeon (nicknamed the Dirty Bird) in Portland, Oregon. Throw the steaks in a smoking-hot cast-iron skillet, sear on one side, flip them over, and top with butter. Finish the steaks in the oven, then serve with a seemingly odd but tasty Hawaiian-inspired relish made with pineapple and blue cheese. A pile of crispy semolina-coated onion rings makes the perfect side.

Marinating chicken breast in green curry and coconut milk gives these kebabs a Thai twist. Buy a green curry paste with lots of flavor (we like the Mae Ploy brand). Make sure you don’t pack the skewers too tightly or the chicken will dry out on the grill side before it’s done all the way through. Serve with steamed jasmine rice and something crisp and refreshing, like this snap pea salad.

The combination of orange, black olives, fennel, and whole-grain mustard gives these chicken kebabs an assertive French personality. Thighs are our favorite cut from the bird—they stay juicy even over the high heat of a charcoal grill. Pair these skewers with a fluffy rice pilaf and a dry French rosé, served very cold.

Korean kalbi was the inspiration, but these skewers have their own personality. Soy sauce, rice vinegar, garlic, sesame oil, and a kick of Sriracha give boneless beef short ribs tons of flavor. Unlike chunky kebabs, the meat gets threaded on the skewers satay-style. Serve with sautéed Asian-style broccoli and a mountain of steamed rice, or beside some sundubu jigae.

Mexican mole sauce can be intimidating. There’s chocolate, chiles, and spices. It’s rich, full of flavor, and not too sweet, despite the chocolate. And it’s typically a labor-intensive process. But this recipe, based on Martha Stewart’s, takes little effort, thanks to the slow cooker. With an entire can of chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, along with ancho chiles and almonds, this mole is nicely spicy without being overbearing.

Using the slow cooker allows you to get baby back pork ribs incredibly tender, but you’ll need to cook them in a sauce with tons of flavor so they’re not boring. For these easy, tasty ribs, you make a bacon-bourbon barbecue sauce for marinating and simmering the ribs. After 4 or 5 hours, when the ribs are tender, you brush them with more sauce and give them a quick turn in the broiler.

Nothing opens our eyes in the morning like breakfast tacos, especially ones that hold something bold and spicy. Here, we combine sautéed poblano chile strips with ham under a fried egg, served in a warm corn tortilla. Up and at ’em!

Skip the bun and wrap it up pigs-in-the-blanket style with this ridiculously easy yet whimsical jumbo-sized rendition. Just roll out store-bought pizza dough and cut it into strips that you use to spiral-wrap the hot dogs. Bake and serve with beer and caraway seed mustard, spicy yellow mustard, or whole grain dijon mustard. If you’d like to make your own pizza dough, you’ll need two-thirds of our recipe for Basic Pizza Dough.

We love the Stromboli, the Italian-American pizza roll. We simplified things a bit here, with store-bought pizza dough and a once-over rolling technique. Our filling calls for marinara, shredded mozzarella, ham, and fresh chiles, but don’t be shy about freestyling with other cured meats and cheeses, herbs, veggies—the beauty of a Stromboli (er, Strom-Dough-Li) is its versatility. What to buy: Bags of premade pizza dough are available in 14- or 16-ounce portions at well-stocked groceries.

This easy recipe yields a rich, smoky-tasting chili, perfect for laid-back Sundays. Made with chicken thighs, canned cannellini beans, and a handful of other ingredients, it tastes more complicated than it is. Bonus: You’ll have leftovers for the week.

Four hours in the slow cooker makes these hot wings beautifully tender; a further 30 minutes in a hot oven gets them crisp and brown. Serve these wings before the main event as a substantial game-day snack, or as the centerpiece of a meal, alongside a big crunchy salad to keep things cool.

Chicken breasts easily turn dry unless you use fattening things like cream or cheese as accessories for flavor and texture. That became the jumping-off point for this recipe: how to get juicy, mouth-watering chicken breasts while keeping things healthy. Poblano peppers turned out to be the answer: They’re mild, but infuse everything they touch with a rich green-chile flavor.

Tender on the inside and craggy with baked cheese on top, these ham and cheese scones are rich and savory, ideal for brunch or to serve alongside bowls of Basic Vegetable Soup for lunch or supper. What to buy: Black Forest ham is dry-cured and smoked—you can substitute another kind of smoked ham.

This easy recipe teaches how to make the best homemade Thai beef noodle salad. Don't miss it!

This easy recipe teaches how to make an authentic homemade Thai chicken salad. Don't miss it!