You know what’s surprisingly annoying? Draining frozen spinach after it’s thawed. I always feel deceived by this seemingly friendly freezer staple. Sure, it’s a shortcut to so many delicious dishes (hello, spinach dip), but then smash cut to me picking teeny tiny bits of green out of my colander and off of my hands for what feels like eternity. I give myself a pep talk as I get to that step in a recipe: You’ve got this. Don’t let the spinach win.
Hetty Lui McKinnon must understand, because her new recipe for weeknight spinach and ricotta lasagna doesn’t require draining any of the frozen spinach. In fact, that extra moisture is necessary to keep things nice and saucy. (The only thing sadder than no lasagna is dry lasagna.) Perked up with chile flakes and fresh herbs, it’s the sort of clever, cheater-y dinner that feels like an absolute win — no cursing at your colander required.
Featured Recipe
Weeknight Spinach and Ricotta Lasagna
The clever part of Melissa Clark’s spiced salmon with sugar snap peas and red onion is that the peas and onions cook in the baharat-seasoned rendered salmon fat, turning them crisp-tender and savory. Everything is enhanced with a strong squeeze of lime and a shower of mint or cilantro (or both) for a 30-minute dinner that smacks of spring.
You need exactly five ingredients (not counting salt and pepper) to make these chicken miso meatballs from Kay Chun. One of those ingredients is Ritz crackers — their buttery, salty richness helps the meatballs stay juicy. You could eat the remainder of them out of hand or save them for Eric Kim’s Ritzy Cheddar chicken breasts or Sarah DiGregorio’s cracker-topped cod.
This taverna salad from Lidey Heuck — a cross between Greek salad and fattoush — has a longer ingredient list, but it’s exactly the sort of fresh, crunchy salad I want to feed myself on a Saturday afternoon after a Friday night out. To continue my good-for-me vegetable consumption, I’ll take a cue from several reader notes on this five-star Melissa Clark recipe for coconut-lime shrimp and add in some veggies: green beans, snap peas, maybe baby bok choy?
And because I’m all about balance: Here’s the world’s best chocolate cake, a recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh. Despite the daunting name, it’s both easy to make (the batter comes together in one bowl; no tricky chocolate melting) and versatile (you could swap the ganache icing for Melissa’s not-too-sweet cream cheese frosting or, really, nothing at all). It is, to quote my colleague Nikita Richardson, peak Bruce Bogtrotter-core.
