
21 Recipes You Should Be Cooking This January
From hearty kale soup and easy chicken broth to crispy Brussels sprouts and herby beans, these 21 recipes will start your year on a simple, refreshing note.
This January, we’re focused on crunchy green salads, seasonal winter produce, craveable vegetable-heavy dishes, and undemanding but delicious soups. As much as we love hefty plates of prime rib, we’re admittedly excited to leave extravagant holiday dinners behind and move onto simple meals that keep us warm and well-fed during this month’s chilly, crisp nights.
Salads
Fennel, Almond, and Pecorino Salad
For a bright, crunchy salad, use fennel, chopped almonds, parsely, and grated pecorino cheese with a simple dressing of extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, and Dijon mustard. Make it even heartier by adding grilled shrimp or artichoke hearts.
Salmon Sesame Salad
This lemongrass chile dressing is a recipe you’ll use over and over again, but we especially love it on this salmon, cabbage, snow pea, avocado, orange, and cilantro salad.
Roasted Vegetable Salad with Honey Dressing
A touch of honey in this warm salad brings out the natural sweetness in roasted onions, sweet potatoes, fennel, and bell peppers. (Of course, you can change up the vegetables to whatever you want.) For an extra layer of flavor, serve with shaved parmesan or asiago cheese.
Easy Soups
Butternut Squash and Corn Soup
Make this silky squash soup on a particularly chilly January night. Corn adds a sweet note, while chicken broth makes it extra flavorful.
Creamy Pumpkin Seed and Green Chile Posole
We remade the usual pork-based posole as a vegetarian version with toasted pumpkin seeds, green chile, zucchini, and vegetable broth. For a vegan version, just skip the final sprinkle of cotija cheese.
Red Russian Kale and Chorizo Soup (Caldo Verde)
A little bit of heat sets this kale and chorizo soup apart from being another run-of-the-mill broth. When you’re at the farmers’ market, look for Red Russian kale, a mild-flavored heirloom variety with a purple and gray-green color.
Healthy-ish Dinners
Sweet and Spicy Red Kuri Squash Bowl
Beautiful orange slices of roasted red kuri squash and scoops of coconut rice are topped with a sticky sweet and spicy sauce. You can use any Asian chile paste or sauce in your refrigerator to add a touch of heat, but we especially like Huy Fong Foods’ sambal oelek.
Miso-Marinated Black Cod
Created by chef Nobu Matsuhisa in New York more than 20 years ago, this delicate, buttery dish is the simple, healthy dinner we crave after all those extravagant holiday parties. Our version features green onions and ginger.
Flageolet Beans with Rosemary and Thyme
It takes just a few minutes to prep the ingredients for this herby pot of beans, then they simmer to tenderness in a slow-cooker. There’s no need to soak the beans beforehand; they cook to a tender finish straight from the package.
Garbanzo-Tomato Curry
You probably have most of the ingredients to this comforting Garbanzo Tomato Curry in your pantry already. The base of this dish is canned beans and diced tomatoes plus a mix of spices, so there’s not much pre-planning necessary.
Bengali Five-Spice Roasted Chicken and Vegetables
Chicken legs and thighs, bell peppers, potatoes, and carrots are tossed in panch phoron — a five-spice blend of black mustard seeds, fennel seeds, nigella seeds, fenugreek seeds, and cumin seeds — and roasted in a very hot oven to toast the spices. This dish brings almost as much comfort as your favorite oversized sweater.
The Best of Seasonal Produce
Baked Eggs with Leeks and Mushrooms
Take advantage of leek season with this super easy one-pan supper. Roast mushrooms and leeks for 10 minutes, then add eggs and goat cheese and bake for another 10 minutes. We like it with crusty bread and runny yolks.
Brussels Sprout Salad with Pecorino and Tangerines
January is prime season for Brussels sprouts, so if you’ve never had raw Brussels before, now’s the time. This raw sprouts salad is very straightforward, which lets the sweet tangerines and sharp pecorino shine.
Crispy Brussels Sprouts with Prosciutto Chips
In Antoni Porowski’s new cookbook Antoni in the Kitchen, the Queer Eye food and wine expert writes, “Brussels sprouts are one of my favorite vegetables, and I’ve had them every which way. At home, I always come back to keeping them simple: charred on the outside, with a nice firm-tender bite in the center. Prosciutto chips add a deliciously smoky, meaty umami bite.”
Tip: Cutting a little V into the base of each spout makes for even cooking while keeping the leaves intact.
Crispy Brussels Sprouts with Prosciutto Chips is excerpted from ANTONI IN THE KITCHEN © 2019 by Antoni Porowski with Mindy Fox. Photography © 2019 by Paul Brissman. Reproduced by permission of Rux Martin Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.
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