The Dinner Plan

In this episode of The Dinner Plan, cookbook author Nora Singley shares the story behind Martha Stewart's famous one-pot pasta, a pasta recipe that's been riffed on so many times you probably don't even remember the first time you saw it. Nora's new book dives deep on the method, and here, she shares the many reasons why it can actually be better to skip the separate pot of boiling...

“A lot of my books have been very much about reflecting traditional Chinese cooking and trying to just report accurately on what I find in China,” Fuchsia Dunlop says in this episode of The Dinner Plan podcast. For her new cookbook, Five Tastes , the author of Land of Fish and Rice , The Food of Sichuan , and Every Grain of Rice , among other Chinese cookbooks, found herself reflecting on the flav...

Jeanine Donofrio of Love and Lemons was in a cooking rut. Rushing through busy weeknight dinners made cooking so much less enjoyable, and she missed the days when she had time to linger in the kitchen. Her dinners felt boring, too. With small kids underfoot, “If I took 20 minutes longer to do something, everyone would kind of be off the rocker. And it’s just not enjoyable to cook that way," J...

John Kanell of Preppy Kitchen is practical about dinner; he’ll use two air fryers at once to get chicken on the table fast. But the former middle school teacher sees baking as an important outlet for his family, and a way to make even leftovers-for-dinner nights feel special. In this episode of The Dinner Plan, John shares his go-to quick dinners, the doughs he'll stash in the freezer for enjo...

Mark Bittman's latest cookbook, How to Cook Everything Vegan , isn't meant to convince you to declare yourself a 24/7 vegan. Instead, Mark explains in this episode of The Dinner Plan with Maggie Hoffman, he's trying to inspire you to cook more plant-based meals. (And trying to help you make them delicious.) "If I say to you, we're doing How to Cook Everything Grilling, everybo...

Kay Chun has created numerous recipes for the New York Times, and worked in the test kitchens at Gourmet, Bon Appétit, and Food + Wine in addition to being a restaurant chef. She's one of my go-to trusted names when I'm looking for new dinner recipes. In this episode, Kay talks about how her youth practicing tae kwon do prepared her for life in a restaurant, and shares the way she thinks a...

Meal prep systems can feel like an all-or-nothing commitment, but Leah Victoria thinks there’s a reasonable way to prep some dinner building blocks without committing to a full week of recipes that you cook on Sunday and get sick of by Wednesday. In Episode 132 of The Dinner Plan, Leah shares her flexible meal planning philosophy, ideas for what to make with shredded chicken, ways to use up leftov...

Yotam Ottolenghi’s new cookbook, Simple Too , makes weeknight dinners even easier than the original book did. In this episode of The Dinner Plan, Yotam admits that he feels pressure to host the perfect dinner party, and so he’s set himself a few rules to cut down the stress of entertaining. He walks us through the whole menu he's preparing for guests tonight, and also shares his favorite no-fu...

Two-time Top Chef finalist Sara Bradley loves to play with soup recipes, and in this episode of The Dinner Plan, she shares her favorite ways to dress up squash soup, tomato soup, corn soup, and cantaloupe soup. (Yes, cantaloupe soup.) Sara also shares the story of her famed cornbread salad, the flavor-boosting ingredients that she reaches for most, and the easy dinner she makes when she really ne...

As a teenager, Meherwan Irani would sneak out to eat street food against his mother’s wishes. These days the chef of Chai Pani and Boti Walla shares the flavors of his childhood in India with guests at his restaurants, and cooks at home through the pages of his new cookbook, No. 1 Best Indian Cookbook in the World: At-Home Recipes from the Streets, Truck Stops, Villages, and Palaces of India . In...

Nik Sharma wants home cooks to better understand food science; in this episode of The Dinner Plan, he shares some of the best cooking tips from his new book, Fundamentals of Flavor: 100 Recipes for the Science of Better Cooking , and why they work. If you’ve ever struggled with dry pork tenderloin, you’ll want to listen in before you try to make that quick dinner staple again. Hear about Nik’s fav...

Cortney LaCorte—also known as Cheese Gal—joins The Dinner Plan this week to share her best advice on how to make a cheese plate and all the ways she makes entertaining more relaxed. That includes tips on what to cook for a dinner party, the most important thing you can do for a dinner party guest, and the cleaning detail you really can skip. What to make with Boursin? Cortney's all over that. On t...

Olivia Tiedemann will be the first to tell you that working as a private chef isn't easy. You've gotta know what each guest likes and doesn't like, all the dietary restrictions, "who doesn't eat anchovies, who doesn't eat onions, who doesn't eat dairy. And there's 12 of them, and they're all there at one time," Olivia says. "How am I going to contort this same entree seven different ways?" But ult...

You may know Pati Jinich from her long-running series, Pati’s Mexican Table, or her previous cookbooks, but this fall you’ll be seeing a lot more of her, including her new docuseries, Panamericana, and her new cookbook, Foods of La Frontera . In this episode of The Dinner Plan, Pati chats with host Maggie Hoffman about the surprising dishes she tried while traveling along the Mexican-American bord...

When Carla Lalli separated from her ex and moved part-time into a sublet after decades of marriage, the first thing she did was make dinner. “I cooked because it gives me a sense of comfort,” Carla says in this week’s episode of The Dinner Plan. “It makes me feel like I’m in power, and it’s soothing, and it is a way to shut off other noise.” Carla shares the meals she made as she got in touch with...

The high-protein vegetarian recipes in Grace Elkus's new cookbook, Protein-Packed Vegetarian , are exactly the kind of dinners I crave, packed with flavor and easy to make, even on a busy weeknight. In this episode of The Dinner Plan, I talk to Grace about her must-have kitchen gear, how to cook tofu so it actually gets crispy, and what to do if you just haven't come around to the idea of cottage...

I've been looking forward to chef Pim Techamuanvivit's Thai cookbook for years. It's an essential guide to cooking Thai food, including fresh curry pastes, grilled dishes, curries, soups, and laab. In this episode of The Dinner Plan, I talk to Pim about how she learned all the Thai recipes she'd missed from home, why it matters that you seek out Thai ingredients to cook these recipes, and everythi...

Steel Russell started The 99% Cooking Club after walking out of the grocery store with a single bag of food that cost $150. He focuses on tips for making easy, cheap meals taste complex and flavorful, and shares recipes for family dinners that stretch your grocery budget. In this episode of The Dinner Plan, we talk through the best budget-friendly ingredients to buy right now, and how to thin...

When you ask cookbook author Alex MacLaren how to save money on groceries, her answer is simple: don't go to the store for as long as possible. The author of We Use What We Have is known for making family dinners on a budget, thanks to smart substitutions and a lot of flexibility. Sometimes, you just gotta let things run out. In this episode, Alex explains why she doesn't think about meal plans un...

Pierce Abernathy is my go-to source for summer vegetable inspiration, and he's exactly the recipe developer I turn to when I want to make the most of summer corn and tomatoes in every dinner I cook before the season ends. But Pierce's new cookbook, Every Leaf, Every Stem , goes beyond the pretty produce that gets all the attention and aims to help you fall in love with celeriac and rutabaga, mushr...

Caroline Chambers knows how to make easy dinners easier , and the mother of four needs quick weeknight recipes now more than ever. In this episode of The Dinner Plan, Caroline shares a bit of her behind-the-scenes chaos and her strategy for meal prep that won’t leave you bored. She says everything that’s going on has made her an even better recipe developer, because her mindset is "if you’re putti...

Next Level Chef contestant Omi Hopper has published a new cookbook full of essential Puerto Rican recipes—the ones that feel like a welcome home to the folks who follow her on Instagram and TikTok. In this episode of The Dinner Plan, she shares her story. She was working as a makeup artist when her husband was laid off; she worried about how they'd pay for groceries. Find out how she ended up cook...

Serena Wolf hosts a big pool party every year, and in this episode of The Dinner Plan, she's sharing her go-to bbq menu and the mac and cheese trick that always impresses her guests. Her new book, You Do You , is full of easy dinner recipes, all including advice on simple ingredient swaps. She offers meal planning advice that's really helpful, too. Quick summer dinners shouldn't be stressful, and...

Getting your kid ready to go to college includes a lot of tangible stuff, like dorm setup. But they might also be cooking dinner for the very first time in their first apartment or a university-housing kitchen, and chef Claire Thomson has all the advice they need for that. Her new book, Dear Grace , is full of quick dinner recipes and meal planning advice for new cooks, including ways to cook on a...

This episode highlights so many Italian vegetable recipes: ideas for cooking eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini, peppers and all the other produce that's at its peak right now. Your expert guide: Tuscan cooking teacher and cookbook author Giulia Scarpaleggia, whose most recent book is Vegetables the Italian Way . Tune in to learn why you should salt your eggplant even though modern versions aren't as bi...