It’s no secret that Bon Appétit editors cook a lot for work. So it should come as no surprise that we cook a lot during our off hours too. Here are the recipes we’re whipping up this month to get dinner on the table, entertain our friends, satisfy a sweet tooth, use up leftovers, and everything in between. For even more staff favorites, click here.
October 23
Though I am a vegetarian chili gal myself, I just made a batch of pumpkin chili for a care package for a meat loving loved one. It has ground beef, two types of beans (I threw in lentils too), and instead of the typical tomato backdrop, a can of pumpkin purée for a glowing hue and squashy depth. I almost always double a soup recipe—more yield, barely more work—and I’m glad I did. Now I have a few extra containers in the freezer that’ll come in handy for a cold night down the road. —Emma Laperruque, cooking director
Also for the care package, I made a giant batch of Chickpea Saag. With frozen spinach and canned chickpeas, this recipe makes the most of ingredients I almost always have around. With rice, Greek yogurt, and lime wedges, it’s a cozy meal in its own right. But I like to sprinkle some feta on top just to gild the lily. —E.L.
I love hosting, but at the end of a long week, I need to maximize flavor and minimize dishes. That’s why I love this Spiced Red Rice Chicken recipe from Eden Eats. It allowed me to have everything prepped before guests arrived, so I could enjoy the hang and not fuss about timing. After seasoning chicken thighs generously with salt and letting them rest for 30 minutes, I seared them, set aside, and sautéed onions, garlic in all the flavor left over (I skipped the red pepper for one of my guests). I added additional spices and tomato paste and toasted the rice. I added chicken broth, placed the chicken back in skin side up, and tossed in some knobs of butter so the rice would crisp up nicely. Into the oven at 425 for 30 minutes, and it was yummy and convenient, not to mention a definite crowd-pleaser—and my dishwasher was happy! —Abi Lieff, assistant to the editor in chief
I’m not much of a pasta person. (I know, gasp!) But when fellow Test Kitchen buddy Rebecca Firkser first developed her Smashed Broccoli Pasta—a recipe that combines over a pound of broccoli with less than one pound of pasta—my heart opened up to the idea of making it for dinner. Her technique is genius, smashing broccoli into verdant rubble that burrows its way into tubular pasta. With not much more (just red pepper, garlic, and anchovies if you’re feeling frisky), you get a veggie-loaded, fiber-packed pasta in no time. Rebecca, thank you. Perhaps I will become a pasta convert. —Jesse Szewczyk, Senior Test Kitchen Editor
October 16
A fried fish sandwich has no season. Also, I’m currently in Tennessee, where it’s hit 90° this week, so it’s basically still summer. I used my colleague Shilpa Uskokovic’s excellent Fritto Misto batter to coat some flounder. After frying, I slid a couple small fillets into top-split hot dog buns with juicy slices of tomato and a quick tartar sauce. It was pure summer satisfaction, even this deep into October. —Joe Sevier, senior editor, SEO and cooking
We are squarely back in school and with that comes snack requests. The Gourmet stalwart, Chocolate Chip Cookies, remains a reliable favorite in our household. I know this is a hit because it’s the one requested by not just my own child, but her hungry friends. The 2026 update has me sprinkling just a touch of flaky salt on top of each one. —Hana Asbrink, deputy food editor
The days when my husband and I both commute are, to put it lightly, b-a-n-a-n-a-s. That’s when my deep freezer fulfills its destiny. Case in point: this superlative basil pesto, thawed overnight, tossed with hot rigatoni, plus frozen peas thrown in with the pasta for the last few minutes of boiling. It is nourishing and feels purposeful, even if it took less than 10 minutes of effort. —Emma Laperruque, cooking director
Andy Baraghani’s Honey-Chipotle Shrimp Tacos are one of my most-made recipes of all time. Last week I decided to change things up and eat the shrimp over some homemade Mexican rice and beans instead of wrapping them in a tortilla. The shrimp are so easy to make (just toss in a two-ingredient marinade and pan-fry) that I ended up cooking fresh batches for lunch on the following days to pair with the leftover rice and beans. The canned chipotles in adobo lend a smoky complexity, and I love how the honey helps the shrimp take on just enough char. A luxurious WFH lunch if there ever was one! —Alaina Chou, commerce writer
Soup on a weeknight? It’s a foreign concept to me. If I’m making soup, I’m committing hours to the cause. But this week I couldn’t quell my craving for a sippable bowl, so I scoured the archive for a quick hit and landed on this Curried Lentil, Tomato, and Coconut Soup. Red lentils break down and create a substantial body, while golden Japanese S&B curry powder adds a mellow earthy kick. After mixing in crushed tomatoes and coconut milk, I went rogue and followed up with a couple dashes of fish sauce for extra umami. —Nina Moskowitz, associate editor, cooking
October 9
The ever adaptable rotisserie chicken is one of my favorite emergency dinners. When crunched for time, I’ll grab one on my way home and transform the bird into something unrecognizable. Most recently, I used it to make Test Kitchen editor Rebecca Firkser’s Nuoc Cham Chicken Salad. The pulled meat is tossed with the quickest mayo-lime dressing, then stuffed into lettuce leaves. I like to finish the cups with sliced cucumber, fried shallots, and a flurry of fresh herbs. Don’t bother bringing out plates. I eat this with my hands straight from the platter like nachos. —Carly Westerfield, manager, audience strategy
Whenever I want something more for breakfast, but I don’t want to work for it, it’s a Dutch baby all the way. Heat a skillet with butter, dump a couple of always-on-hand ingredients—eggs, flour, milk, sugar—into a blender, and 20 minutes later, it isn’t breakfast: It’s brunch. Last weekend I tossed the reserved browned butter from Epi’s Take It Easy Dutch Baby into a bowl of sliced Italian plums. I added a glug of maple syrup and a pinch of salt, then let the fruit soak in the flavors while I fiddled over my coffee. Puffed bébé out of the oven, the plums and all their juices went on top, and I sat down to enjoy my morning. —Joe Sevier, senior editor, cooking and SEO
I make lentil soup pretty frequently once the “feels like” temperature dips below 50 degrees. And I was just about to mince up my mirepoix when I stumbled upon senior Test Kitchen editor Shilpa Uskokovic’s Soy-Braised Black Lentils. The promise of salty, tender-but-toothsome legumes on a bed of rice was good enough to shake up my routine. I hauled out my rice cooker, set it to steam, and started a dead-simple simmer of a pack of shiny black Beluga lentils with glugs of soy sauce and thin slices of garlic. Once the liquid was mostly gone, I stirred in glossy agave nectar plus added sugar until they formed a loose, syrupy glaze. We ate half the pot tucked into sheets of toasted seaweed snack along with generous spoonfuls of rice. The next morning, the rest was eaten with crusty bread and fried eggs. —Kelsey Jane Youngman, senior cooking editor
Ever since I started working at BA, I’ve seen this single recipe for Bolognese top the charts time and time again. An oldie but a baddie, it’s received over 500 comments that would taunt me on a daily basis, with one overall glaring thesis: Make this! Now! So I decided to hunker down, put on a killer album (Once in a Lifetime), and get comfortable in the kitchen. Yes, this Bolognese takes time—cough cough, three hours—but so do all good things. For those who need immediate gratification, your kitchen will be awash in the savory, primal smells of browned beef and pancetta in just 10 minutes. After adding a good amount of liquid from wine, stock, and milk (in stages), then stirring, dancing, and stirring, it was finally time to serve my meaty sauce tangled with fat pappardelle and a charitable shower of Parmesan. —Nina Moskowitz, associate editor, cooking
October 2
When I saw a bunch of bright-eyed leeks at the farmers market from my favorite vendor, I knew just what to do with them: my colleague Rebecca Firkser’s cheesy baked pasta. It was one of those love-at-first-sight recipes for me in the Test Kitchen—somehow minimalist and dramatic at the same time. Save this one for a chilly night when you’re having friends over. The sauce uses a cup of white wine, so there’s most of a bottle left to enjoy with dinner. —Emma Laperruque, cooking director
I’ve been making a lot of solo dinners lately, and nine times out of ten that means I’m cooking an omelet. My version with fried shallot, apple, and Fontina cheese is a go-to—I wrote all about it for our series, Me, Myself, and Dinner—but if I haven’t gone grocery shopping, I’ll just cobble together fun stuff from my fridge. Some recent wins: chopped kimchi and yellow cheddar; spinach, feta, and dill; black beans, avocado, and salsa macha. —Rebecca Firkser, Test Kitchen editor
This week I did something I haven’t done in years. I roasted a chicken. And it was revelatory. Not fussy. Easy! Rewarding. Inspired by the method in Kitty Cowles’s cookbook, I sprinkled the bird with salt and let it hang out in the fridge for a few hours. Then I rubbed it with olive oil, threw some lemon and garlic in the cavity, and roasted it as high as my oven would go, convection on. While the chicken was resting, its skin a golden crackle, I deglazed the pan juices with white wine, and let those simmer into a tangy gravy. Served with a salad, it was the coziest supper, even romantic if you ignore my toddler cooing. The next day, the carcass simmered in a pot of water with onion and ginger for a broth I’ll sip for days. The surplus meat has morphed into a rice bowl, towering sandwich, day care lunch box, 3 p.m. snack. And the joy from it all? Incalculable. —E.L.
I’m always on the hunt for a protein-rich, not-too-finicky dinner that I can pull together in a blip. It’s gotta taste good because I’ll probably cook it for five consecutive days, at which point I will tire of it and resume my hunt anew. Like sands through the hourglass, these are the recipes of our lives. This week I settled on customizable Soy-Glazed Salmon Bowls. Cook the salmon in that salty-sweet soy and honey sauce, throw it atop rice, and add whatever vegetables you have. This time, I went with shreddy carrots and cukes, plus some of those crispy sheets of nori that I used to scoop up bite after bite. —Sam Stone, senior editor
My very talented colleague Shilpa Uskokovic forever changed the way I cook ground chicken. She mixes the chicken with baking soda—yes, baking soda—for clusters of bouncy nubbins. Now, anytime a recipe calls for ground meat, I use this hack. This week’s victim: Spicy Chicken Lettuce Wraps. It has a sweet, fiery sauce made from sriracha, brown sugar, soy, and fish sauce that deliberately clings to the juicy meat. I piled the chicken into butter lettuce with a squeeze of lime, and a handful of torn mint for freshness. —Nina Moskowitz, associate editor, cooking
