Mark Bittman’s Most Loved Recipes from The New York Times: Learn to Cook Healthy, Earth-Friendly Meals

Food writer and healthy eat­ing advo­cate Mark Bittman has “no patience” for those who say, “I’d love to cook but I have a lousy kitchen,” but that does­n’t make him a hec­tor­ing meanie in the Top Chef pan­elist mold:

To me the ques­tion was not, “Would I cook this as a native would?” but rather, “How would a native cook this if he had my ingre­di­ents, my kitchen, my back­ground?” It’s obvi­ous­ly a dif­fer­ent dish. But as Jacques Pépin once said to me, you nev­er cook a recipe the same way twice, even if you try. I nev­er main­tained that my way of cook­ing was the “best” way to cook, only that it’s a prac­ti­cal way to cook. (I’m lazy, I’m rushed, and I’m not all that skill­ful, and many peo­ple share those qual­i­ties.)

If you’ve made it to adult­hood with­out learn­ing how to cook, or for that mat­ter, how to eat for the good of your body and the plan­et, Bittman is your man.

With the excep­tion of his baroque, James Beard-inspired scram­bled eggs, his recipes are swift and sim­ple, and his well doc­u­ment­ed flex­i­bil­i­ty makes him a good fit for any num­ber of palates and dietary restric­tions.

Hav­ing intro­duced the world to the idea of eat­ing “veg­an before six,” he ditched his cushy New York Times colum­nist gig to start a plant-based meal kit ser­vice in San Fran­cis­co. The Pur­ple Car­rot’s stat­ed goal is not to get peo­ple to give up meat, but rather to up their intake of home cooked dish­es that are good for their health as well as the envi­ron­ment.

Ergo, he’s like­ly not too cha­grinned that this col­lec­tion of Bittman’s “most-loved recipes,” in a career span­ning more than 1500 bylines at the New York Times, includes such ingre­di­ents as chori­zo, may­on­naise, chick­en, and eggs.

Below you can find a selec­tion (a bak­er’s dozen) of favorite Bittman recipes for chefs at all lev­els, includ­ing absolute begin­ners, to try. (The com­plete list is here.) Their ingre­di­ents are fair­ly straight­for­ward, though Hol­ly Golight­ly types who store books in the oven, may have to upgrade the kitchen with some ramekins and a pas­try cut­ter.

• Clas­sic Scones [top]: Those with­out a food proces­sor can do as my grand­ma, an excel­lent, unfussy farm cook did, and cut the but­ter into the dough with two forks.
• Roast­ed Brus­sels Sprouts With Gar­lic:  The liv­er­wurst of veg­eta­bles no more! This is so sim­ple it’s bare­ly a recipe. More of a phi­los­o­phy. His sweet pota­to fries fall into the same cat­e­go­ry.
• Sim­plest Roast Chick­en: Per­fect to pack along on a Hem­ing­way pic­nic.

• Veg­etable Soup: This one pre­sumes a microwave. You can do it the old fash­ioned way by adding some water or boxed veg­etable stock to a stove­top pot. See? Cook­ing is easy!

• Roast­ed Sweet Pota­to Sal­ad With Black Beans and Chili Dress­ing: Home­made dress­ing is a skill worth acquir­ing.
• Fried Chick­peas With Chori­zo and Spinach: Lose the chori­zo and boom! It’s a veg­an entree.
• Corn and Crab Cakes: Don’t care for crab? Take a stab at one of Bittman’s 103 fish recipes and use the left­overs in place of the crus­tacean.
• Spiced Red Lentil Dal: This recipe costs less than the print edi­tion of the Times.

• Sautéed Shrimp With Capers and Olives: Unless your veg­an­ism is shap­ing up to be a 24/7 com­mit­ment, you’re gonna have to learn how to devein shrimp some­time, pal.

• Grilled Corn: You don’t even have to have a work­ing kitchen! Just a hibachi and a bowl!
• Fastest Pas­ta With Spinach Sauce: Love carbs? So does Bittman, as evi­denced by the num­ber of pas­ta recipes he’s pub­lished.
• Mex­i­can Choco­late Tofu Pud­ding: If one might frame a veg­an dessert in terms of killing birds, this is the stone that will pol­ish off your fear of tofu, ramekins…and veg­an desserts!
• Cham­pagne Cock­tail: Con­grat­u­la­tions! You’re a chef! Toast your accom­plish­ments.

Find all of Bittman’s New York Times recipes here. And even more on his web­site.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

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53 New York Times Videos Teach Essen­tial Cook­ing Tech­niques: From Poach­ing Eggs to Shuck­ing Oys­ters

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Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday