America's Test Kitchen

Though they look a lot like English muffins, these Portuguese “cakes” (“bolos” means “cakes” and “lêvedos” means “leavened”), originally from the Azores, are denser and richer, with a fair amount of sweetness and a rich crumb thanks to whole milk, eggs, and butter. Inspired by a visit to Central Bakery, a Portuguese bakery in Tiverton, Rhode Island, that turns out dozens of bolos lêvedos a day, we set out to create a smaller-scale recipe for the home kitchen. First, to ensure that the dough would be hydrated enough to create a tender finished product, we followed a method called tangzhong, which involves quickly heating a small portion of flour and liquid to form a paste before mixing in the rest of the ingredients. This helped hydrate the dough quickly and created a more workable dough (it also helped the cooked bolos stay fresh for longer). To further ensure full hydration and tender bolos, we included an autolyse step: mixing everything together (except for the sugar and salt) and allowing it to rest for 15 minutes to fully hydrate and get a head start on gluten development. Adding a bit of lemon zest and cinnamon to the dough gave our muffins the subtle flavors and aromas of citrus and warm spice. After a traditional two-stage rise, we browned our muffins in a skillet and finished cooking them in the oven, which yielded slightly sweet, moist cakes fit for breakfast.

Using a preheated Dutch oven provided just the right amount of heat to wilt hearty bitter greens without actually cooking them. We started by sautéing vegetables in the pot and then pulled the pot off the heat to let it cool slightly. When we added the greens, the warm vegetables slightly softened the greens and helped the entire salad retain heat longer. Finally, carefully choosing mix-ins that delivered a wide range of flavors and textures made these salads truly satisfying entrées.

Are you guilty of letting an open can of chipotles fester away in the back of the fridge? With this easy tip, never again!

For our Sloppy Joes with Kimchi Slaw, using store-bought kimchi was a quick and easy way to add both bold flavor and crunch to a quick slaw.

For this bright dip that is inspired by beet dips found in Middle Eastern cuisine, we roasted and shredded beets and then mixed them with creamy Greek yogurt, nutty tahini, oil, garlic, lemon juice, and seasonings. The tahini added a little bitterness and the lemon juice added tang to balance the sweetness of the beets. Letting the dip sit for 30 minutes allowed the flavors to meld and the beets' color to fully come through. A sprinkle of fresh dill added contrasting color and freshness.

In moderation, char adds alluring bitterness, smoke, and depth.

Inspired by Italian fava bean salads, this salad pairs frozen shelled edamame with a garlicky lemon dressing, pungent Pecorino Romano cheese, and refreshing fresh mint and parsley. We blanched the edamame in heavily salted water for 5 minutes to ensure that they were seasoned all the way through and softened just a bit, allowing the dressing to cling to their exteriors.

To promote even cooking, we first cut the large cauliflower florets away from the core with kitchen shears and then cut them into smaller 1-inch florets. We cut the denser, longer-cooking core into ½-inch pieces. Just ¼ cup of olive oil heated in a nonstick skillet ensured that both the florets and the core pieces cooked evenly without burning. Cooking the cauliflower uncovered and with minimal stirring for the first few minutes allowed it to fit better in the skillet, and stirring more frequently for the final few minutes produced even tenderness and browning. A bit of red pepper flakes and Pecorino Romano cheese enhanced rather than overshadowed the cauliflower's delicate, nutty, slightly sweet caramel flavor.

To develop a bone-in chicken breast recipe that would produce moist, tender, and crisp-skinned breasts, we turned to pan-roasting, a restaurant technique in which food is browned in a skillet on the stovetop and then slid, skillet and all, into a hot oven to finish cooking. We brined the breasts first for moist and better-seasoned chicken. After cooking the chicken at 450 degrees for crisp skin, we used the caramelized drippings, or fond, left in the pan to make a quick and flavorful sauce for our bone-in chicken breast recipe.

Why would we use the air fryer for a quick-cooking protein like shrimp? It makes the process hands-off and easy. We tossed fennel and shrimp in a spicy, sharp mixture of extra-virgin olive oil, tart tomato paste, oregano, pepper flakes, and fresh garlic. Then we softened and lightly browned the fennel. Now it was just a matter of placing our shrimp on the vegetable and cooking them till they were tender. We used the remaining oil mixture to toss the fennel and shrimp with cannellini beans, sun-dried tomatoes, watercress, and pepperoncini.

Pairing citrus with cream cheese for our best lemon cheesecake recipe required finding the perfect balance of juice, zest, and sugar so that the citrus flavor would be neither too fleeting nor too harsh. Lemon curd on top of the cake gave our lemon cheesecake recipe special pizzazz.

For a stir-fry with well-browned, tender, and savory beef, just follow these guidelines. Start with full-flavored flank steak. Marinate the beef in soy sauce to ensure that each slice is well seasoned. Use a large skillet and cook in batches to get the best browning. Add aromatics such as ginger and garlic at the last minute to prevent them from scorching.

It makes staying clean and organized a lot easier.

Sometimes the simplest recipes get overcomplicated as more and more versions are made. For this carrot-ginger soup, we decided to go back to the basics. With a combination of cooked carrots and carrot juice, we were able to get well-rounded, fresh carrot flavor. Using a mixture of ginger products, we were able to get bright, refreshing ginger flavor with a moderate kick of heat. Finally, for a smooth texture without the fuss of straining, we added a touch of baking soda to help break down the carrots and ginger, producing a silken creamy result.

Fudgy brownies contain less flour than cakey ones, so it made sense to start with our favorite recipe for fudgy brownies and use our flour blend instead. With cocoa powder, unsweetened chocolate, and bittersweet chocolate, this recipe delivers intense chocolate flavor. But when made with our flour blend, the brownies were a bit dry and dense (even for a fudgy brownie), and there was a subtle graininess. Cutting back on the amount of flour helped give the brownies the right moist, fudgy texture, and resting the batter for 30 minutes before baking gave the starches in our flour blend time to hydrate and soften. But reducing the amount of flour also had an unwanted side effect: The chocolate flavor fell out of balance. Now our brownies had a bitter edge. Both unsweetened chocolate and cocoa powder were candidates for elimination since they are on the more bitter end of the chocolate spectrum. Brownies made without cocoa lacked structure—so it had to stay. Dropping the unsweetened chocolate was a big step in the right direction, and switching the bittersweet out for semisweet chocolate eliminated the bitter flavor altogether.

Lasagna isn’t usually a dish you can throw together at the last minute. Even with no-boil noodles, it takes a good amount of time to get the components just right. Our goal was to transform traditional baked lasagna into a stovetop skillet dish without losing any of its flavor or appeal.

We built a hearty, flavorful meat sauce with onions, garlic, red pepper flakes, and meatloaf mix (a more flavorful alternative to plain ground beef). A large can of diced tomatoes along with tomato sauce provided juicy tomato flavor and a nicely chunky texture. We scattered regular curly-edged lasagna noodles, broken into pieces, over the top of the sauce (smaller pieces are easier to eat and serve). We then diluted the sauce with a little water so that the noodles would cook through. After a 20-minute simmer with the lid on, the pasta was tender, the sauce was properly thickened, and it was time for the cheese. Stirring Parmesan into the dish worked well, but we discovered that the sweet creaminess of ricotta was lost unless we placed it in heaping tablespoonfuls on top of the lasagna. Replacing the lid and letting the cheese warm through for several minutes was the final step for this super-easy one-pan dish.