Tomato

Our best recipe for moussaka has layers of eggplant, rich tomato sauce with ground lamb, and a pillowy, bronzed béchamel top. Plus: It can be made ahead.

Saying these are better than our nonna’s would be a bad idea, but she’ll never know if we just think it…

Harissa, a spicy North African paste of chiles, garlic, and spices, is available in many large grocery stores and Middle Eastern markets—some brands come in tubes, others are sold in jars. If you can’t find it, though, substitute by mixing together your favorite hot sauce, tomato paste, a pinch or two of ground cumin, and a drizzle of olive oil. Keep playing with the ratios until you have a medium-spicy paste.

This is a perfect recipe to make when you have bought too many tomatoes at the market and they are starting to show their age.

Cooking bacon in the oven on a sheet tray is so hands-off, so splatter-free, and so easy, it just might convince you to eat a lot more bacon in the future.

Plenty of cheese, peak summer tomatoes, tons of garlic, and a cracker crust make for a totally addicting savory pie.

You want that lamb fat to render out gently; it’ll eventually become part of the sauce that will tie the whole dish together.

The juices from the tomatoes, squash, and dressing make for a magical combination—you’ll need crusty bread to soak it up with.

This sauce tastes like a cross between ranch and Alabama white sauce, which means you can basically put it on anything.

Serve this salad as soon as it is assembled so all of the tomato juices and flavor stay where they belong.

Any type of tomatoes will work, though cherry tomatoes hold their shape well. If what you’ve got is a couple of ripe beefsteaks or Romas, cut them into 1" pieces and carry on.

Ground turkey is hardly the stuff of flavor fireworks, but turkey sausage, preseasoned and ready to cook, tends to have great flavor right out of the package.

The chicken bouillon, though optional, adds a hint of umami and a richness that you won’t get otherwise.

Sabich, a popular Israeli street food, is a pita-busting combination of a bunch of great appetizers.

Lightly browning the beans and aromatics for a few minutes before you add the tomatoes gives a lot of depth of flavor to the sauce.

Stuffed cabbage is great for a crowd, but if you find yourself with a lot of leftovers, it freezes well too.

Tired of spinach in your smoothie? This recipe is the perfect way to eat something green in the morning.

For a hearty vegetarian version of this pasta recipe, use squash, mushrooms, or eggplants in place of shrimp.

If you don’t happen to have or particularly enjoy pastrami, bacon or pancetta would be a delicious substitute for this minestrone recipe. Check out step-by-step photos here.

These are extra saucy and a little sweet like the original SpaghettiOs, but with grown-up flavors all around.