Vegetable

The secret to juicy, tender, delicately steamed white-meat chicken and squash? Going slow.

The stems from Swiss chard shouldn't be trashed; they add texture and a layer of flavor to any sauté.

Buy good grains and always soak them. They'll cook more quickly and evenly when hydrated, and the soaking liquid can be used in finished dishes.

The real magic here is in the pool of schmaltz, AKA rendered chicken fat, sizzling in the pan.

Add this harissa to your next tomato sauce or try it with our Roast Chicken with Harissa and Schmaltz.

Spoon some of this butter over a pork chop during the last minute of cooking.

Try this in a frittata, folded into a grain salad, or in a hash with bacon.

The liquid is really up to you. Nut milks add body and protein, but if you prefer something sweeter, try juice. Less heavy? Go with coconut water.

This deep savory dressing makes simply cooked vegetables come to life.

Try these tossed in slaw, stirred into soup, or fried with roasted veg to make fritters.

Try this with white beans on toast, in salads, or puréed and spread on pita.

Try this alongside a chicken cutlet, on a turkey sandwich, or thrown into a stir-fry.

Spend some time making this, and you'll have an easy, fast way to add nuanced flavor.

Charred onions offer the best of three worlds: a slightly bitter taste (in a good way), caramelized edges, and crunchy-sweet flesh. If you want to eat them like potato chips, we won't tell.

Once you make a rich, fragrant broth like this one you’ll never go back to the packaged stuff.

The clams give up all their essence in this rich coconut-based stock. It's great for curries, or use it as the liquid base for a pot of steamed mussels or littleneck clams.

Caldo verde means "green broth" in Portuguese, and it is Portugal's unofficial national dish. This beautiful green soup is technically a hot smoothie, since its many nutritious greens are pureed together in a blender. Chickpeas are an important ingredient here, too. Fiber- and protein-rich, they've been shown in studies to help people lose weight. For added protein, top with 4 ounces of shredded chicken or add 2 dozen clams to the broth.

I used to be put off by poaching chicken as I feared it was more complicated than my simple fried version. But it's actually much easier, because while the chicken poaches you can prepare the rest of the food. These days I often poach 3 or 4 chicken breasts at a time, then keep them in the fridge so I can toss them into salads over the following days. Poaching really helps to keep the moisture in the meat, so the end result is much more enjoyable than dried, overcooked chicken.

A lot of people assume that being healthy means that red meat is off the menu. But I'm delighted to say that it's very much on mine. That said, I am a stickler for ensuring that the meat we eat is of the highest quality and that it is always paired with an abundance of vegetables. Plants are always my main focus, but a little bit of good-quality meat here and there has worked best for me. I have tried being vegan and vegetarian but my health suffered during those phases. We are, after all, omnivores and so, unless you have a specific dislike of, issue with or reaction to meat, I think it's a food group that has an important role in our diet. If you like carpaccio, this recipe also works incredibly well with the beef served raw and very finely sliced.

There are many ways to make beet soup, the most well-known of all being borscht, the hearty Russian classic that also contains veggies like potatoes and cabbage. Beet soup can be eaten cold, so we like to make it with more delicate flavors and puree it. Here, the ginger beautifully balances the beet, and the coconut milk adds a nice fat component. We find citrus finishes this dish perfectly, so we garnish it with a bit of orange.