Browse recipes

A crunchy swap for chips: chickpeas dried hard, roasted until deep golden, then tossed hot with smoked paprika, cumin and garlic powder. Protein and fiber for very few calories.

A revithada-style chickpea stew: soft, warming and quietly spiced with cumin and smoked paprika. Ready in half an hour and lovely spooned over rice.

Game-day wings, baked not fried. Cauliflower florets dipped in a simple seasoned batter, baked until crisp, tossed in buffalo sauce and returned to the oven until sticky. Served with celery sticks and vegan ranch.

A no-cook chickpea chaat that's tangy, fresh and ready in ten minutes. Chickpeas tossed with red onion, cucumber and tomato, brightened with lemon and chaat masala.

A cheap, batch-friendly workhorse: mixed peppers cooked down until silky with sweet onions and tomato, then folded through chickpeas and finished with red wine vinegar and parsley.

Fakes, the Greek lentil soup that's the gentlest way back to solid food. Brown lentils simmered soft with tomato, oregano and bay, then lifted at the end with a slug of red wine vinegar and good olive oil.

The classic dry curry of potato and cauliflower, steamed gently under a lid with turmeric and coriander, then finished uncovered so the edges catch and crisp. The side dish that quietly steals the plate.

Whole carrots roasted buried in salt until they collapse to a silky, translucent texture, then peeled, sliced on a long diagonal and steeped in smoke, oil and vinegar. The salt crust does the work: it seasons and dehydrates at once.

A crunchy chopped salad of tomato, cucumber and herbs with shards of toasted pita, dressed in lemon, sumac and pomegranate molasses. Sharp and refreshing.

Collards braised slowly with onion, garlic, ginger and turmeric until they turn silky and sweet. Mild, garlicky and green. The calm dish on an Ethiopian plate.

Boricha: roasted barley simmered into a nutty, toasty, faintly sweet brown tea, drunk cold all summer instead of water. No sugar at all.

Ripe watermelon blended with water and lime into something lighter and more drinkable than juice. Five minutes of work and it tastes like the middle of summer.

Eggplants burnt black over a flame until the flesh collapses, then beaten with tahini, lemon and garlic. Smoky, loose and nothing like a puree of raw eggplant.

Chickpeas, tahini, garlic and lemon blended smooth, loosened with aquafaba (the liquid from the chickpea can) so it stays creamy without extra fat. Served with carrot, cucumber and pepper sticks.

Frozen edamame pods boiled for five minutes and tossed with flaky salt, chili flakes and a little toasted sesame oil. One of the highest-protein snacks you can make from a freezer bag.

Dried chrysanthemum flowers and goji berries steeped into a pale gold, honeyed-floral tea, served cold with the softened berries still in the glass.

Green beans blistered in a hot pan until they wrinkle and char in places, then tossed with garlic, soy and sesame. Ten minutes, one pan, and they disappear.

Indian lemonade, made savory with black salt and roasted cumin. Sweet, sour, salty and faintly smoky. The fastest cure there is for a hot afternoon.

A parsley salad first and a grain salad second: bright, lemony and green, with just enough bulgur to give it body. The kind of thing that makes everything else on the table taste better.

A clear, savory broth with silken tofu, shiitake and seaweed. The one rule is never to boil it once the miso goes in: that is what turns it flat and grainy.

The peels people throw away, scraped clean, forked into strands and cooked down with smoked paprika and barbecue sauce until they go dark, sticky and unnervingly meaty. It costs nothing and it convinces almost everybody.

Watermelon and mango cut small and salted early so they give up their water in a colander rather than in the bowl, then tossed with red onion, chili, lime and cilantro. Sweet, sharp and hot at once, and it stays a salsa instead of collapsing into juice.

No cooking, one bowl, fifteen minutes. Chickpeas, cucumber, tomato and kalamata olives tossed in a sharp lemon and red wine vinegar dressing, with plenty of parsley and mint. Holds its own as a light lunch or shrinks to a side.

The Provençal summer-vegetable stew, cooked the honest way: each vegetable browned so it keeps its character, then folded together to melt into a glossy, herby whole.

Lentils and rice cooked together under a heap of deeply caramelized onions, warmed with cumin, coriander and a whisper of cinnamon. The most filling plate in the set: the lentils make it stick with you far longer than rice alone.

A dark, herby, aggressively savory spiced water: mint, cilantro, tamarind and roasted cumin. Drunk as an appetiser, and it genuinely works as one.

Cannellini or butter beans forked into a chunky, garlicky spread with olive oil and lemon, piled onto good toast and topped with sliced tomato, herbs and chili flakes. Ten minutes, and far more filling than it looks.

A block of chilled silken tofu turned out whole and dressed with soy, sesame oil, ginger and scallion. No cooking at all, and on the table in five minutes.

Good bread toasted hard, rubbed with a cut clove of garlic, then with the cut face of a ripe tomato until the crumb is stained red. Salt, olive oil, and nothing else.

A whole celery root scored deep, rubbed with oil and thyme and roasted slowly until the outside goes mahogany and crackling and the inside turns sweet and custardy. It comes to the table whole and gets carved like a joint.

Rice simmered far past the point of holding its shape, until the grains collapse into a loose, savory porridge. Ginger goes in at the start and scallions at the end, and every bowl is finished with soy and a few drops of sesame oil.