Cured Meat

This seasonal chopped salad features roasted squash, bacon, walnuts, hard-boiled eggs, cheddar, apple, and kale tossed in a sweet maple vinaigrette.

Plain scalloped potatoes are good but loaded like a baked potato–with scallions, sour cream, cheddar, and bacon–they’re exponentially better.

A few hours transform hunks of brisket, smoky chiles, and zero beans into this stunning bowl of red.

With vibrant spice, this classic Italian tomato sauce gets richness from cured pork and Pecorino.

Impart the flavors of a smoker into this fully stovetop pasta sauce with a trio of ingredients: smoked bacon, smoked paprika, and spicy chipotles in adobo.

One jar of kimchi does a lot in this saucy, one-pan dinner. The chopped kimchi adds texture and tang while the brine from the jar bulks out the pan sauce.

Comprised of a custardy pantry-forward okonomiyaki batter studded with shredded cabbage and bacon, this Japanese pancake is a fast track to dinner.

These stuffed buns are everything frozen pizza pockets dream of being.

This luscious, impossibly tender brisket is the dinner party main you’ve been searching for—and you can make the whole thing in advance.

This crispy-but-tender fried tuna is reminiscent of its porky namesake—particularly when paired with rich refried beans and bright pickled onions.

Caviar sounds fancy, but it can also be a handy pantry ingredient in the form of cured salmon roe. You can start by topping smashed potatoes as shown here.

From maple-glazed to collard-braised, this list is full of champions.

Rich, smoky, and complexly sweet, these from-scratch baked beans are worth the long—mostly hands-off—cook time.

These collard greens are great to make for a dinner party when you need to keep your oven and stovetop free.

Call it retro if you want—we say this classic bacon and cheese quiche is timeless.

This cozy pasta is a twist on a white Bolognese, with no tomatoes in sight. Swap in chicken legs if you prefer—rabbit tastes a lot like dark meat poultry.

Crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside, this smothered fried chicken with polenta and herb gremolata is perfect for a dinner party. 

Salt. Fat. Acid. Bacon. Hot fat from bacon drippings douses vinegar-drenched spring greens for a tasty salad to end all salads.

Make this spicy rigatoni your new go-to Sunday sauce. The meaty sauce has a host of flavor enhancers not often found in traditional sugos. 

Humble ingredients—eggs, pasta, cheese, and pork—combine to create glossy, glorious spaghetti carbonara that’s just as good at dinner as at 2 a.m.

A nod to Cuban black beans (with a twist!), doubling down on the pork for twice the flavor.

Cranberry sauce, mustard, leftover sliced turkey, a few pieces of bacon (never hurt!), and three pieces of bread make this sandwich a post-holiday slam dunk.

Salty, crunchy, sweet, and meaty, this warm mix is a combination of party appetizer heavy hitters.

This refried beans recipe comes from cookbook author Rick Martinez’s dad, who uses salt pork and bacon drippings for deeply savory beans.