If you’ve been tuning into Recipe Drop, or Break an Egg, you’ve likely seen César, Nea, Anna, and a few special guests in our Test Kitchen making recipes that you’ve mentally filed under “must try this.”
Well, Memorial Day weekend is your chance to catch up on all the dishes you’ve been dying to make. The Monday off means more downtime for a baking project, an actual breakfast, a dinner party, or a night of binging Ripley/Shogun/Tokyo Vice while curled up on the couch, grazing on leftovers. So here, I’ve gathered some of the best, recent dishes from the Test Kitchen that you should absolutely add to your Memorial Day weekend menu.
Berry-Cottage Cheese Skillet Cake
Sam Seneviratne bills this as a weeknight cake, but it’s well worth bending the rules and waking up the house with this not-too-sweet berry cake.
Buckwheat Crêpes from Elisabeth Prueitt
Want an unfussy breakfast that is just as delicious? These nutty, gluten-free crêpes from the co-founder of Tartine Bakery will do the trick.
Breakfast Pizza with Sausage, Egg, and Pickled Banana Peppers
While Anna is on maternity leave, Alexandra Stafford came to the Test Kitchen to make this pizza with Amanda. It comes from her new cookbook, Pizza Night, and this pie is the perfect reward for making pizza dough a day in advance and patiently waiting for it to rise and spend a night in the fridge. The crust is thin and crispy, and the gruyere, scrambled eggs, and pickled peppers are delicious touches.
Cheesy Mushroom Sandwiches with Castelvetrano Salsa Verde
I know there is a great veggie burger out there, waiting for me, but I haven’t met it yet. I say, forget trying to compete with the perfect format of a burger to please your vegetarian friends (or your mushroom-craving self), and make this hero that is bursting from the sides with smoky, cheesy, sautéed oyster mushrooms.
Turmeric Roast Chicken with Coconut Rice
In the mood to host friends for dinner? Get a spatchcocked chicken and give it César’s Thai-inspired treatment, a recreation of the grilled drumsticks he had on a trip to Krabi. Richly seasoned and served with perfumy coconut rice, there will be fighting (for the drippings).
Turkey Ara’yes
This recipe is the excuse you need to bust out the grill pan. Warmly spiced, marinated ground turkey is stuffed into pitas, grilled on a well-oiled pan, and served with a light, yogurt dipping sauce.
Oven-Braised Short Rib Ragu
If for some reason the weather does not cooperate on Memorial Day, pivot to a low-and-slow braise indoors instead. In four hours you’ll have a divine, flavor-packed sauce (said Donna in the comments) and leftovers to carry you through at least one night during the week.
Raspberry Ice Cream-ish Cake
Nea calls this her lazy-girl ice cream cake, but fully admits it’s not lazy at all. It does, however, let you approximate ice cream without the need for an ice cream machine, and you can tackle the recipe over the course of the weekend so that you arrive, on Memorial Day, with a total showstopper of a cake that everyone will love. (Trust me on this one!)
Rhubarb Frangipane Galette with Spelt Crust
Put that ambitious haul of rhubarb you brought home from the farmers market to work. Here, the classic pairing of rhubarb with almond cream gets a fresh squeeze of citrus, and the spelt crust is an unexpected, nutty twist.
Tarta de Santiago
Naturally gluten-free, this hazelnut riff on a Spanish almond cake is an easy, elegant cake to cap off dinner.
No-Bake Swedish Chocolate Balls
Easy to transport and super-simple to make, these one-bowl, no-bake chocolate and coconut balls will get snatched up in a second.
What’s on your Memorial Day weekend menu?
