It’s no secret that Bon Appétit editors cook a lot for work. So it should come as no surprise that we cook a lot during our off hours too. Here are the recipes we’re whipping up this month to get dinner on the table, entertain our friends, satisfy a sweet tooth, use up leftovers, and everything in between. For even more staff favorites, click here.
August 2
Beat-the-heat cold noodles
Come summer, cold noodles are, give or take, 37% of my diet. They’re filling and refreshing—and easy to throw together after a sweaty commute home from work. Lately, my two go-tos have been: test kitchen editor Kendra Vaculin’s Soy Milk Noodles With Chili Crisp (heed her advice to buy Edensoy milk—so good) and cookbook author Hetty Lui McKinnon’s Easy Peanut Noodles (sometimes I throw some tofu or tempeh on top). If you have tomatoes to use up, try senior test kitchen editor Shilpa Uskokovic’s tomato-meets-peanut sauce. Life-changing, or at least, summer-changing. —Emma Laperruque, associate director of cooking
Grated frozen fruit hack
Controversial take: I’m not a summer person. Give me the crispness of fall or the cold, quiet calm of winter. Seasonal affective disorder hits everyone differently, and for me, that means summertime sadness. What keeps me going is the seasonal bounty of fruit—farmers market berries, mangoes of all stripes, ripe-to-bursting watermelon. For an extra dopamine kick, I find myself returning to author and social media creator Frankie Gaw’s genius hack he popularized online: freezing fruit and grating it into fluffy clouds of shaved ice. You can do it with literally any fruit. Topped with condensed milk and items that might already be in your pantry (sesame seeds, your favorite cereal, nuts, etc.), you have a dreamy dessert within minutes. —Joseph Hernandez, associate director of drinks
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Brown butter baklava cookies
This week, I found myself over a skillet of butter that had been browning for scrambled eggs. Somewhere in the excitement of watching the butter bubble, it went slightly over, into a land that was not suitable for eggs (unless little burnt bits are your thing). As a quick solve, I decided to make yours truly’s Baklava Cookies. I browned another stick of butter, and threw in the nuts I had on hand (some pistachios, mostly walnuts). The result: a wonderful cookie. —Inés Anguiano, associate test kitchen manager
Boozy mango margaritas
Did I peel and dice a fresh mango for these Frozen Mango Margaritas? Absolutely not. Did I pick up a bag of my favorite Wyman’s frozen mango chunks, blend them up with tequila, dry curaçao, and plenty of lime juice? I surely did. And then I stuck the boozy mix in my freezer before blending it once more—cookbook author Brad Leone’s trick to getting the sought-after slushy texture. The fresh mangoes? I saved those for a mango icebox cake. —Joe Sevier, senior cooking and SEO editor
Dense bean salad
I am not used to cooking for one. But when it happens, I like recipes that have staying power in the fridge—like marinated bean salads. There are no leafy greens that will wilt and get slimy through the week; instead, beans just get better and better. The latest recipe I tried was this spicy chipotle chicken dense bean salad from social media creator Violet Witchel. I used chipotle peppers in adobo (a pantry ingredient I always have on hand) for the marinade, which gave it a smoky heat. I also made her marinated feta salad that I bolstered with over-sized croutons for quick lunches in between Zooms. —Urmila Ramakrishnan, associate director of social media
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