This dressing is dinner insurance.
| April 17, 2025 
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 | | Kenji López-Alt's miso-sesame vinaigrette that's good on anything. Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. |
This vinaigrette is dinner insuranceThere's this very distinct mode I hit — and I'm guessing a lot of people reading this will relate — when I'm too tired to make a capital-D Dinner, but I'm also too cheap to order delivery. There are things in my fridge that need using up, but I'm out of eggs (so no frittata or kitchen-sink scramble) and I've already made fried rice twice this week. In these moments, I make a dressing. I've sung the praises of Melissa Clark's all-purpose green sauce a lot in this newsletter, and now I'll turn my attention to another life-giving elixir, Kenji López-Alt's miso-sesame vinaigrette that's good on anything. It truly does live up to its name; I almost always make a double batch and never have any difficulty using it up. Toss it with bagged lettuce mix and leftover chicken — that's a nice salad! Spoon it over seared shrimp or fish and serve that over rice — that's a good rice bowl! Swipe cucumber coins, carrot sticks and hard-boiled egg halves through it — it's a dip! Or do what I'll do: Boil up some noodles, drain them well, then mix in some miso-sesame vinaigrette and too many sliced scallions. That's a slapdash noodle dish, and it's fantastic. Featured Recipe View Recipe → Today's specials:- Peruvian roasted chicken: This Melissa Clark recipe, with its grass-green spicy cilantro sauce, is a solid contender for my Easter dinner. Watch Melissa make it here!
- Honey-lemon salmon with dill: Genevieve Ko has a gorgeous (and gorgeously simple) new salmon dish for us, with quick-pickled cucumbers served alongside. "Each time I've tested this recipe," Genevieve writes, "I've thrown a sheet pan of asparagus onto the other rack in the oven because the stalks roast in the same short time the fish does."
- Sour cream and onion drop biscuits: One might argue that making these biscuits to go with this crispy sour cream and onion chicken might be sour cream and onion overkill, but that person is not me.
- Broken egg salad: I love the look of this new Hetty Lui McKinnon recipe, which swaps the usual hard-boiled eggs for just-set eggs that are hand-torn for optimal chunkiness. I'd like my egg salad gently held by two plush pieces of shokupan, please and thank you.
- Roasted cabbage with capers and garlic: Hetty suggests tossing this punchy vegetarian dish with pasta to make your meal even heartier.
- Lemon poppy seed pound cake: And here's one more Melissa must-make, lovely for dessert or breakfast. Her recipe uses olive oil instead of softened butter as its base and comes together with some simple whisking. A simple confectioners' sugar glaze is the perfect finishing touch.
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