12 Recipes to Know By Heart (+ 10 more)

12 Recipes to Know By Heart

1. Tomato Sauce - Tomato sauce is such a great recipe to have in your head. Reader Margi83301 says she makes hers at least once a week. Quick, easy tomato sauce will let you get a saucy pasta dish on the table fast (and leave you leftovers too). Here are a couple recipes to check out: •Marcella Hazan's Amazing 4-Ingredient Tomato Sauce • Quick Tomato Sauce with Pasta
2. Chili - So many of our readers mentioned chili as the recipe they could knock off without a second thought! A big bowl of hearty chili is a classic winter weeknight meal, and leftovers will carry you through a week of lunches. Here are a couple of our favorite guides to making chili. • How To Make Chili • Chili with Pasta & Wisconsin Cheddar
3. Chicken Soup - For sheer nourishment, chicken soup wins out for best recipe to have memorized. Here's a basic recipe that does a very good job at showing you how to adapt for your own tastes or schedule. • All Afternoon or Less Than an Hour: Chicken Soup with Herb Dumplings
4. Roast Chicken - Whether you're just cooking for yourself, or having a mini dinner party, roast chicken is a fabulous thing to know by heart. It's delicious, impressive, and comforting — quite a trio. Here are instructions for roasting a chicken: • How To Roast a Chicken
5. Frittata - Frittata is not only a good recipe to know by heart, it's also a good way to use up scraps of leftover vegetables, cured meats, and cheeses. Here's a basic recipe for a frittata — but it's easily adaptable: •Potato, Red Pepper, and Feta Frittata
6. Risotto - Risotto sounds fancy, but like a frittata, it's an easy weeknight meal that also gives you the opportunity to use up leftover vegetables and cheese. Here are a couple resources for making a good risotto: • How to Make a Good Risotto • Red Pepper, Sausage, and Chard Risotto
7. Biscuits - Quick, hot biscuits from the oven were mentioned by quite a few readers, including leapkate, who said, "Biscuits for sure!" Here are two recipes; the first is ultra simple: • How To Make Cream Biscuits In Less Than 15 Minutes • How To Make Buttermilk Biscuits From Scratch
8. Pancakes - Reader Cindy44 says that she has made pancakes so frequently that she could recite the recipe! Pancakes are a great thing to know by heart, especially when you're trying to impress someone with a delicious Saturday morning breakfast. Here's the best pancake recipe we know (they're especially great topped with cranberry or fruit sauce: • The BEST Pancakes Ever!
9. No-Knead Bread - This easy bread became a phenomenon when it was first published, as cooks realized how easy and hands-off it could be to make artisan-quality bread at home. Once you're made it a couple times you'll have it memorized too. • How To Make No-Knead Bread
10. Pesto - I was surprised at how many readers mentioned pesto, but I shouldn't have been. Pesto is a wildly flavorful, simple sauce that can really perk up simple dishes like pasta or a frittata. Here are basic instructions for making pesto out of basil or any spicy greens. • Last Chance Basil Pesto •Spring Greens Pesto
11. Salad Dressing - Everyone should be able to whip up a salad dressing from scratch. A homemade dressing, calibrated to your tastes, turns a plain salad into something really wonderful. Here are a couple sets of instructions on making a good balsamic vinaigrette. • How To Make a Basic Balsamic Vinaigrette • My Favorite Balsamic Vinaigrette
12. Fruit Crisp or Crumble - So, when talking dessert, lots and lots of readers said that they know chocolate chip cookies by heart. (Yum!) But we decided to also spotlight fruit crisp or crumble, with the argument that fruit crisp is a super way to enjoy seasonal fruit; it's a more flexible dessert, overall. • How To Make Streusel or Crumble Topping for Baked Fruit

Plus 10 more

• 1 Fried Rice (plus, Stir-Fried Chicken)
Understanding how to make a quick pan of stir-fried rice with vegetables and egg (or even a bit of leftover bacon) can mean a satisfying dinner on even the busiest of weeknights.
• 2 Creamy Stovetop Macaroni and Cheese
This is such a good recipe to know off the top of your head. Comforting, delicious, pleases everyone.
• 3 Basic Buttermilk Quick Bread
Want a quick bite of bread with dinner? Know this one by heart — it dresses up well with all kinds of variations, too (cheese, herbs, pesto...).
• 4 Great Pizza
Do you know how to put a pizza together? Do you know a good quick dough recipe by heart? This is such a staple for us.
• 5 Baked Boneless Skinless Chicken Thighs
This is a real go-to meal for me personally. I can throw together a pan of chicken thighs, mixed up with garlic or any chili sauce in the fridge, and bake it off without even thinking twice.

• 6 Great Beef Stew
Making great beef stew is a slow, meditative process, building up the flavor layer by layer, and it shouldn't require looking at a recipe too often. This is one to know by heart.
• 7 Creamy Stovetop Polenta
A good bowl of polenta is a great way to round out a meal.
• 8 Oven-Baked Salmon Fillets
This recipe for salmon fillets baked with herbs is so foolproof and delicious — it's really worth knowing.
• 9 Great Granola
But let's not forget breakfast. Shouldn't everyone know how to make granola?
• 10 Chocolate Chip Cookies
And let's not forget dessert either. It really doesn't hurt to know your basic chocolate chip cookie by heart.