Affordable Star Chef Recipes

These fantastic recipes include star chef Mario Batali's cheese-filled chicken thighs and Jacques Pépin's favorite pound cake.

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Spicy Chicken Cacciatore

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The Dish: Although this Italian standard has suffered at the hands of lesser chefs, Barbara Lynch redeems it. She ably deconstructs what is often a heavy sauce into its vivid components: bright red strips of bell pepper, sweet slices of onion, hot pickled peppers and fresh chopped tomatoes.

The Cost: about $2.75 per serving

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Honey Mustard Chicken

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You haven't really had an authentic Southern restaurant experience until you've had meat-and-three—a choice of meat plus three vegetable side dishes. Here, Bobby Flay bakes chicken—the centerpiece of many a meat-and-three—with a sticky sweet-and-spicy honey glaze inspired by the Savannah Bee Company's tupelo honey.

More Recipes from Bobby Flay

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Quick Chicken-and-Cheese Tamales

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The Dish:F&W's Grace Parisi mixes store-bought rotisserie chicken and cheddar cheese into a quick dough, then she wraps the tamales in plastic before steaming them.

The Cost: about $3.40 per serving

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Meat Loaf with Red Wine Glaze

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Use leftover red wine as the glaze on Shea Gallante's meat loaf, which caramelizes as it bakes.

Classic All-American Recipes

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Quinoa Salad with Pickled Radishes and Feta

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The Dish: Giuseppe Tentori's quinoa salad is a delightful mix of cucumber, thin green beans, parsley and feta. What makes it special is that Tentori pickles the radishes in red wine vinegar and sugar before tossing them into the salad, where they add a puckery crunch.

The Cost: about $2.33 per serving

Salads with Grains

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Marja's Mac and Cheese

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Jean-Georges Vongerichten is so fond of his wife Marja's ultrarich mac and cheese that it appears on the menu at the Mercer Kitchen, one of his New York restaurants.