Our 20 Favorite Comfort Food Recipes

By Food & Wine
Updated July 22, 2019
Credit: Victor Protasio
From a double-crust apple pie to supercrispy pan-fried chicken, here are some amazing comfort food recipes.
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Creole-Spiced Fried Chicken

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A homemade Creole spice mix flavors exceptional fried chicken from Josh Galliano. A long brine in sweet tea and buttermilk followed by a brisk fry in lard give the fried chicken both unbelievably tender meat and crackling-like skin.

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Baked Four-Cheese Spaghetti

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A variation of macaroni and cheese, this intensely cheesy baked pasta dish is supremely satisfying.

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Free-Form Chicken Potpie

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This potless potpie with a Spanish accent (from the Pimentón pepper) doesn't rely on the usual deep dish for serving. The luxurious chicken and vegetable stew simply gets spooned into bowls and garnished with flaky puff pastry rounds.

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Mashed Potatoes with Crispy Shallots

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For ultrafluffy potatoes, Grace Parisi presses them through a ricer. To achieve a similar texture, pass the potatoes through a food mill or a fine-mesh sieve. If you choose to mash them by hand, be gentle; otherwise, the potatoes will turn gluey.

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BLT Fried Egg-and-Cheese Sandwich

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Thomas Keller's scrumptious recipe combines three of the world’s most popular sandwiches—bacon, lettuce and tomato; fried egg; and grilled cheese.

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Meat Loaf with Red Wine Glaze

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The glaze makes the meat loaf especially easy to pair with red wine.

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Double-Crust Apple Pie

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F&W's Grace Parisi uses a mix of Granny Smith, Pink Lady and Golden Delicious apples for this iconic dessert.

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Supercrispy Pan-Fried Chicken

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Instead of deep-frying chicken in a vat of oil, Angie Mosier prefers pan-frying, which creates delightfully crunchy and moist chicken without requiring quite so much oil. "For a covered-dish dinner, there's nothing better than a tray of drumsticks, which are easy to eat standing up," she says.

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Quick-Roasted Chicken with Mustard and Garlic

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For this delicious, mustardy chicken, Jacques Pépin splits the chicken and cuts between the leg and shoulder joints to halve the cooking time.

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Molten Chocolate Cake with Caramel Filling

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More decadent than molten chocolate cake: one filled with warm caramel, reveals F&W's Grace Parisi.

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Stovetop Chicken and Dumplings

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Baking these easy dumplings right on top of the simmering stew makes them extra fluffy.

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Lamb Meatballs with Cumin, Mint, and Tomato Sauce

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Mint, cumin, and chopped almonds give these delicious meatballs their Middle Eastern flavor. There's plenty of mint and cumin in the tomato sauce, too. Serve the meatballs and sauce over steamed couscous to be authentic. We think they're great over rice too.

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Pecan-Honey Buns

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The honeyed glaze on these sticky, nutty breakfast rolls is luscious and soft when warm, then turns nicely chewy when cool.

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Shepherd's Pie

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Rainwater Madeira, a fortified wine, gives Brian Hill's pub dish a caramelly sweetness.

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Double-Chocolate Pudding

Credit: PHOTO © TINA RUPP
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This recipe has everything one could ask for in a chocolate pudding—an intense flavor and a silky texture that's still firm enough to stand a spoon in.

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Best-Ever Cold Fried Chicken

Credit: Con Poulos
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Food & Wine’s Justin Chapple likes making extra-crispy chicken that retains its crunch in the fridge, so it’s ideal for picnics or just eating right out of the icebox.

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Peanut Butter Chocolate Pie

Credit: Antonis Achilleos
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With the smooth, nutty peanut butter filling, glistening ganache, and salty roasted peanuts on top, this pie evokes all the sweetness of a childhood memory, delivered in the form of an elegant, nuanced dessert that adults will want to savor.

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Chorizo Migas

Credit: Victor Protasio
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If you like breakfast burritos, you’ll love migas. Strips of tortillas get fried in flavorful rendered chorizo fat, then cooked with onion, garlic, and jalapeño, and finally are stirred into eggs to create this classic Mexican breakfast.

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Hatch Chile Smash Burgers

Credit: Victor Protasio
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Is this the best burger on the Internet? We think so. This spicy, crispy, cheesy, swoon-inducing smash burger will have you going back for seconds thanks to the cheese and salsa that melt into a queso-like moment and take this burger to the next level.

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Thousand-Layer Duck Fat Potatoes

Credit: Victor Protasio
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When chef Shaun Searley prepares these crispy potatoes at The Quality Chop House, he starts with King Edward potatoes, which have a fluffy texture. Be sure to start a day ahead so the cooled confited potatoes slice cleanly.

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