20-Minute Recipes

The dried butter beans for this simple dish can take as long as two hours to cook. In the easy way, use canned butter beans to cut the prep time to 20 minutes. Serve the dish as a hearty, satisfying main course.

For this smoky version of eggplant Parmesan, Sam Calagione and Marnie Old looked for a beer and a wine that could stand up to the grilled eggplant without overwhelming it. Sam opted for Guinness: "I like that Guinness has roasty flavors but is still relatively light." Marnie chose a cherry-tinged Rioja mellowed by several years of aging.

Bold flavors star in this Vietnamese salad—acidic lime juice, hot pepper, salty soy sauce, and cooling herbs. The combination of mint and cilantro is typical and refreshing, but you can use only one herb, or leave them both out completely if you prefer.

Melissa Rubel Jacobson uses tomatoesin three forms—fresh, sun-dried and paste—for her thick and creamy, deeply tomatoey sauce.

These easy fajitas are best for using up the extra Coriander-Dusted Roast Beef and gravy.

Marcia Kiesel coats fish with Dijon mustard amped up with dry mustard, then dips the fillets into mustard seeds and wheat germ to create a crust.

Sweet raisins, crunchy nuts, spicy arugula—this couscous salad boasts an interesting array of flavors and textures. We include strips of roasted or smoked turkey to make it a meal, but you can leave them out for a meatless salad.

The ideal hamburger combines the fattiness of chuck with the rich, beefy flavor of sirloin. Grace Parisi uses equal parts of both cuts in her mix, a foundation you can transform into all sorts of variations. When she has the time, she grinds her own meat after salting it overnight: It's an extra step that makes the burger truly superb.

In matching spicy sausage with a creamy mustard sauce and fragrant basil, British cookbook author Nigel Slater created a quick pasta supper with warm, mildly spicy flavors, perfect for a cool fall or winter evening.

Las Pedroñeras, in the Castilla–La Mancha region, is considered the garlic capital of Spain. These juicy, meaty lamb chops sizzled in extra-virgin olive oil with plenty of garlic cloves are Janet Mendel's homage to the village.

Nonstick skillets are incredibly helpful when preparing lean fish like the cod fillets here, because the flesh sticks to metal so easily. To give the cod a golden crust, Melissa Rubel dusts it with finely milled Wondra flour before cooking. The creamy preserved-lemon aioli she serves alongside the fish is also a terrific dipping sauce for roasted potatoes.

Turkey burgers are a popular lunch at Gwyneth Paltrow's house, where she serves them on toasted brioche buns. She usually adds a topping or two, like Swiss cheese and a few pickled jalapeños. Jarred barbecue sauce adds a ton of flavor to the burgers and helps keep them from drying out. Paltrow got that tip from her friend Lee Gross, a macrobiotic chef who is obviously not averse to the occasional burger.

No soup is quicker to prepare than miso; just whisk miso paste into water. By adding shrimp, tofu and greens, it can double as a complete and light meal. Feel free to use leftover chicken or roast pork (or whatever else is at hand) in place of the shrimp.

This impressive cool-weather salad is an extraordinarily addictive mix of sweet, crunchy and salty ingredients.

Big, creamy butter beans give a tuna and celery salad terrific heartiness. The salad would also be delicious spooned over slices of warm grilled country bread.

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

This timeless tapa from Spanish cookbook author Penelope Casas has everything going for it—it's sweet, smoky and savory, all in one bite.

For Marcia Kiesel, salmon is an excellent low-maintenance ingredient for the grill because it doesn't need careful testing for doneness—the fish is wonderful cooked anywhere from rare to medium. As soon as the fillets come off the grill, she tops them with a tangy pickle-studded butter.

This creamy, silky pasta gets salty pops of flavor from fish roe. Paul Qui uses mentaiko (spicy marinated pollock roe), but trout roe or even caviar would be delicious, too.

Sophie Dahl loves to make iced tea—especially using Earl Grey flavored with lavender.

Emily Kaiser, who co-authored The Harney & Sons Guide to Tea, pairs her clever tea sandwiches with spicy Indian chai, like the 500 Mile Chai.

Mexican chocolate, which is flavored with ingredients like cinnamon, almonds and vanilla, lends a distinct flavor to Stephanie Prida's rich custard. Look for it at Mexican markets and specialty-food stores.

Feel free to throw something grilled on top of this cilantro bed and call it dinner, but truth be told, its is just as excellent next day, cold from the fridge, eaten straight from its storage container.