I Need Cozy Winter Recipes

Photo by Travis Rainey, Food Styling by Michelle Gatton, Prop Styling by Gerri Williams

ON THIS WEEK’S episode of Dinner SOS, test kitchen director and host Chris Morocco brings in senior test kitchen editors (and the hosts of BA Bake Club) Shilpa Uskokovic and Jesse Szewczyk to help callers dive into cozy cooking, and find plenty to get excited about, even in the dead of winter.

It’s January, the holidays are over. What are we cooking? The answer– cozy food. What is cozy food? A long braise, a baked pasta. If there was ever a time of year to go low and slow and enjoy taking a bit of extra time in the kitchen, this is it! Chris, Jesse and Shilpa run us through some of their favorite peak cozy recipes. Jesse talks about two recipes from his March issue story One and Done which use just one cooking vessel. First up is his Shortcut Baked Rigatoni with Spicy Italian Sausage, which features uncooked pasta baked right in the sauce until al dente, as well as his Chicken Thighs with Spiced Couscous and Carrots, which all happen in a Dutch Oven for maximum ease. They then take listener questions: Jessica can never make a broth as good as she gets in a restaurant. She is primarily vegetarian with some fish, and is eager for help on how to replicate that long cooked meat broth flavor without the meat. Sylvia needs help cooking frozen vegetables in a way that isn’t watery and tasteless. Jillian would love some advice on how to store her fresh herbs so they can last the week.

Chris, Jesse and Shilpa recommend Jessica buy a store bought broth that she can punch up with easy flavor additions like lemongrass and ginger. For the Thai, Japanese or Chinese flavors Jessica loves, Shilpa recommends she incorporates curry paste or curry powder, or adding Hondashi for additional layers of flavor. Shilpa suggests Sylvia make her Cheesy Green Pea Fritters, which use frozen peas to great effect. Chris also recommends Jillian try his go-to method for storing cilantro and avoid dreaded wilting: a cold water plunge, then wrapped in paper towels inside a resealable bag to give herbs the ability to last a week.

Listen now to hear more about Chris, Jesse, and Shilpa’s cozy essentials for the winter, and how they help callers bring fresh ideas and excitement into classic winter staples.

Chris Morocco: Hey there, listeners, future callers, and cooking enthusiasts. Welcome to Dinner SOS, the show where we help you save dinner or whatever you're cooking. I'm Chris Morocco, food director of Bon Appétit and Epicurious. This week, I'm joined by some voices that listeners know very well. I'm talking about the hosts of BA Bake Club Jesse Szewczyk and Shilpa Uskokovic.

Hi, Shilpa.

Shilpa Uskokovic: Hi, Chris.

CM: Hi, Jesse.

Jesse Szewczyk: Hello.

CM: We are here today to talk about cozy cooking and how to keep things feeling fresh even in the dead of winter. We've got questions from making delicious nuanced broth at home, to keeping herbs fresh in your fridge, so we'll get to that. But before we do that, we now have two Bake Club Podcast episodes out in the world and the first three recipes are published. How are you both feeling?

JS: The feeling has been so wholesome.

SU: Yes.

JS: Hearing the Bake Club just engage with us and seeing their bakes.

SU: Yes.

CM: Wholesome?

JS: Yes

SU: Bake Club, I think the sentence that we say when we describe what Bake Club, we're like, "Oh, it's the nerdiest corner of the baking internet." But it's also the most wholesome place.

JS: Yeah.

SU: Everybody in our close friends group on Instagram for the Bake Club is just so nice.

JS: Supportive.

SU: Yeah.

JS: Yeah.

SU: They're like, "I tried this. Do you have suggestions?" Then 10 people will make suggestions. It's just nobody puts each other down. Everybody's like, "Oh my God, your frosting swoops look amazing!"

JS: Yeah, they're having a swoosh-off. It was so cute.

SU: Yeah.

JS: Yeah.

CM: Wow! Okay. Is this a self-selecting population? How did it come to this?

SU: Look at Jesse and I. We're both amazing people. Very nice and wholesome.

CM: And that's the energy you draw towards you?

SU: That's the energy we draw.

JS: That's the answer.

CM: What are you both most excited about for Bake Club in the new year?

JS: For me personally, it's the next recipe.

SU: Oh!

JS: I think it's our strongest one, and it's Shilpa and I's first collaboration recipe.

SU: Oh, yes.

JS: I think it's a recipe that's, I think, really genuinely interesting and unique.

SU: And it solves a problem.

JS: Yes.

CM: What recipe are we talking about?

SU: We're talking about our wood-fire style-

JS: Pizza.

SU: Pizza.

CM: It's a recipe for pizza.

JS: It's a recipe for pizza.

SU: It's a recipe for actually good pizza that's wood-fire style but you don't need a wood-fire oven or a pizza oven.

CM: Okay. Pizza's a crowded space.

SU: Pizza's a crowded space. Then I've been saying this to everybody. We live in New York, where good pizza is very easy to find. And making pizza at home, you really have to have a good reason to do it. I think this one is. It doesn't feel like a sacrifice, this pizza recipe that we developed. It feels like you can really get restaurant-quality pizza at home with no special equipment.

JS: Super-charred, nice and blistered.

SU: Yeah.

JS: Yeah.

CM: All right. Well, I can't wait to hear more about that. I have a lot of questions, but they will be answered I'm sure, by the next Bake Club episode.

SU: Yes. Please listen in to BA Bake Club.

CM: So Shilpa and Jesse, when people talk about winter cooking, I feel like it's always under this veil of gloom-and-doom. But honestly, I think there's a big case to be made that winter cooking is a time for optimism, joy, and excitement.

SU: Those are very big words.

CM: Because I think we've fallen prey to a lot of these tropes. Talking about winter as a time to be endured, rather than a time in our culinary lives to celebrate. A time to take a little bit longer to cook something, to draw out the cooking process. To celebrate the low-and-slow of it all. To celebrate foods that maybe don't necessarily have the same range of color, but to celebrate the darker, more brooding cousins who lurk in the deeper shadows of our hearts and our crisper drawers.

SU: Wow.

CM: What do you think?

SU: Wow! He's a poet.

JS: That was beautiful.

SU: Yeah.

JS: I agree, though. It's leisurely because there's no rush. It's winter.

CM: Yeah. Where do you have to be?

JS: Yeah, nowhere. Just braise, get cozy.

SU: Yeah.

JS: Yeah.

SU: I do agree with both of you. I think winter is a great time. A large part of it depends on where you live in this country, obviously. All of us are on the East Coast, where yes, it does get a bit dire in the produce section. But again, this is the time to stay home, eat. If you eat meat, then it's a good time of year I suppose.

CM: It's a great time to eat meat.

SU: Yeah. Lots of braises, like Jesse said. Potatoes, squash, they're all there for you.

JS: Yeah. Citrus.

SU: Citrus! Citrus is a very big highlight.

CM: Citrus is a big highlight.

SU: Yeah.

CM: In this head space in winter, what are you cooking?

JS: I like cozy food. Yeah. Food that feels warm.

CM: What is cozy food?

JS: I think it could be two things. I think it could be a long braise obviously is the answer. But it could be quick weeknight food that just feels like, "Oh, I'm doing something special and cozy for myself to stay in tonight."

CM: What would be a cozy pasta and what would be a non-cozy pasta?

JS: A cozy pasta would be a baked pasta.

CM: Ooh.

SU: Oh!

JS: A non-cozy pasta would be something with capers and lemon.

SU: Something very bright.

JS: Yes.

SU: Okay. Like a shrimp scampi wouldn't be a non-cozy pasta.

JS: Yeah. That's a romantic pasta, but I don't think it's cozy.

CM: What about you, Shilpa?

SU: I think I gravitate more towards a lot of spicy food for some reason.

CM: Spicy food in summer?

SU: No, in winter.

CM: In winter?

SU: Yes.

JS: That makes sense.

SU: I think everything feels a bit heavy and dull, and I'm craving that spice to slap me in the face.

CM: But what form of spice?

SU: It could be anything. I generally add a lot of jalapenos or serranos to many things. If I'm making scrambled eggs, I'll mince a few serranos and throw them in there.

CM: Fresh chili heat?

SU: Fresh chili heats. I do like that and I think it brightens everything up.

CM: Oh, interesting. Heat, but make it fresh. Make it vegetal.

SU: Yes.

JS: Interesting.

CM: Make it that bracing, bell pepper cutting through your palette like a scythe.

SU: Wow. Wow! Christopher.

CM: I do want to call out, I don't think cozy necessarily has to be the fastest or easiest version of a thing.

JS: No. A braise is peak cozy. Yeah.

CM: Completely.

JS: There's different forms, yeah.

CM: It doesn't even have to be through the form of a recipe. The other day, you know what I got at the coffee shop? I got a mocha.

JS: Oh, wow!

CM: A freaking mocha!

JS: I never think of that.

CM: This is cozy! This is it! Coziness is happening right now, in this cup. It was like I had a new relationship with myself, with coffee, with hot chocolate, and with the café.

JS: Yeah. Cozy's a vibe. It's not how you get there, it's just the vibe of it.

SU: You feel.

JS: Yeah.

SU: Yeah.

JS: I love winter cooking. It feels like it becomes a sensory experience besides just scent and taste, and I like that. It hugs me.

SU: Oh my God!

CM: Do you think it's the enclosed-ness of the spaces we're in in winter? That you don't have the windows open, you're focused inward and more in touch with the sensory queues around you?

JS: I think so. It feels like a gathering almost. You invite friends, and it cooks as you're mingling, and it warms, and we all smell it.

SU: Yeah.

JS: Yeah.

CM: Love. Our February issue has a feature that focuses on what I think we want at this time of year, which is cozy but plus some semblance of ease. You, Jesse, in One and Done, you put the lens of one cooking vessel. Whether it's a pot, baking sheet. Can you tell us a little bit more about some of the one cooking vessel recipes you came up with?

JS: Yeah. In this issue, there's five of them. Each represents a different piece of equipment you probably have and that's all it uses. There's a rice cooker one. I did the impossible, I made rice cooker risotto. Which is, you just cook Arborio rice with butter and shallots, and then you finish at the end with more butter, more stock, and some cheese. It really mimics this beautiful creamy texture of risotto.

I did with the Dutch oven a one-pot chicken thigh with spiced cous-cous and carrots. The cous-cous cooks as you bake the chicken, too. The chicken fat drips down and infuses into it.

I did a potpie in a skillet, a veggie one using mushroom. But then, instead of making any crust or anything, I just take filo sheets and scrunch them right on top with some oil and bake it. It gets really dramatic and crunchy, and you break through it.

CM: Roughly.

SU: That was very striking.

CM: Very roughly.

JS: Yeah. Very flashy.

I did a sheet-pan dinner. This was I used Korean rice cakes, which are traditionally simmered in a sauce or something. These are baked with a saucy kimchi mixture. And they soften. Then halfway through cooking, you put a big piece of salmon on top and some bok choy, so then it's all cooked at the same time.

Then the last one was a cozy pasta, a baked pasta. For this, you just put old ingredients to make a quick sauce. Tomatoes, and butter, and garlic, very minimal, and then bake that so it gets nice and flavorful. Then you just put raw pasta in, cover it, and then bake it again. Then all that extra water is absorbed by the pasta and it comes out perfectly cooked. You top it with cheese and it's done.

SU: That was crazy how that turned out.

CM: I was enthralled by that recipe, that baked rigatoni. The fact of not needing to pre-boil the pasta and just what a win that is.

All right. The other thing about winter is that produce is usually, not always, less exciting. In terms of what you can get fresh near you, for a lot of folks at least in the US, there's just less out there to seek out. Another story that we have in the February issue, a series of recipes developed by Kendra Vaculin who works with us in the test kitchen, all based around pantry staples.

Now the starting point of the story was even just taking a step back and considering what is a modern pantry staple? If we were to look in our own cupboards and our own pantries, what would we find today?

SU: I loved Kendra's story about modern staples because I think it speaks to how many of us live and cook on a day-to-day basis. Even those of us who worker in a test kitchen and cook professionally. I think the beauty of this recipe was that it took ready-to-eat ingredients that you would find in a supermarket and transform them in a way that you wouldn't guess that they were made from store-bought ingredients.

One of the recipes that really stood out to me was the chana masala pockets, where Kendra uses pre-made pouches of curried chickpeas, and then she wraps it in store-bought pizza dough. And it gets baked off. She bolsters the filling with a little bit of spinach, just to change it up a bit. But honestly, minimal intervention, but then it's something completely different from that pouch that you started with.

Then she did this pork and tomatillos udon with tomatillos salsa, which I think was spectacular.

CM: Store-bought tomatillos salsa.

SU: Yeah, store-bought. Then she added, I don't know, maybe five other ingredients to it. Ground pork, udon noodles.

CM: Oyster sauce.

SU: Oyster sauce.

JS: Oh, yeah. That was the [inaudible 00:11:50].

SU: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

CM: That was the ace card up her sleeve. When in the world have you ever seen oyster sauce and tomatillos salsa-

SU: And tomatillos.

CM: ... unite on udon?

SU:But it really woke that dish up.

CM: Ah!

SU: It changed it.

Oh, this one was pretty brilliant. She used a jar of Rao's marinara sauce to make a quick-and-dirty paella. Then she had used canned salmon, but spicy salmon, to make these hand-rolls which was rice, avocado wrapped in a little bit of nori.

Then the funnest one I think was the Annie's white cheddar mac-and-cheese. It was a box of mac-and-cheese, and then Kendra transformed it with the addition of broccoli and a little bit of chicken broth into a chicken-and-broccoli soup. I know that we were all so in love with it.

CM: Yeah. What I loved about this story is this did not feel like some kind of theoretical exercise. We are all constantly seeking out and using shortcuts in our own cooking. Because I think if anything, we are in something of a unique position to be able to assess what is worth doing yourself and what can be outsourced.

I don't know what percent better would Kendra's udon noodles be if she had made her own homemade tomatillos salsa. 8%?

SU: Yeah, maybe a little bit, but yeah.

CM: Single digits?

SU: Yeah.

CM: Honestly, it wouldn't have been the right thing to even focus on in the context of that recipe. I just think there's a certain amount of work and intention that is put into most of these pantry staples that we are leveraging in unexpected ways.

That is so true for me. The things I've done with Rao's marinara sauce. The things I've done with Rick Bayless' now discontinued-

JS: That's your go-to?

CM: ... don't get me started, red enchilada sauce, and have not found a great substitute for it.

SU: We need to cut the podcast.

CM: Saucy Lips is fine, and now they don't sell it at Whole Foods. WTF?

SU: Rick Bayless, if you're listening to us-

CM: Because it all comes back to that.

SU: Please, bring back-

CM: Rick, what did you do?

No, but seriously, that wasn't just a crutch for me when I was making Mexican food, or making chicken tinga or something like that. I would use those pouches in a Thai curry. I would use it anywhere I wanted a confluence of rehydrated dried chili product with tomato product. That's lot of dishes.

SU: Yeah, that's true.

CM: You know what I mean?

SU: Indian food, yeah.

CM: Completely. Anyway, I thought that was real banger of a story.

SU: Yeah.

CM: I want to give one more shout-out for the Feb issue. Cheese Course, which was a story that I developed.

SU: Yes.

CM: I don't develop that many recipes anymore. But I really wanted to highlight the ability of cheese to stand in in a lot of different types of dishes almost for protein. I think if you're somebody whose looking to bridge into more plant-forward cooking, you're not necessarily seeking to be vegan. But you are looking to stay more vegetarian, I think cheese can provide a bit of a bridge.

I don't just mean the cloak of mozzarella that's on Jesse's baked rigatoni, which is superb, and is so warranted and so delightful. I mean the ability of cheese, and I'm thinking of a cheese like paneer, which I used in a stir-fry-

SU: God, that was good.

CM: It's dry-fried style green bean, the touch of curry powder, mirin, and soy sauce, with big, long spears of paneer. Paneer just has this wonderful, gentle expression of milky dairy richness, but without much pungency to it. It's just very clean, but it holds up to aggressive cooking methods. You can grill it. It can do everything that halloumi does, but it's just so much milder. On the other hand, I do use halloumi, but I shred it and use it in place of meat in a no-meat meatball paired with an aromatic tomato sauce that's going a little bit of cinnamon in it.

Then lastly, I have a burrata-topped salad with a very spicy tahini dressing that's going a little bit of toasted sesame oil to double-down on that sesame high note. The marvelous ability of burrata to play well with really intense flavors and be very complimentary, but also just add a satiating quality of whatever it's on top of, or underneath, or next to. But yeah, anyway, check it out.

JS: I love the meatballs.

SU: Oh, I like the paneer stir-fry the best.

JS: That was good, too.

SU: That was my favorite one.

CM: We're going to take a quick break. When we get back, we'll tackle some listener questions about cooking in the winter.

Shilpa, Jesse, are you both ready to answer some listener questions?

SU: I am now.

JS: I'm ready.

CM: Awesome. From Jessica, "I've never made a broth as good as I get in noodle soup in a restaurant. I love a good brothy noodle soup, especially if it's Thai, Japanese, or Chinese. I know a lot of broths are good because they are long-cooked meat broths, but surely us pescetarians and vegetarians have good options, too. My favorite broths are a tiny bit sweet with loads of umami. I primarily eat vegetarian with some fish. I'm allergic to shrimp. Can you help?"

JS: If I'm making something where broth is a star, like a soup, often times I will get a boxed broth and then I will reinforce it. Put it in a pot, put some smashed garlic and slices of ginger in there, and lemongrass, and just let it simmer. Then that totally transforms an okay product into something very good. Yeah.

SU: That makes sense.

CM: Yeah. I think that is totally fair game. I'd say that is your tier one approach. You just buy something that's store-bought, but you figure out what you want to do with it to level it up a little bit.

But as a tier two approach, I would say here's the thing. There are certain meat broths where, sure, you can put a bunch of things in a pot, bring it to a simmer, skim it, and have an okay broth. But for me, the most intensely flavorful meat-based broths are the ones where something has been roasted, something has been sweated down. Flavor has been built from the ground up and considered at every stage.

Simply, if you have time, or at least are willing to make a big batch of something, apply the same strategy to your vegetables. Roast off some leeks, and onions, and carrots, and a little dab of tomato paste. Then throw those roasted vegetables into a pot with some water and a few halved heads of garlic. And then simmer it as though it were a meat broth.

I think sometimes there's this idea that, "Oh, well, I'm making this vegetarian, so I can just cut out the meat, and therefore treat this a completely different way." But honestly, I'm not saying you have to work harder, but you probably, in terms of making your own vegetable broth from the ground up, it does take some effort to reach the levels of nuance and concentration that you're looking for here.

SU: Yeah, I agree. Looking at Jessica's note, that she loves brothy noodles especially if it's Thai, Japanese, Chinese, one thing that stands out to me with all of those is there's a lot of strong flavors in those foods, in those cuisines that you don't really need to start with a long cooked broth. When I think of Thai food, for instance, I rarely think of ... A broth is a supporting character as much as it is about the curry paste and other stronger aromatics that really bolster and bring flavor. I think by leaning harder on those ingredients, like starting with a base of a good curry paste, or adding curry powder, adding Hondashi. All of these can quickly build flavor in your stock with a pot of water, and then layering all of the flavors. That's the secret.

CM: Yeah. For the record, Hondashi powder, that is a brand of dashi powder. But dashi powder, usually it's powdered granules which are the concentrated essence of kombu and bonito, which are the two signature elements that go into at least some forms of dashi, the foundational broth that underpins a lot of dishes in Japanese cuisine.

Cool. Jessica, we hope that helps. Let us know how your broth turns out. Next up, we have a question from Caroline. Caroline writes, "What do you think about using the instant pot for beans? Especially when you can't be home to simmer them. Should they be pre-soaked?"

For me, if I never use an instant pot ever, I think I'll be just fine. But Shilpa, I know you have strong thoughts on this. You want to take it away?

JS: I'm a fan.

SU: I'm a big fan.

JS: Yeah, same.

SU: Okay. I grew up in India, and we always used the pressure cooker for almost everything. Including my dad also used it to hard-boil eggs and cook pasta-

CM: Wow.

SU: ... but that's a different story for another time. Yeah, why wouldn't you use the instant pot for beans? It's the most efficient-

JS: I agree.

SU: ... way to cook beans.

JS: You don't need to pre-soak them either.

SU: Oh.

CM: Oh.

JS: Well, I have caveats there. You don't need to pre-soak them. You could get some blowout if you don't pre-soak them, as in your beans might be a little less pretty.

SU: Yeah.

CM: Oh.

JS: Some of them don't hold their shape. But you totally can cook them not pre-soaked. I have before.

SU: Yes, you can.

JS: Yeah.

CM: I agree with you, Jesse. Anecdotally, I feel like the pre-soaking, the gentle hydration of a bean that is going from a totally dried shelf-stable state to a fully creamy ready-to-eat tender state, I have seen some evidence that pre-soaking maybe helps the beans make that transition more intact, without falling apart. But I also just think sometimes beans just fall apart.

JS: They do, yeah.

SU: They do, yeah.

JS: I have noticed when I cook them, I do, I don't know, only 20 minutes on the pressure-cook. But then, if you do the natural release-

SU: Oh, yeah.

JS: The slow release, you get less blowout I've found.

SU: Yes.

JS: Which it makes sense, because there's less dramatic pressure changes.

SU: Right, it's under pressure. Yeah.

CM: Shilpa and Jesse, can one of you walk us through your favorite instant pot bean method? Are you using aromatics? Are you starting with broth or water? What's the timing here?

SU: I pre-soak my beans.

CM: Overnight?

SU: Overnight. I like to season the soaking water.

CM: Yeah?

SU: I just want to say, in favor of soaking beans. One, I think the cook is better, it's more even, there's less blowout. And two, I think it's sprouting in a way. People are into sprouted almonds and stuff like that. Pre-soaking does start that process and it releases some of the enzymes. I think pre-soaked beans are easier to digest. That's my theory.

CM: Okay.

SU: Soaked in a brine almost. Then next day, I drain that water, the soaking water, I drain it. Then I put it in an instant pot with water, and not much salt because I already put salt in the water. Maybe a couple of garlic cloves. And that's it, I tend to not put a lot of aromatics in there because I'm generally making a big pot of beans that I then want to use for different applications. Yeah. In an instant pot for, depending on the bean, anywhere between 10 to 15 minutes. Then natural release, and let it sit there for a while in that cooking water. Then you take it out. That's it.

CM: Any additions, any subtractions?

JS: I put mine in the instant pot with some broth and whatever aromatics, and then I cook it, and that's it.

CM: Yeah.

JS: Natural release, and it's done. Yeah.

CM: Caroline, it sounds like yes, you should definitely use the instant pot to make your beans. Try it out and let us know how it goes.

Next up, a question from listener Maureen. "My dilemma is reusing cooking oil. Confession: I've never done it because I don't know. Do I leave it out to come to room temperature? How do I filter it? How do I store it? I've been practicing chicken quarters confit, and I love it. It turns out perfectly every time and I feel fancy. But when I make it, it seems like such a waste of olive oil. How do I save it? What if I fried fish? And how should I reuse it? I need inspiration to make something besides potato chips or fried onions."

JS: There's a lot in there. There is a difference between confit and frying oil, I will say that.

SU: Yes.

JS: Yeah.

CM: Yeah. Break that down, Jesse.

JS: Frying oil is just frying oil with little bits you have floating around from whatever you fried. Or the aroma. But confit oil is a combination of whatever animal fat emulsified with the frying fat, too. Or the cooking fat, I should say.

CM: And water.

SU: And some moisture.

JS: Yeah.

CM: Yeah, moisture content, which is where the potential danger might come in more.

JS: Yeah, so they're different. I would be more inclined to reuse frying oil than I would confit oil. Or fat, I guess I should say.

CM: You've made chicken quarters confit. I'm not super familiar with that recipe, but I'm guessing at what it probably is. You've eat the chicken, and you now have a mixture of olive oil with some chicken juices and aromatics going on in there. What are you doing with it?

JS: I think you could reuse it for a few days in clever ways, but that's it really for me.

SU: I would strain it.

JS: Yeah.

SU: Into a glass jar.

JS: I agree.

SU: Then I think the oil would float up.

CM: To keep it together? Oh, okay.

SU: Yeah, but the oil would float.

CM: Yeah.

SU: Or whatever the fat, the combination of oil and the schmaltz at that point, would float up. Then I would put it in the refrigerator. You could reuse the same thing. I don't know, if you want to confit potatoes, you can do the same thing. Or if I just want to use the fat alone for something, like to saute chicken for instance. I would just scoop that fat off from the top, and then keep using it. But I would certainly strain it and refrigerate anything from confit.

Jesse, I agree with you, and I think that's a great point that you said. There's a difference between fryer oil, which is there's no extra moisture in it. It can stay at room temperature for a day or so. Then you can reuse it, either to fry other food or to cook other things. But if it's confit oil with other moisture in it, refrigerate it.

CM: Frying oil never put down your drain.

SU: Never.

JS: Never, yeah.

CM: Put it back in the bottle from whenst it came when you've truly used it to its fullest capacity. If you use it to, let's say fry some doughnuts, you can use it for another savory application within that week perhaps. But yeah, I agree with regards to a confit situation, all of that olive oil is perfectly good. You just have to be pretty intentional about how you're using it. Try to just separate out what is true, pure fat from any of the chicken juices and aromatics. I would keep it in the refrigerator just to be safe. But that should be good for many, many weeks, I would think.

SU: Just the fat, yeah.

CM: Just the fat.

SU: I agree. You can use it for anything.

CM: Anything.

SU: Wherever you would use regular fat.

JS: It's like bacon fat.

SU: Yeah, it's like bacon.

JS: Keeping bacon fat.

CM: Yeah, exactly.

We're going to take one more break. When we get back, how to leverage frozen vegetables, and store your herbs so you can enjoy a hit of freshness even when it feels like nothing is in season.

All right. Our next question comes from Sylvia. "I want to learn how to use frozen veg more for those times I need a vegetable side but I don't have anything fresh to hand. Have you found a way to make frozen veg, particularly broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, beans, peas taste delicious rather than watery and tasteless?"

SU: Big fan of frozen vegetables.

CM: Yeah? Tell me more about frozen vegetables.

SU: I think they're just so convenient. I always have a stash of frozen spinach, kale, corn, edamame. I always have those four things in my freezer at all times. I feel like it's such a fallback. I generally like to have something green for every meal that I have. It's good and easy to just have this on-hand to incorporate very quickly. Then you can make so many things with it. I highlighted a bunch of recipes from our site.

CM: Yeah. You've called out a few things. One is, Jesse this is your recipe, herby cauliflower fritters.

JS: Yes.

SU: I love this recipe.

CM: Which is basically cauliflower meatballs.

JS: Yes.

CM: That used riced cauliflower.

JS: Yeah. Because I don't like riced cauliflower as rice. That doesn't make sense to me. But you can use it in so many other different ways. Yeah, these are bound together like little fritter meatballs with breadcrumbs, and cheese, and egg. You fry them up and they're really good.

CM: Yeah. Yeah.

SU: They're like falafel, but cauliflower.

CM: Yeah, exactly.

JS: Yeah.

SU: They're so good.

CM: Shilpa, you're also calling out the green pea fritter recipe.

SU: Yes.

CM: Which this is from a little while ago.

SU: This is from a while ago. It uses cottage cheese, and eggs, and then a bag of frozen peas. You mix it together in a bowl, and then you portion out little fritters in a pan of hot oil. It's one of those things that I make when I feel like, "Oh my God, there's nothing in the fridge." There's always a bag of peas. Then it can be breakfast, it could be dinner. It's just a convenient, quick thing to make.

CM: Why frozen vegetables? Why are they better in the green pea fritters, and frankly in other applications as well?

SU: I don't know when is the last time I've had a fresh green pea, now that I think about it. I always buy frozen peas for years now. I just think they are much more tender, especially if you get the ones that are baby-

CM: The petite?

SU: ... sweet peas. Yeah.

CM: What about frozen kale, frozen spinach? Why would you seek those things out, specifically frozen iterations thereof, rather than their fresh counterparts?

SU: Oh. One, I think it's just easier to keep in your fridge. It's much more compact, it takes up less space in your fridge. The fresh ones, they're in your vegetable drawer. If you don't get to it in time, they wilt, they get slimy. It's just a good backup option to have. From a nutrition standpoint, frozen vegetables are just as good as fresh. I think the frozen leafy greens, like spinach or kale, I think they've been blanched a little bit before. Then they're much more easier to use. You bypass that step of needing to blanch or cook your greens. You can go straight into making, I don't know, a saag paneer for instance, with a bag of frozen spinach.

CM: Yeah, I'm glad you called that out. Texturally, they have much more in common with a cooked vegetable than with a raw vegetable. From a time-saving perspective, there's a real consideration there.

From the standpoint of just flavor, I want to call out that, listen, they've given you starting point in terms of a frozen packaged vegetable. But almost to a tee, nothing has had any kind of flavor added to it. I think you need to probably just find a heavier hand with condiments and sauces that can be really fast and easy that you can hit your veg with as part of the reheating process, because that's essentially what you're doing with frozen veg. You're not really cooking them as much as reheating and flavoring them.

SU: I think that's a good point because there are certain ways that you cook frozen vegetables. I don't know that I would ever roast frozen broccoli. I know it can be done and people do it. But I would never roast a frozen vegetable and expect it to take on any kind of crisp texture.

I would say if you're using frozen vegetables, use them in things that have some kind of liquid. In a chicken potpie, for instance, you can put frozen carrots and peas in a chicken potpie and they would be just as good as fresh. Or cauliflower, like in Jesse's recipe for the fritters. You transform them with liquid ingredients, and then you cook them. It's about how you cook the frozen vegetable, and not every cooking method suits them.

CM: I think even if all you were to do was to put some frozen peas and carrots, or whatever, God help me, the pea-carrot-corn tri-pack. Which honestly, if you put that in a sauce pan with a half cup of water and a few tablespoons of butter, and a big old pinch of salt, and then cook out that water, and just keep tossing things until they're hot and coated in that buttery goodness. Honestly, that's already not bad. Hitting just frozen florets of broccoli, I think high heat in a skillet you can get away with. Maybe not roasting. It is a little bit waterlogged. But if you hit it pretty hard with oil, and just deglaze with a little bit of oyster sauce thinned out with some water, honestly, I think you'll be off to the races.

I would just think a little bit more about the flavors that you're bringing into those scenarios. But at the very least, butter and salt.

SU: Yeah.

JS: Yeah, I agree. I had a broccoli mac-and-cheese, which also I was just trying to prove a point that sometimes you want your veggies to be soft in applications. Think of applications that in that is pleasant, and those are great places to use frozen veggies. Because I don't want al dente broccoli in my pasta.

SU: In your mac-and-cheese, yeah.

JS: Yeah. This would be perfect.

SU: Oh, yeah, that was a good recipe. Was that also made in one pot?

JS: It was, yeah. You just add a bag of frozen broccoli at the end, and the heat of the pasta just does its thing.

CM: Those are all great ideas. Sylvia, let us know what you try out.

Okay. Our last question is a voice memo from listener Jillian.

Jillian: I just really need some help with my herbs. I will find myself buying cilantro specifically for some meals I have planned throughout the week. Then when I go to cook and go for the cilantro, I open the fridge, and they're just wilted, and brown, and look so sad. Then my whole dinner topping, it's not happening anymore. I just want to know can you help me figure out the best way to store herbs, specifically cilantro?

CM: We've been there. I can't even have one fresh herb in a weekly rotation in my fridge because I can't plan my life around using the cilantro personally. In other moments of my life, I have.

I know this is painful, but cilantro is notoriously sandy. It is well worth the effort to undo the bunch, remove the rubber band or undo the twist-tie, because the more the cilantro bruises ... And trust me, when you twist off a handful at some point in the week, all those bruised stems are just going to be working against you in terms of keeping your cilantro fresh. Rinse that head under running water, or better still plunge it into cold water, swish it around, and then grab it back up out of that water. Shake off as much of that water as you can. Roll it in some paper towels and put it in a plastic bag. I can't guarantee you seven days, but I think you can easily make cilantro last five days if you use that method.

JS: That's exactly how I would do it if I was trying to keep it for longer.

CM: It has to be in an enclosed environment with some ability to regulate its own humidity level. The paper towel plus a resealable bag is key for making sure it doesn't dry out and just wilt. That's the first issue you're having and that will certainly correct it.

SU: This was me all the time. Always having dead cilantro, and I love cilantro. I discovered this secret to put it in an airtight box. It has to be in a box more than just a bag. That way, it stays for me for two weeks. I don't wash the cilantro previously.

JS: Oh.

SU: Because I feel like the trapped water, then it tends to rot much faster. I used to wash the cilantro before, and then line the box with paper towels, and put it. But then I discovered unwashed, just keep it in the bag that you got from the grocery store, put it inside this tightly-sealed airtight container, and then just cut off what you need, and then wash it right before you use has completely transformed how long all of my herbs keep.

I have this one giant box, and then I keep parsley in there, chives, cilantro. It works so well.

JS: What is the box?

SU: It's just, I don't know where it I got it from, but it's plastic craft box I think, and it has those little clips on the side. It's really airtight and I think that's the secret.

I've also noticed, and I saw this when you watched YouTube videos of markets in Thailand and stuff, when they put herbs in a bag, they put so much air in it. The bags are always puffy and bloated. I don't have enough space in my fridge to ever execute that idea, but the more carbon dioxide there is in the bag, the fresher the herbs stay. Sometimes when I'm in the mood, maybe it's a little gross, but I put the herbs in a Ziploc bag, and then I put a straw and blow air into it, and then seal it. It stays longer like that as well.

CM: Yeah. I think preserving that humidity is really key. I'm not surprised by the box technique. I think the main thing is once it starts to get a little bit sludgy, and cut-grass mushy, it goes real fast.

SU: Oh, yeah.

CM:Just watching it and seeing what works best for you within the conditions of your fridge, and then you can experiment whether it's worth pre-washing or not. I just hate having to wash it every time I reach for it.

SU: Are we able to state our pet peeves?

CM: About life or about cilantro?

SU: No, about herbs in general and herb storage. You know when people are like, "Put it in a glass of water?"

JS: It's stupid.

CM: Hold on.

JS: No.

CM: Oh my God.

JS: It doesn't work.

SU: I'm sorry, Christopher, whatever you're going, don't say it.

CM: Basil, it works.

JS: No.

SU: Ah, Christopher.

JS: I don't like it.

CM: Basil, it works. It works.

SU: In the fridge.

CM: Basil does not want to be ... No, not in the fridge.

SU: Okay, that's fine if you want to keep it outside.

CM: Basil does not want to be refrigerated.

SU: Okay, that's a different point.

CM: Some of it has been bred to be tolerant of being in the refrigerator. Look at where the basil is being sold in a lot of your supermarkets, and it is not in the refrigerated section because it gets cold damaged so easily. That is simply those brown leaves that you see after being in the back of your fridge and you're like, "What happened?" It's just too cold for it. That is a warm weather plant. Think about where it grows.

It's not enough just to put it in water, Jesse. Again, you have to preserve some of that moisture and put the bag over it.

JS: Sure.

CM: I swear.

SU: But I think the important thing to note here is that technique is good because it's outside.

CM: Yeah.

SU: I'm talking about the technique of putting herbs in a glass, and then putting that in the fridge.

CM: I don't think that's true of any herb, any time.

SU: Yeah.

CM: It just so happens that basil is almost functioning more like a cut flower.

SU: Yes, exactly. That makes sense.

CM: As opposed to a super tender herb in that scenario.

SU: I'll give you that one.

CM: Anyway, Jillian, I know there was a whole lot in there. But TLDR, it's about preserving moisture but making sure there's not an excess of moisture. For your cilantro, make sure you're storing it in an airtight container or bag. If you wash it first, put a paper towel in there, too. That strategy can work for a lot of other herbs. But for basil, you want to keep it out of the fridge, ideally in water with a plastic bag over it. Try it out and let us know how it all goes.

Jesse and Shilpa, thank you both so much for being here. This was really fun.

JS: Of course.

SU: We had a good time.

CM: Good. Best of luck with Bake Club, okay?

JS: Thank you.

CM: If you have a dinner emergency on your hands, write to us at dinnersos@bonappetit.com. Or leave us a voice message at 212-286-SOS1. That's 212-286-7071. We'd love to feature your question on the show. If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a rating and review on your podcast app of choice. And hit that follow button, so you never miss an episode. You can find the recipes mentioned on today's episode linked in our show notes and on the Epicurious app brought to you by Conde Nast. Just search Epicurious in the app store and download today. If you're not yet a subscriber, you can sign up today for a 30-day free trial in the app or at bonappetit.com.

Thanks for listening to Dinner SOS. I'm your host, Chris Morocco. My co-hosts this week are Jesse Szewczyk and Shilpa Uskokovic. Our senior producer is Michele O'Brien. Peyton Hayes is our associate producer. Cameron Foos is our assistant producer. Jake Lummus is our studio engineer. This episode was mixed by Amar Lal at Macro Sound. Jordan Bell is our executive producer. Chris Bannon is Conde Nast's head of global audio.

Next week, Jen likes to meal prep but she's not so into eating the same thing night after night.

Jen: What I'm really looking for is some strategies to reuse what I've done in new ways, but not get bored throughout the week.

Originally Appeared on Bon Appétit