James Kenji Lopez-Alt

Really Good French Bread Pizza with (with Sausage, Pepperoni, and Giardiniera)

French Bread Pizza is arguably not really pizza. It’s definitely not really made with any kind of bread found in France. That said, it’s unarguably delicious—at least when made well. I explored the ins and outs of French bread pizza in detail a few years ago over on Serious Eats. In that recipe, I used a regular home oven to bake the pizza. These days, however, I use a toaster oven. Because ...

Knife Skills: How to Cut Bell Peppers

Splitting fruits and vegetables is always divisive (see what I did there?), but splitting peppers can be especially so.The goal when prepping a bell pepper is to remove the seeds and internal ribs and pith, which have a papery texture and not a lot of flavor.Some folks like to use a method my friend Daniel Gritzer calls the “Round Robin”–you trim off the top and bottom, give the fruit a slit...

How to Make Denver Omelettes

Every Way to Cut a Tomato

If you are to believe those old Ginsu knife commercials, cutting a tomato is the ultimate test of the sharpness of a knife. This is not completely inaccurate. A really ripe beefsteak tomato is like a water balloon. More accurately, it’s like millions of tiny water balloons that are all taped together. (And even more accurately, it’s like millions of individual plant cells bound together by the...

The Science of Re-Crisping Bagels

This isn't the first time I've talked about this bagel reheating method, and it probably won't be the last. I share it now because it's a perennial tip that works just as well for refreshing any bread that features a crisp crust and chewy center (baguettes benefit especially well).If we were to make a chart of foods according to their room-temperature half-life (the rate at which t...

The Food Lab: Nearly Two Decades Later, The Reverse Sear is Still the Best Way to Cook a Steak

The very first article I was ever paid to write for a print publication was called “The Problem with Thick Cut Steaks.” It appeared in the June/July 2007 issue of Cook’s Illustrated and it included a recipe called “Thick Cut Pan-Seared Steaks.” I spent two months, cooked several hundred steaks, conducted over 70 different tests, and had several hundred testers try the recipe before it wa...

Fudgy Crackle-Top Brownies Recipe

This recipe is a hybrid between my friend Stella Parks’Glossy Fudge Brownies recipefrom Serious Eats (you can get her incredible book, Bravetart, here) and my friend Deb Perelman's My Favorite Browniesrecipe from her blog, Smitten Kitchen.Fudgy Crackle-Top BrowniesEvery recipe I publish here is personally tested, tasted, and approved.What I like about this recipe:Beating the eggs and sugar t...

Late Night Chilaquiles

There are very few times in which I'd use the word "soggy" as a positive descriptor. In fact, it's hard for me to think of a single occasion outside of chilaquiles, the classic Mexican dish of fried corn tortillas soaked in salsa and served with eggs and an array of garnishes. Oh, how I love those soggy nachos.Perfect for breakfast. Perfect for late nights. Perfect for hangovers. P...

The Food Lab Recipe Update: Extra-Crispy Baked Buffalo Wings

An updated version of my 20010 recipe, now even crispier and juicier.The original recipe for oven-fried buffalo wings is fifteen years old. Fifteen!A lot has changed in the last fifteen years. I’m writing this article on an iPad, the first generation of which came out that year! There’s been a new Beatles song! Rage comicsare no longer the height of internet comedy (but double rainbows are sti...

Recipe Update: Pull-Apart Pepperoni Garlic Knots

This is an updated version of the Pull-Apart Pepperoni Garlic Knots recipe I wrote for Serious Eats in 2014. The main changes are details in the cooking and process and using an oiled board to stretch and fold the knots in place of a floured one (a small detail but one that makes the whole thing easier and the knots even pull-apart-ier).If you want to know about the development process, you can re...

The Food Lab: Texas-Style Nachos (are not better than piled nachos, but they're not worse either)

If you're new around these parts, The Food Lab is a column on Serious Eatsin which I wrote about the science of home cooking for many years. It's also the name of my first book. I'll be dropping brand new Food Lab articles and recipes right here, so stay tuned!Nachos are like the Taylor Swift song catalogue of foods. Popular, ubiquitous, prolific, often cheesy, and best enjoyed with th...

For the Best Salsa Verde, Char, Char, and Char Some More

There's a wide range of salsas which I could comfortably see myself settling down and going steady with, but this charred salsa verde is my first and longest-lasting love when it comes to things I can dip my chips in, if you know what I mean. Smoky, spicy, sweet, and bright, its complexity is belied by its short ingredients list: nothing but chiles, tomatillos, onion, and cilantro (and salt if...

Want Perfect French Omelettes? Start With Water

I've been writing about French omelettes for many years now. In fact, the last time I wrote about French omelettes, I wrote about how much I've written about French omelettes. But the last time I covered the subject, it was with a quick and dirty videowhich introduced what I think is actually the most useful and simple omelette-making trick I've ever developed.One of the most difficult...

How to Make Buttery Fried Eggs

You can find this technique and a few others in my Youtube video Four Ways to Fry Eggs.These are eggs the way my grandmother used to make them. Tender, bareley-set whites, yolks that are thoroughly liquid, and a buttery emulsified sauce enrobing all of it.Buttery Fried EggsEvery recipe I publish here is personally tested, tasted, and approved.What I like about this recipe:Adding water and covering...

I couldn't try every variety of Reese's if I wanted to (and I want to).

WTF, Reese's. You're getting out of hand.A couple days ago I was recording the upcoming Super Bowl snacks episode of my friend Ed Levine's podcast Special Sauceand as we usually do, we got off on a tangent. This time it was about the wild proliferation of Reese's products. According to Hersheyland.com, there are a whopping 195different Reese's branded products and packagings av...

Matcha Toast with Soft Boiled Eggs is a Singapore-Inspired Sweet and Savory Breakfast 

This recipe is a riff on Singaporean kaya toast with soft eggs using store-bought matcha jam in place of the traditional coconut jam (along with a dab of chili crisp).The other day, while in the bread and toppings section of Uwajimayapicking up a loaf of shokupan (Japanese milk bread), I spotted a jar of Matcha Milk Jam, a product I’d never seen before. The stuff has as creamy texture similar to...

The Mathematically Best Way to Cut an Onion

Dicing an onion is perhaps the culinary task performed more than any other. It's the first step to countless recipes and something that every cook in every restaurant in the world has done hundreds or thousands of times.But have you ever wondered if there's a trulybest way to dice an onion? I did! So I went on a quest for the perfect onion-dicing technique; the method that produces the mos...

Why You Should "Fry" Your Eggs in Cream

You can find this technique and a few others in my Youtube video Four Ways to Fry Eggs.We all love the smell of browned butter, right? That nutty, savory aroma you get when you heat butter until the milk solids in it start to turn golden?What if I told you that you can brown heavy cream in the same exact way. Not only that, but that it winds up tasting like an extra-intense version of browned butt...

Knife Skills: How to Shop for, Store, and Chop Shallots

Before I'd actually tasted shallots, I was always told that they are sweeter and more mild than a regular onion. I don't actually find this to be the case. To my palate they have amore pungent, garlicky aroma than a typical onion. However, we typically use them in small quantities. Think: an accent to a vinaigrette, tossed with roasted vegetables, sautéed with garlic for a pan sauce, or a...

What's the Best Bread for French Toast?

What's the best bread for French toast? To be honest, this is not the most relevant question. At least in my home, French toast is made with whatever kind of bread we have on hand, whether it's sliced bread from the suparmarket, some leftover baguette from last night's cheeseboard, the stale pannettone someone is bound to gift me each year (panettone makes excellentFrench toast), or th...

Dear Alcohol, we need to talk.

I have not been quiet about my sobriety journey, but I have also never explicitly talked about it.Today, I’m going to.I’d like to share with you a letter I wrote as the final assignment for the first phase of an outpatient recovery program I’m completing with Lakeside-Milam Recovery Centers, at their East Lake location. The letter is a breakup letter to alcohol. It’s something everyone who...

Origami Egg Sandwiches

This is a fun way to make egg sandwiches for one. It's a technique that's inspired by Anda Toast, the Indian egg toast you find in the streets of Calcutta.I've never been to Calcutta, but if you are to believe everything you see on the internet (and why wouldn't you), anda toast made by cooking a thin omelet of eggs seasoned with onions, cilantro, and chiles in a sizzling hot skill...

How to Cut Cucumbers like a Badass

As a kid, one of my favorite snacks was cucumber sticks with a bit of salt for dipping. Now, with two kids who lovecucumbers in nearly all their forms, they are the vegetables I buy, cut, and eat most often. Whether raw or marinated in salads, stuck into snack boxes, served alongside fried rice or Peking duck, smashed Sichuan-style, or even stir-fried, knowing how to buy, store, and cut them is an...

Better-Than-McDonald's Breakfast Sandwiches (And More Work, Too!) | Kenji's Cooking Show

Quick! Place the following four things in chronological orderThe founding of NintendoThe invention of the modern breakfast sandwichThe discovery of PlutoThe Michael Jackson album ThrillerWould it surprise you to find out that the breakfast sandwich, invented in 1972, is the second most recent of these four things?OK, this is not quitetrue. The idea of a sandwich consisting of eggs and meat on a so...

Eggs Benedict for a Crowd

One of my earliest cooking jobs was at a fine dining restaurant in Boston near the State House. Once a week or so, the restaurant would open early to serve breakfast to politicians and bigwigs who'd rent it out for their fundraisers or meetings. As the new guy, it was my job to get there early to make breakfast.This meant lots and lots of poached eggs and hollandaise.Back then, I made Eggs Ben...

All my Favorite Thanksgiving Recipes

I realize it’s the day before Thanksgiving, but if you, like me, are a last-minute planner and still have not decided on which recipes you’re going to be following this year, here’s a guide for you.I’ve been testing and writing recipes for nearly two decades now, and as any recipe writer will tell you, that means a heckuva lot of turkeys, mashed potatoes, stuffings, cranberry sauces, pies,...

The Food Lab's Foolproof Poached Eggs, Revisited

This is an updated version of the recipe I published in my first book, The Food Lab. I’ve updated the technique to ensure that the eggs don’t stick to the strainer, as well as the temperature and specific instructions for the size of the pan and how much water to use.The Secrets to Success:Use fresh eggs (check the Julian date)Strain off the loose whites before poaching.Poach your eggs in adva...

Stay Home for the Hollandaise: The Food Lab's Foolproof Hollandaise, Revisited

This recipe is an updated version of this onethat I published on Serious Eats in 2013. I've updated the temperature of the butter (it does not need to be measured as suggested in earlier versions of the recipe), and some of the language about how to incorporate it to make the recipe more foolproof.The Secrets to SuccessA hand blender creates a vortex that guarantees a stable emulsion when you ...

Revisiting my Classic Sage and Sausage Stuffing from The Food Lab

"What are your thoughts on stuffing?," I asked my friend in a text message the other day."I live for the solid blob of sticky bready buttery stuff," she said.This is the correct answer.When it comes to the holiday table, stuffing is hands-down my favorite part. How could you not enjoy the equivalent of a half loaf of bread soaked in a half stick butter, flavored with sage, sausage,...

Egg and Rice Breakfast Bowls, Two Ways

I grew up in an apartment in Morningside heights on the 10th floor of a high rise. My Japanese grandparents (we called them Kachan and Jita) lived directly below us in apartment 9J. On weekends, my mom would occasionally bring us downstairs to sleep over at my grandmother's place on a large, thick futon that was rolled out on the living room floor. In the morning, we'd drink mugicha (roast...