Becoming a well-rounded cook starts with learning a broad base of fundamentals. With a firm grasp of the basics and some practice under your belt, you can begin to get creative, putting your own unique spin on essential recipes. Tackling more involved dishes will become more fun and less daunting once you know your way around the kitchen, and staple recipes provide practice with classic techniques. We've curated these classic recipes to serve as a springboard; from juicy roast chicken to rich beef stew and creamy risotto, this is a selection of classic dishes that every cook should know how to make well. If you'd like to specifically tackle French cuisine, check out this collection, too.
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French Rolled Omelet
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Eggs are the perfect, and often affordable, way to teach proper cooking technique. There’s cracking the eggs correctly; having a place to toss the shells; the best tool used to beat them; the type and quantity of seasoning added before, during, and after cooking; how to heat a pan; when to add the fat; all the visual, aural, aromatic clues of coagulating protein; the essentials of proper presentation; and on and on and on. Cooks are often asked to cook an omelet when they stage at restaurants, and food editor Mary-Frances Heck shares her recipe that's passed the test.
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Buttery Buttermilk Biscuits
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For these exquisitely flaky biscuits, make sure to do two things: Use lots of cold butter and chill the dough before baking it. They emerge from the oven deliciously golden.
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Quiche Lorraine
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Crisp bacon bits and Gruyère cheese flavor this rich and creamy classic quiche, which is encased in a flaky butter-based crust. The secret to the quiche's super-silky texture is the small amount of sour cream whisked into the eggs. Be sure to use pie weights or baking beans when you blind-bake the crust, so it holds its shape and doesn't shrink in the oven.
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French Toast
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Cinnamon, nutmeg, and butter make this easy French toast recipe a winner.
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Club Sandwich
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This triple-decker sandwich with turkey, bacon, lettuce, and tomato is a classic for a good reason.
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Fresh Pasta Dough
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Perfect your fresh pasta dough and unlock the key to a lifetime of incredible pasta dishes, from golden-hued fettuccine noodles to ravioli and tortellini. This recipe includes three methods for making it: by hand, with a food processor, or using a stand mixer.
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Classic Cheese Pizza
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This recipe turns simple into sublime with the addition of an exceptional pizza dough, low-moisture mozzarella cheese, and an easy-to-make tomato sauce that hits all of the right sweet and savory notes to marry all of the flavors in this pie. A simple garnish of fresh herbs, and you've got perfection on a plate.
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Caesar Salad
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Just a handful of ingredients come together to make a robust, well-balanced salad. This recipe stays true to the original version of Caesar salad, with crunchy romaine leaves, toasty croutons, and a savory dressing made with anchovies and garlic. A little help from Worcestershire sauce and lemon juice deepens the complexity of the dressing, while a generous scattering of shaved Parmesan makes the dish more substantial.
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Mashed Potatoes, Kind of Robuchon-Style
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Chef Joël Robuchon was famous worldwide for his super-silky, rich, light, and buttery mashed potatoes. This is Anthony Bourdain’s version of those potatoes.
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Classic Beef Chili
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This is a great classic chili to keep in your back pocket. Fresh poblano, toasty ancho chile powder, oregano, and beer come together to make a flavorful bowl. Serve it alongside tortilla chips or cornbread and shredded cheddar, slices of fresh jalapeño and radishes, chopped scallions, and sour cream.
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Beef Stew in Red Wine Sauce
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For this classic beef stew, chef Jacques Pépin uses a special piece of the shoulder called the flatiron steak. This long, narrow cut is extremely lean, tender, and moist, and it makes an ideal stew. He does not use stock, demi-glace, or even water; he makes his stew strictly with a robust red wine. This is a fantastic winter dish.
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Julia Child's Favorite Roast Chicken
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Julia Child's chicken recipe is a lesson in simplicity and technique, yielding a flavorful, perfectly cooked bird you'll want to make again and again.
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Classic Pot Roast
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Grace Parisi's incredible classic pot roast recipe is the perfect version of this quintessential comfort food, with braised chuck eye roast, carrots, potatoes, and sautéed mushrooms, and buttered egg noodles.
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Classic Panna Cotta
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This recipe yields a perfectly soft-set panna cotta with just the right amount of wobble. Fresh vanilla bean seeds perfume the base mixture, while creamy buttermilk adds a balancing tang.
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Creamy Tomato Soup with Buttery Croutons
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This quick, easy tomato soup is comfort in a bowl, especially when it's topped with brown butter croutons.
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Shrimp in Garlic Sauce
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Based on a popular Spanish tapa, this dish is delicious enough to serve as a main course. You just sauté the shrimp in garlicky, spicy olive oil and then toss them with sherry, lemon juice, and a handful of parsley. The shrimp are equally good hot or at room temperature.
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Pork Fried Rice
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This Japanese-style pork fried rice from 2000 F&W Best New Chef Takashi Yagihashi was his favorite childhood after-school snack. It comes together in just 25 minutes, thanks to the inclusion of quick-cooking Chinese barbecued pork.
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Potato Gnocchi with Butter and Cheese
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Baked — not boiled — potatoes are the key to this fluffy potato gnocchi recipe.
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Bouillabaisse
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Chef Ludo Lefebvre’s bouillabaisse starts with a quick-cooking, but deeply flavored, seafood broth. Layering a base of aromatics with fresh snapper, scallops, shrimp, and a mix of Pernod and dry white wine creates a long-simmered flavor in under an hour. Be sure to use shell-on shrimp; those shells add flavor and body to the stock.
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Cobb Salad with Roasted Sweet Onion Dressing
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Arrange shredded chicken, blue cheese, tomatoes, cooked bacon pieces, buckwheat sprouts, corn kernels, and toasted pecans over the top of a bowl of fresh mixed greens, and dress with a roasted garlic and onion vinaigrette.
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Classic Cheeseburgers
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"When I started cooking, a juicy, cooked-to-perfection burger was on my top 10 list of things to ace," says cookbook author Dennis Prescott. "This recipe is for a classic, diner-style burger with all my favorite toppings. Adding a mustard layer to the beef before frying creates the most delicious crust — you’ll be an immediate convert."
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Classic Southern Fried Chicken
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A dredge in flour and seasoned salt and pepper delivers a subtle zing to this fried chicken with savory, crackling skin and meltingly juicy meat.
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Classic Chicken Stock
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This stock is perfect for making sauces, gravies, braises and soups.
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Classic Spaghetti and Meatballs
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Spaghetti and meatballs is a crowd-pleasing classic Italian-American dish. The mixture of beef, veal, and pork makes the meatballs really flavorful.
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Herb-Roasted Spatchco*ck Chicken
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Chef Tyler Florence of Wayfare Tavern in San Francisco gets as much crispiness as possible when roasting chicken by spatchco*cking, or butterflying — removing the backbone and flattening the bird so that more of the skin is exposed to direct heat.
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Pan-Roasted Salmon with Tomato Vinaigrette
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Grape tomatoes sautéed with capers, shallot, and cumin form a bright, chunky sauce for seared salmon. This recipe is from Ted Allen's cookbook, The Food You Want to Eat.
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Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies
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These made-from-scratch chocolate chip cookies take less than half an hour, start to finish.
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Macaroni and Three Cheeses
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When legendary athlete Michael Jordan and chef David Walzog were working on the menu for his eponymous steakhouse in Manhattan, Jordan insisted on including macaroni and cheese. White cheddar, gorgonzola, and Parmesan make this deluxe breadcrumb-topped version sing.
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Classic Chicken Noodle Soup
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From one deeply flavorful chicken broth, former F&W editor Grace Parisi creates four exceptional soups. Chicken noodle is a classic comfort food, warming in the winter and soothing for some.
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Whole Roast Fish with Lemon and Herbs
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Designer and blogger Athena Calderone often prepares this whole roast fish for her family on Christmas Day — it makes a dramatic centerpiece for a holiday meal. Like the rest of her menu, it tastes fresh and bright, thanks to a double hit of herbs.
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