The pairing of spices, dried fruit, and salty brined olives or capers with meat is distinctly Spanish—and is a favorite way to season ground meat in Cuba. A slow-cooked chicken stew seasoned up the same way is warming and really delicious if made a day ahead so the flavors bloom.
Arrange these satisfying bites in covered bento lunch containers for lunch at the pool or on the beach—or cook the chicken ahead and have all the ingredients ready to make roll-ups one by one as you’d like.
Sweet and spicy, these mini skewers are just the right bite for a holiday gathering.
This chimichurri-style salsa is raw and should be a thick, coarse puree. It can be finely chopped by hand or buzzed up in a mini processor or blender. This is the time to use a nice-quality olive oil.
Mix up the kinds of tomato you use in this juicy salad—and the window for flavorful varieties can be tight, depending on the weather. Using ultra-thin slices of prosciutto ham, crisped up in the oven, instead of bacon, is a fun twist and absolutely addicting. Add more texture by making rustic croutons to sprinkle on top.
Fusilli bucati are long corkscrews of pasta, very fun to wind around your fork, thickly coated with a creamy sauce and studded with chunks of chicken and tender spring asparagus.
All over the eastern Mediterranean these spiced meat sandwiches are a street food staple. Originating in northwestern Turkey, this style of seasoned meat wrap is so common it’s sometimes called the Middle Eastern taco.
These rich sandwiches drip with juicy seasoned chicken, ripe tomato, and briny pickles. If you don’t have a sandwich press or Panini grill, cook them on a stovetop grill, griddle, hot skillet, or charcoal grill with chunks of sweet bell pepper and onion.
You can’t beat a simple coleslaw with these savory tenders – a combo of chopped cabbage, julienned carrot, and thinly sliced red onion, tossed with a creamy slaw dressing perhaps. Try adding some chopped fresh cilantro or julienned jicama for a southwestern touch.
Savory, with a nice crisp bite, these mini appetizers look more like eggrolls. For a more traditional chewy potsticker texture, shallow-fry them in peanut oil, then add some water to the pan to finish them with steam. Ambitious Kitchen created this recipe from an ingredient list submitted by Meggan S., who was a finalist in the Just Bare Chicken+5 Ingredient Challenge.