Recipes for beginners

Cornbread

Cornbread baked in a hot cast-iron skillet gets a crackling brown crust that no other pan gives you. This version sits in the middle of the long sweet-or-not argument, with a little sugar you can raise or leave out, and it teaches the hot-pan pour you'll use again and again.

View recipe · 4 servings

Breakfast

Granola

Homemade granola lets you decide the sweetness, the salt and the size of the clusters. The secret to big, crunchy clumps is simple: press the mix flat, bake it low, and leave it alone while it cools.

View recipe · 12 servings

Breakfast

Overnight Oats

Stir this together at night and breakfast is waiting when you open the refrigerator. The oats never see heat: cold milk and yogurt soften them slowly while you sleep. Your whole job is the ratio and the seasoning, so the jars come out creamy and spoonable, neither pasty nor soupy.

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Breakfast

Stovetop Oatmeal

A pot of oatmeal is a few minutes of easy stirring, and it teaches three moves you'll use far beyond breakfast: toasting a grain in fat, cooking starch to a creamy set, and salting the liquid early. Made this way, it tastes like toasted oats and warm milk, not paste.

View recipe · 4 servings