Make Ahead

These date-filled cookies—qrass bil-tamr—are a typical Ramadan sweet, offered to guests and snacked on during the night before the fast begins again at dawn.

Maamoul are delicate pastries—filled with pistachios, walnuts, or dates—that are served on special occasions like Eid Al-Fitr and Easter.

Melon pan is a traditional sweet bun from Japan made of an enriched dough with a crispy cookie layer on top.

Despite the name, the pineapple bun has no pineapple—it’s a soft milk-bread bun with a sweet, buttery, crackly cookie-like top that, after it’s baked, resembles pineapple skin.

Cold oven pound cake bakes slowly as the temperature of the oven rises, allowing more time for the leavening agents to lift the cake.

These tandoori-spiced chickpeas get slow-cooked with aromatics in oil, and they’re sublime for a make-ahead meal.

These jammy eggs are a quick and beautiful addition to any cocktail party.

Almond extract boosts the coconut flavor of these streamlined macaroon cookies. The recipe makes four bite-size confections but can easily be doubled.

This fairly classic gumbo recipe is made with okra and, optionally, filé powder. Chicken, andouille sausage, and a dark roux add savory depth.

These sesame flatbreads can be made ahead and frozen—or, if you plan ahead, made fresh for breakfast.

Thepla is a quintessential Gujarati flatbread that goes with anything—mango lassi, a cup of chai, or achar for dipping.

Though this pâté can be eaten the day it's made, we find it even more flavorful when made one or two days ahead. If you use several small ramekins instead of a pâté crock or terrine, you may need more clarified butter to seal the tops.

We combined our favorite elements from the most popular banana bread recipes on our site to create the ultimate version of this sweet, nutty, supremely moist quick bread.

Menudo is typically served on weekends (whether that means family reunions, dressed in your Sunday best—or as an ideal hangover cure). The earthiness of the hominy and smoky chiles makes this dish one you’ll crave for weekends to come. Dried snow mushrooms are easy to find online and at many East Asian grocery stores. Their frilly, honeycomb-like texture provides a similar look and bite to the pancita—a.k.a. beef stomach—used in traditional menudo, making this dish accessible to almost anyone. W.…

Sweet potato purée and banana bind the ingredients together (so you can skip the eggs), while adding a light, natural sweetness to the batter.

With comforting notes of butterscotch and caramel, butter tarts are perfect when you want something small and sweet, and they require just a few basic pantry ingredients.

This pie dough is wonderfully versatile, and cookbook author Ken Haedrich uses it for both sweet and savory pies. It has great flavor, flaky texture, and is easy to handle.

These classic pignoli cookies gets their chewy texture from almond paste and egg whites and crunch from the pine nuts embedded in their crispy surface. 

This is a tres leches meets olive oil cake, lightened up with a chiffon base to help soak in all of the milk.

Simple, quick, and bursting with flavor, these beans are perfect on their own, with a slice of toast, or tossed into a salad.