Make-ahead French toast with maple apples
With reader favorites from the week.
Cooking
December 19, 2025

The Best of the Week in Cooking

What we — our readers and staffers — are clicking, cooking and can’t stop thinking about.

By Mia Leimkuhler

If you make one thing this weekend

This overnight French toast with maple apples was designed to feed a crowd, and to feed it easily and efficiently. But I am one of a two-person household (three if you count the dog as a person, which I do), and I will still be making this full recipe. That way, I have breakfast ready, yes, but also dessert (with ice cream or sour cream, mmm), my afternoon snack and the next day’s breakfast. But I’ll be swapping the cinnamon for cardamom because I don’t love cinnamon. That’s another bonus of making something just for yourself — you get to make it exactly the way you like.

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Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Yossy Arefi. Prop Stylist: Marina Bevilacqua

Overnight French Toast With Maple Apples

By Yossy Arefi

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15

9 hours 10 minutes

Makes 8 to 10 servings

There’s plenty more make-ahead cleverness where that came from — click here for 25 breakfast and brunch recipes you can assemble the day before. Herb, feta and egg pitas, anyone?

Rachel Vanni for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.

25 Make-Ahead Breakfasts for Relaxed Holiday Mornings

Most-clicked recipes

The spirit of Cookie Week lives on — Eric Kim’s mint chocolate chip cookies were a chart-topper this week. And no wonder: With their refreshing mint extract and pretty pale-green color, they perfectly mimic a scoop of mint chip on a cone.

More of our most-clicked recipes this week: classic potato latkes, crispy halloumi with tomatoes and white beans and Golden Diner pancakes.

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Rachel Vanni for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Samantha Seneviratne. Prop Stylist: Megan Hedgpeth.

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

By Eric Kim

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542

1 hour 15 minutes, plus cooling

Makes About 18 pieces

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Joel Goldberg for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.

Classic Potato Latkes

By Melissa Clark

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7,216

45 minutes

Makes About 3 dozen

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Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Judy Kim.

Crispy Halloumi With Tomatoes and White Beans

By Nargisse Benkabbou

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6,000

30 minutes 

Makes 4 servings

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Christopher Simpson for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Susie Theodorou.

Golden Diner Pancakes

Recipe from Sam Yoo

Adapted by Genevieve Ko

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691

1 hour 45 minutes

Makes 4 to 6 large pancakes with toppings (3 to 6 servings)

New and noteworthy

I know this sounds like a setup from Stefon of “Saturday Night Live” renown, but the hottest club in Daly City, Calif., is the Noche Buena (“good night” in Spanish) holiday party at Seafood City. “The heart of Noche Buena centers on family, tradition and gift-giving — and an abundant feast,” Naz Deravian writes of the Christmas Eve celebrations in Catholic Filipino communities. “The D.J. parties at Seafood City, called Late Night Madness, reflect the spirit of the holiday through music, food and dancing in community.” This pancit Malabon (seafood rice noodles) from Prescilla and Catherine Tolentino, the mother-and-daughter owners of Gemmae Bake Shop in Long Beach, Calif., is celebratory, abundant, colorful and festive — the dinner you need for a very good night.

You said it

A blue casserole dish holds sausage rice casserole.
Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.

View this recipe: Kia Damon’s sausage rice casserole

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Tanya Sichynsky shares the most delicious vegetarian recipes for weeknight cooking, packed lunches and dinner parties.

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Tanya Sichynsky shares the most delicious vegetarian recipes for weeknight cooking, packed lunches and dinner parties.

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