Good morning! Today we have for you:
Hearty ham and bean soup
You can, as Fleetwood Mac urges, go your own way, but if yesterday’s dinner was ham, then I really think tonight’s dinner ought to be Naz Deravian’s ham and bean soup. Not that this classic, comforting, stick-to-your-ribs soup needs to be made specifically with leftover ham, but the dish really makes the most of whatever scraps you have, plus that ham bone or hock. (And if you’re feeling hammed out, you can always stash this soup in the freezer for later; future you will be so pleased.) Naz’s recipe calls for dried beans, soaked overnight, but I asked Adina Steiman, one of our recipe wizards, how she’d adapt the recipe for drained, canned beans. Adina says: “I’d use three to four cans of drained beans and skip rinsing them to get a bit of the creaminess and body you’d get from the dried-bean original. Add them in the last 10 minutes of Step 2, so they can simmer a bit before the blending in Step 3.” Enjoy! Featured Recipe Ham and Bean SoupA happy Kwanzaa to those who celebrate! Should you need recipes or inspiration for your festivities, we have lots of wonderful options in our Kwanzaa recipe collection. Yewande Komolafe’s asaro (yam and plantain curry) simmers sweet, starchy white or orange yams and unripe plantains in a sauce rich with coconut milk, caramelized shallots, garlic, ginger and turmeric. This lovely dish comes together in under an hour; don’t forget the lime for a splash of brightness to finish. As 2025 hurtles to a close, a reminder that it’s not too late to cook some of the year’s greatest hits. (You can also cook them in 2026; last I checked, our recipes do not self-destruct on internal timers.) Alexa Weibel’s roasted broccoli and whipped tofu with chile crisp crunch is just the thing I need to balance out the eyebrow-raising amount of sugar I’ve inhaled recently; ditto Lisa Donovan’s French lentil salad. Speaking of the end of the year, Melissa Clark has three new recipes for an easy but impressive New Year’s party spread, all of which, I think, would also make really nice snacky dinners. This delicata squash tart with hot honey and pistachios is so lovely — those scalloped rings of squash do a lot of visual heavy lifting, don’t they? And I could easily polish off these tuna rillettes myself with some crunchy crackers and crisp vegetables. I’m particularly intrigued by Melissa’s French onion baked Brie, which skips the pastry jacket so that the oozy cheese can more easily mingle with its caramelized onion topping. Melissa mentions using a wheel of Camembert instead of Brie in her headnotes, which sounds so good to me, a lover of strong, funky cheeses. But again, with cheese as with life, you can go your own way. Thanks for reading!
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