Food

30 Classic Recipes for Your Repertoire

Add these quintessential recipes to your canon, from roast chicken to chocolate chip cookies.

By

Food & Wine Editors

Updated on January 12, 2024

Julia Child's Favorite Roast Chicken — Photo:
Julia Hartbeck

Becoming a well-rounded cook starts with learning a broad base of fundamentals. With a firm grasp of the basics and some practice under your belt, you can begin to get creative, putting your own unique spin on essential recipes. Tackling more involved dishes will become more fun and less daunting once you know your way around the kitchen, and staple recipes provide practice with classic techniques. We've curated these classic recipes to serve as a springboard; from juicy roast chicken to rich beef stew and creamy risotto, this is a selection of classic dishes that every cook should know how to make well. If you'd like to specifically tackle French cuisine, check out this collection, too.

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French Rolled Omelet

French Rolled Omelet — Jennifer Causey

Eggs are the perfect, and often affordable, way to teach proper cooking technique. There’s cracking the eggs correctly; having a place to toss the shells; the best tool used to beat them; the type and quantity of seasoning added before, during, and after cooking; how to heat a pan; when to add the fat; all the visual, aural, aromatic clues of coagulating protein; the essentials of proper presentation; and on and on and on. Cooks are often asked to cook an omelet when they stage at restaurants, and food editor Mary-Frances Heck shares her recipe that's passed the test.

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Buttery Buttermilk Biscuits

Buttery Buttermilk Biscuits — Photo by Morgan Hunt Glaze / Food Styling by Ruth Blackburn / Prop Styling by Christina Daley

For these exquisitely flaky biscuits, make sure to do two things: Use lots of cold butter and chill the dough before baking it. They emerge from the oven deliciously golden.

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Quiche Lorraine

Quiche Lorraine Recipe — Matt Taylor-Gross / Food Styling Debbie Wee

Crisp bacon bits and Gruyère cheese flavor this rich and creamy classic quiche, which is encased in a flaky butter-based crust. The secret to the quiche's super-silky texture is the small amount of sour cream whisked into the eggs. Be sure to use pie weights or baking beans when you blind-bake the crust, so it holds its shape and doesn't shrink in the oven.

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French Toast

French Toast — Matt Taylor-Gross / Food Styling by Amelia Rampe

Cinnamon, nutmeg, and butter make this easy French toast recipe a winner.

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Club Sandwich

Classic Club Sandwich — Matt Taylor-Gross / Food Styling by Debbie Wee

This triple-decker sandwich with turkey, bacon, lettuce, and tomato is a classic for a good reason.

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Fresh Pasta Dough

Fresh Pasta Dough — Photo by Andrew Bui / Food Styling by Caitlin Haught Brown

Perfect your fresh pasta dough and unlock the key to a lifetime of incredible pasta dishes, from golden-hued fettuccine noodles to ravioli and tortellini. This recipe includes three methods for making it: by hand, with a food processor, or using a stand mixer.

07 of 30

Classic Cheese Pizza

Classic Cheese Pizza — Photo by Christopher Testani / Food Styling by Torie Cox / Prop Styling by Audrey Davis

This recipe turns simple into sublime with the addition of an exceptional pizza dough, low-moisture mozzarella cheese, and an easy-to-make tomato sauce that hits all of the right sweet and savory notes to marry all of the flavors in this pie. A simple garnish of fresh herbs, and you've got perfection on a plate.

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Caesar Salad

Classic Caesar Salad — Matt Taylor-Gross / Food Styling by Ali Domrongchai

Just a handful of ingredients come together to make a robust, well-balanced salad. This recipe stays true to the original version of Caesar salad, with crunchy romaine leaves, toasty croutons, and a savory dressing made with anchovies and garlic. A little help from Worcestershire sauce and lemon juice deepens the complexity of the dressing, while a generous scattering of shaved Parmesan makes the dish more substantial.

09 of 30

Mashed Potatoes, Kind of Robuchon-Style

A large bowl of Robuchon-style mashed potatoes topped with melted butter — Diana Chistruga

Chef Joël Robuchon was famous worldwide for his super-silky, rich, light, and buttery mashed potatoes. This is Anthony Bourdain’s version of those potatoes.

10 of 30

Classic Beef Chili

classic beef chili

This is a great classic chili to keep in your back pocket. Fresh poblano, toasty ancho chile powder, oregano, and beer come together to make a flavorful bowl. Serve it alongside tortilla chips or cornbread and shredded cheddar, slices of fresh jalapeño and radishes, chopped scallions, and sour cream.

11 of 30

Beef Stew in Red Wine Sauce

Beef Stew in Red Wine Sauce

For this classic beef stew, chef Jacques Pépin uses a special piece of the shoulder called the flatiron steak. This long, narrow cut is extremely lean, tender, and moist, and it makes an ideal stew. He does not use stock, demi-glace, or even water; he makes his stew strictly with a robust red wine. This is a fantastic winter dish.

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Julia Child's Favorite Roast Chicken

Julia Child's Favorite Roast Chicken — Julia Hartbeck

Julia Child's chicken recipe is a lesson in simplicity and technique, yielding a flavorful, perfectly cooked bird you'll want to make again and again.

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Classic Pot Roast

Pot Roast — Jerrelle Guy

Grace Parisi's incredible classic pot roast recipe is the perfect version of this quintessential comfort food, with braised chuck eye roast, carrots, potatoes, and sautéed mushrooms, and buttered egg noodles.

14 of 30

Classic Panna Cotta

Classic Panna Cotta — Greg Dupree

This recipe yields a perfectly soft-set panna cotta with just the right amount of wobble. Fresh vanilla bean seeds perfume the base mixture, while creamy buttermilk adds a balancing tang.

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Creamy Tomato Soup with Buttery Croutons

Tomato Soup with Buttery Croutons — Cara Cormack

This quick, easy tomato soup is comfort in a bowl, especially when it's topped with brown butter croutons.

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Shrimp in Garlic Sauce

Shrimp in Garlic Sauce — Diana Chistruga

Based on a popular Spanish tapa, this dish is delicious enough to serve as a main course. You just sauté the shrimp in garlicky, spicy olive oil and then toss them with sherry, lemon juice, and a handful of parsley. The shrimp are equally good hot or at room temperature.

17 of 30

Pork Fried Rice

Pork Fried Rice — Maxwell Cozzi

This Japanese-style pork fried rice from 2000 F&W Best New Chef Takashi Yagihashi was his favorite childhood after-school snack. It comes together in just 25 minutes, thanks to the inclusion of quick-cooking Chinese barbecued pork.

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Potato Gnocchi with Butter and Cheese

Potato Gnocchi with Butter and Cheese — Maxwell Cozzi

Baked — not boiled — potatoes are the key to this fluffy potato gnocchi recipe.

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Bouillabaisse

Chloe Crespi Photography

Chef Ludo Lefebvre’s bouillabaisse starts with a quick-cooking, but deeply flavored, seafood broth. Layering a base of aromatics with fresh snapper, scallops, shrimp, and a mix of Pernod and dry white wine creates a long-simmered flavor in under an hour. Be sure to use shell-on shrimp; those shells add flavor and body to the stock.

20 of 30

Cobb Salad with Roasted Sweet Onion Dressing

Southern Cobb Salad with Roasted Sweet Onion Dressing — © Con Poulos

Arrange shredded chicken, blue cheese, tomatoes, cooked bacon pieces, buckwheat sprouts, corn kernels, and toasted pecans over the top of a bowl of fresh mixed greens, and dress with a roasted garlic and onion vinaigrette.

21 of 30

Classic Cheeseburgers

Classic Cheeseburgers — Dennis Prescott

"When I started cooking, a juicy, cooked-to-perfection burger was on my top 10 list of things to ace," says cookbook author Dennis Prescott. "This recipe is for a classic, diner-style burger with all my favorite toppings. Adding a mustard layer to the beef before frying creates the most delicious crust — you’ll be an immediate convert."

22 of 30

Classic Southern Fried Chicken

Classic Southern Fried Chicken — © Con Poulos

A dredge in flour and seasoned salt and pepper delivers a subtle zing to this fried chicken with savory, crackling skin and meltingly juicy meat.

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Classic Chicken Stock

Classic Chicken Stock — © John Kernick

This stock is perfect for making sauces, gravies, braises and soups.

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Classic Spaghetti and Meatballs

Classic Spaghetti with Meatballs — © Fredrika Stjärne

Spaghetti and meatballs is a crowd-pleasing classic Italian-American dish. The mixture of beef, veal, and pork makes the meatballs really flavorful.

25 of 30

Herb-Roasted Spatchcock Chicken

Herb-Roasted Spatchcock Chicken — © Fredrika Stjärne

Chef Tyler Florence of Wayfare Tavern in San Francisco gets as much crispiness as possible when roasting chicken by spatchcocking, or butterflying — removing the backbone and flattening the bird so that more of the skin is exposed to direct heat.

26 of 30

Pan-Roasted Salmon with Tomato Vinaigrette

Pan-Roasted Salmon with Tomato Vinaigrette. — © Greg DuPree

Grape tomatoes sautéed with capers, shallot, and cumin form a bright, chunky sauce for seared salmon. This recipe is from Ted Allen's cookbook, The Food You Want to Eat.

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Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies

Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies — © Emily Farris

These made-from-scratch chocolate chip cookies take less than half an hour, start to finish.

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Macaroni and Three Cheeses

Macaroni and Three Cheeses — © Quentin Bacon

When legendary athlete Michael Jordan and chef David Walzog were working on the menu for his eponymous steakhouse in Manhattan, Jordan insisted on including macaroni and cheese. White cheddar, gorgonzola, and Parmesan make this deluxe breadcrumb-topped version sing.

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Classic Chicken Noodle Soup

Classic Chicken Noodle Soup — © Stephanie Foley

From one deeply flavorful chicken broth, former F&W editor Grace Parisi creates four exceptional soups. Chicken noodle is a classic comfort food, warming in the winter and soothing for some.

30 of 30

Whole Roast Fish with Lemon and Herbs

Whole Roast Fish with Lemon and Herbs — © Fredrika Stjärne

Designer and blogger Athena Calderone often prepares this whole roast fish for her family on Christmas Day — it makes a dramatic centerpiece for a holiday meal. Like the rest of her menu, it tastes fresh and bright, thanks to a double hit of herbs.

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