Spicy Chicken Lettuce Wraps and More Recipes We Made This Week

It’s no secret that Bon Appétit editors cook a lot for work. So it should come as no surprise that we cook a lot during our off hours too. Here are the recipes we’re whipping up this month to get dinner on the table, entertain our friends, satisfy a sweet tooth, use up leftovers, and everything in between. For even more staff favorites, click here.October 2Cheesy leek pastaWhen I saw a bunch of bright-eyed leeks at the farmers market from my favorite vendor, I knew just what to do with them: my colleague Rebecca Firkser’s cheesy baked pasta. It was one of those love-at-first-sight recipes for me in the Test Kitchen—somehow minimalist and dramatic at the same time. Save this one for a chilly night when you’re having friends over. The sauce uses a cup of white wine, so there’s most of a bottle left to enjoy with dinner. —Emma Laperruque, cooking directorNot stuffed shells. But not not stuffed shells either.View RecipeAn omelet just for meI’ve been making a lot of solo dinners lately, and nine times out of 10 that means I’m cooking an omelet. My fried shallot, apple, and fontina version is a go-to—I wrote all about it for our series, Me, Myself, and Dinner—but if I haven’t gone grocery shopping, I’ll just cobble together fun stuff from my fridge. Some recent wins: chopped kimchi and yellow cheddar; spinach, feta, and dill; black beans, avocado, and salsa macha. —Rebecca Firkser, Test Kitchen editorFontina and fried shallots make this diner-style omelet perfectly acceptable dinner fare.View RecipeRoast chicken for daysThis week I did something I haven’t done in years. I roasted a chicken. And it was revelatory. Not fussy. Easy! Rewarding. Inspired by the method in Kitty Cowles’s cookbook, I sprinkled the bird with salt and let it hang out in the fridge for a few hours. Then I rubbed it with olive oil, threw some lemon and garlic in the cavity, and roasted it as high as my oven would go, convection on. While the chicken was resting, its skin a golden crackle, I deglazed the pan juices with white wine, and let those simmer into a tangy gravy. Served with a salad, it was the coziest supper, even romantic if you ignore my toddler cooing. The next day, the carcass simmered in a pot of water with onion and ginger for a broth I’ll sip for days. The surplus meat has morphed into a rice bowl, towering sandwich, daycare lunchbox, 3 p.m. snack. And the joy from it all? Incalculable. —E.L.Repeat-worthy salmon bowlsI’m always on the hunt for a protein-rich, not-too-finicky dinner that I can pull together in a blip. It’s gotta taste good, because I’ll probably cook it for five consecutive days, at which point I will tire of it and resume my hunt anew. Like sands through the hourglass, these are the recipes of our lives. This week, I settled on customizable Soy-Glazed Salmon Bowls. Cook the salmon in that salty-sweet soy and honey sauce, throw it atop rice, and add whatever vegetables you have. This time, I went with shreddy carrots and cukes, plus some of those crispy sheets of nori that I used to scoop up bite after bite. —Sam Stone, senior editorSaucy, soy-honey salmon—cut into cubes to speed up the cooking process—makes a savory topping for a quick weeknight bowl.View RecipeSpicy chicken lettuce wrapsMy very talented colleague Shilpa Uskokovic forever changed the way I cook ground chicken. She mixes the chicken with baking soda—yes, baking soda—for clusters of bouncy nubbins. Now anytime a recipe calls for ground meat, I use this hack. This week’s victim: Spicy Chicken Lettuce Wraps. It has a sweet, fiery sauce made from sriracha, brown sugar, soy, and fish sauce that deliberately clings to the juicy meat. I piled the chicken into butter lettuce with a squeeze of lime, and a handful of torn mint for freshness. —Nina Moskowitz, associate editor, cooking