This is every side dish on the site, in one place. Nine of them so far, all free, all written out properly.
Here's the thing about a side dish, and it's why so many of them end up as decoration. A side has one job on the plate: it fixes something the main is missing. Usually that is richness that needs cutting, or a plate that needs crunch, acid, or heat. Figure out which of those the meal needs and cook that. Get it right and a two dollar side does more for dinner than the expensive thing next to it. Get it wrong and you have made a garnish.
The second thing worth knowing is that these are cheap. Cabbage, cucumbers, corn, tomatoes, chickpeas, plantains, a bunch of spinach. The whole set of nine costs less than a single side at a restaurant that charges for sides, and most of them take less than half an hour.
Start anywhere. If you're new to this, kachumbari and plátano frito are the two I'd begin with, because neither one punishes you for a small mistake.
The Cold Ones
Salads and one ferment, all served cold or at room temperature, all built to sit next to something hot and rich. Every one of them starts by salting the vegetable and waiting, because that is what pulls the water out and keeps the dish crisp instead of watery. The kimchi just takes that same step much further.
- How to Make Gurkensalat, the German cucumber salad, and why you squeeze the cucumbers before they ever see the dressing
- How to Make Thai Cucumber Salad (Ajad), the sweet and sour one that goes next to satay, dressed with a syrup you cool first
- How to Make Kachumbari, the East African tomato and onion salad, and the trick that takes the bite out of raw onion
- How to Make Napa Cabbage Kimchi (Baechu Kimchi), where the salting step becomes a fermentation and the salt is the whole safety margin
The Cooked Ones
These take a pan and some patience. Most of them come down to one idea: cook the vegetables in the right order, give each one the heat and time it actually wants, and do not rush the browning. The hummus is the exception, and its lesson is the emulsion, the same one behind mayonnaise and hollandaise.
- How to Make Traditional Esquites, Mexican street corn charred hard in a dry pan, then dressed warm and served in a cup
- How to Make Plátano Frito, ripe plantains fried until the edges caramelize, and why the ripeness of the fruit decides everything
- How to Make Ratatouille, the Provençal vegetable stew, cooked in stages so the zucchini does not turn to mush before the eggplant is done
- How to Make Saag Paneer, North Indian greens cooked down with cubes of fresh cheese, and how to keep the spinach green instead of army drab
- How to Make Hummus Beiruti, the loose, bright Beirut style, built on a whipped tahini and lemon base before the chickpeas ever go in
The Part Nobody Tells You About Timing
This applies to almost every side on this page, so it lives here rather than being repeated nine times.
Dress it late. The single most common way to ruin a side dish is to sauce or dress it too early. A cucumber salad turns to soup, a chopped salad goes limp, esquites weeps. Prep the components ahead all you want, but the dressing goes on within an hour of serving, and for the cold salads, closer to fifteen minutes.
Salt the vegetable, then wait, then squeeze. For anything with cucumber or cabbage, the salting is not seasoning, it is drying. Give it twenty to thirty minutes, press the water out, taste, and only then dress. Skipping the wait is why the salad is watery.
Know what actually keeps. The kimchi gets better for weeks. Ratatouille is better the next day. The fresh salads are a same day proposition and do not come back once they have wilted, so make only what you will eat.
The Main It Sits Next To
Almost every dish on this page was built to go beside grilled or roasted meat and fish. If you break down your own, the guides for that are here too.
- Whole Domestic Meat Butchery Guides, beef, pork, lamb, bison and chicken, for the roast the ratatouille goes under
- Wild Game Meat Butchery Guides, deer, elk, moose, bear, boar and pronghorn, the rich meat the kimchi and kachumbari were made to cut
- Wild Game Bird Butchery Guides, duck, pheasant, quail and wild turkey
- Oceanic Fish Filleting Guides, eleven guides, for the grilled fish a sharp salad brightens
- Shellfish and Seafood Guides, nine guides, lobster through octopus
- The Butchery Guides, all thirty six of them in one place
- The Five Mother Sauces, which covers the tomato sauce under the ratatouille and the emulsion behind the hummus
More Recipe Guides
This is one of six recipe categories on the site. The full recipe index lists everything in one place.
- The Five Mother Sauces
- Soup and Chowder Recipes
- Sauces and Condiments
- Salad Dressing Recipes
- Marinade Recipes
Who Is Writing This
I'm Chef Alan. I have spent 35 years in professional kitchens, I have formal culinary education in New Hampshire, and I have been honored as a 6-Time 4-Diamond Chef. More about me here.
If a recipe is missing something you needed, or a step didn't make sense, tell me. Get in touch and I'll fix it.
Cook Bolder, Serve Wiser, Eat Better.
Tools for the Job
Most of these dishes are knife work and one pan. A dull knife makes the slicing miserable and a thin pan scorches the corn and the onions, and neither problem is worth having.