15 Recipes To Perfect While You're Hibernating At Home This January

The quest for perfect fried chicken is not for the faint of heart. You need evenly golden brown skin, tender, juicy meat, and a combination of crisp and crunch that would make the Colonel quake in his cowboy boots. To complete the journey to fried chicken nirvana, we went through 5 whole chickens, 3 gallons of peanut oil, and over 20 iterations of the recipe so that you won't have to. The final result is a simple formula: a seasoned buttermilk brine + a dip in batter + a shake in flour + a dunk into a pot of hot oil = the only fried chicken recipe you'll ever need.

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Opera cake is one of those baking projects that will make you feel like a pastry chef superstar. Coffee- soaked almond cake, coffee buttercream, and chocolate ganache are layered together to create a French masterpiece that’s equally stunning to look at and enjoy.

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French omelets have a reputation for being ridiculously difficult to execute, even with the most experienced chefs. But with some practice, we know you can nail it. Once you do, it will be the most impressive breakfast and brunch to serve up to guests—you'll look like an absolute pro in the kitchen.

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If you’ve ever wondered how to re-create a Brazilian-style steakhouse dinner at home, this is the recipe for you. If you're unfamiliar, these steakhouses feature waiters roaming the room slicing meat off hot skewers tableside. It's a dream, with picanha steak being the classic skewered meat that's often at one of these establishments. Best of all, we found that all you need to recreate it is a hot grill, metal skewers, and kosher salt (or sea salt) to make this steakhouse-quality steak.

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If making homemade pasta seems like too much of a process, then gnocchi is the easy pasta to try making yourself. This rustic, dumpling-like pasta is much easier to make and shape by hand than ravioli, and once made, you can use it with countless recipes and sauces.

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In restaurants, spicy tuna sushi rolls usually involve raw, sushi-grade fish. But if raw fish is out of reach, this recipe uses humble canned tuna. That’s not to say you can’t use the basic skeleton of this recipe for raw tuna if you can find it—just substitute in sushi-grade fish, finely chopped, and proceed onward!

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Hummus is one of our all-time favorite dips, but making it from dried chickpeas can be a tall order. Start with canned chickpeas, however, and homemade hummus suddenly becomes an easy last-minute appetizer or satisfying snack. After multiple rounds of testing, we found a couple of simple hacks that will allow you to turn canned chickpeas into superlative, silky-smooth hummus, with no sacrifice of flavor and zero chickpea soaking required!

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Pasta night deserves a special pasta. Making your own dough takes a bit of time, but the process itself isn't complicated. The dough is made from 3 basic ingredients and comes together in minutes.

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These delicate French cookies are somehow simultaneously crispy, chewy, soft, and light as air. This makes them the perfect blank canvas for creative flavors and colors. Make sure all your ingredients are room temperature to achieve the greatest success.

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If your ideal chicken wing is so crispy it “crunches” at first bite, then these fried chicken wings should be a must-have on your game day spread. While we love our baked buffalo wings, fried wings satisfy that craving for a salty, crunchy bite made for dipping (or tossing) in your favorite sauce. Serve these at your Super Bowl party with an array of your favorite wing sauces so everyone can customize these crispy-yet-moist wings.

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Making your own butter isn’t a necessity, of course, but it is rewarding: It only requires one ingredient, is shockingly easy, and garners bragging rights. When you have a lot of leftover heavy cream, turning it into butter is one of the best ways to use it up. If you're looking to get creative with your flavors, we included three butter options for customizing. Add strawberry jam for a sweet strawberry version, honey and sea salt for a salted honey butter, and chopped fresh herbs, garlic, and salt for a garlic-herb butter.

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Homemade beef bourguignon is a labor of love, but it's nothing you can't handle. It's certainly not a quick weeknight dinner, but that doesn't mean it's too difficult to make at home. Here's the basic rundown: Sauté bacon, sear beef in bacon fat (yum!), add veggies and stir to coat with flour, add wine and broth, transfer to oven, bake until beef is super tender, make Julia Child proud.

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We absolutely LOVE dumplings, and xiaolongbao, the Chinese version filled with ground pork and gelatinized pork broth, are some of the best. Though traditionally pork bones are used to make the broth semi-solid, they can be hard to find, so we've subbed in gelatin and whatever broth you like. Trust us, once heated up, these dumplings are still just as heavenly.

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Why spend all that money on packaged granola when it's so easy to make at home with all of your favorite ingredients? Follow this super-easy step-by-step recipe and you'll never buy it from the store again. Need something grain free? Try our paleo granola next!

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There's really no such thing as a quick croissant, but this recipe is about as fast as they come. The dough is basically a borrowed pie crust technique, cutting large chunks of cold butter into flour and skipping the intimidating traditional laminating process.

Get the Fast(er) Homemade Croissants recipe.