28 Recipes to Make in February (2024)

Whether you're preparing a special menu for Valentine's Day or looking for warm, hearty meals for a chilly night, these February recipes will rise to the occasion. For dinner, your options include Cola-Braised Short Ribs with Risotto inspired by the TV show The Bear, Grillades and Cheesy Grits straight from one of the best chefs in New Orleans, and more. We’ve also got a ton of great dessert picks for a perfect date-night, including Sfogliatelle and Steamed Pears with Sticky Rice. And we didn't forget the drinks, either — sip an Indulgent Hot Chocolate or White Negroni all month long. Read on for all of those recipes, and plenty of other exciting dishes to make this month.

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Toasted Chocolate-Hazelnut Sandwiches

The perfect brunch or late-night treat, these sweet sandwiches are piled high with a blend of sweet-tart preserves, toasty hazelnuts, and melted chocolate. The bread is crisped, lightly salty, and golden brown from the butter, while the inside of the sandwich is both gooey and delightfully crunchy.

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White Negroni

Made with gin, Lillet Blanc, and Suze, this co*cktail is filled with herbal and floral aromas with a quenching backbone of bitterness. The White Negroni follows the same flavor combinations of the classic — spirit, bitter, sweet — but unlike the Negroni which is made with equal parts of each, uses Suze and Lillet.

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Catalan-Style Shrimp in Chocolate Sauce

Catalan cooks have long added bittersweet chocolate to savory dishes for earthy depth of flavor. This combination of seafood and chocolate offers a perfect balance to the richness in the sauce and subtle sweetness from tender shrimp.

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Napa Cabbage Pockets with Tofu

Chef Zoey Xinyi Gong’s refreshing and savory stuffed cabbage pockets are filled with shiitake mushrooms, Chinese chives, and crisp mung beans — ingredients that in traditional Chinese medicine are also believed to hydrate and clarify skin and reduce inflammation caused by alcohol and heavy winter foods.

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Brunswick Stew

Our version of Brunswick stew uses pork shoulder, corn, potatoes, and lima beans, but other versions may have okra, chicken, or smoked pork. The broth may or may not have tomato and is traditionally tinged with barbecue flavor from the paprika and Worcestershire sauce.

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San Bei Ji (Three-Cup Chicken)

The “three cups” refers to the heady amounts of rice wine, soy sauce, and sesame oil that chicken is braised in for this classic Taiwanese dish. A favorite of casual restaurants (re chao) as well as home cooking, the flavor combination is so good that you can find “three cup” squid, tofu and other proteins cooked in a similar style.

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Indulgent Hot Chocolate

Layers of chocolate — in the silky hot chocolate itself, infused into the whipped cream topping, and in the garnish of shaved chocolate bars — make this indulgent hot chocolate the ultimate treat. Silky and thick in texture, intense and complex in flavor, this hot chocolate is like a drinkable pot de crème.

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Pan-Fried Lamb Dumplings

Packed with a tender lamb filling, salty soy, earthy mushrooms, and a fragrant 13-spice powder, these pan-fried dumplings are warming and satiating. The peppery spice blend includes aged tangerine peels, cinnamon, Szechuan pepper, and galangal; it adds an aromatic, peppery flavor to the dumplings.

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Chocolate-Cherry Focaccia

Tart dried cherries play up the fruitiness of dark chocolate and olive oil in this light and airy, sweet, and savory focaccia. Baking the bread on a preheated pizza stone gives it a delicate and crisp crust, as does the generous dose of olive oil.

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Oatmeal Cream Pies

If you loved oatmeal cream pies as a kid, you need these next-level versions, created by Sarah Mispagel-Lustbader of Chicago’s Loaf Lounge. This oatmeal pie recipe features tender, chewy cookies made with oats, dark brown sugar, molasses, and toffee bits.

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Psychedelic Backyard

If you aren't using verjus to upgrade your non-alcoholic co*cktail game, you've been missing out. Made by pressing unripe wine grapes that are harvested early in the growing season, verjus is one of our favorite ingredients for marinades and deglazing, but it's also a delightfully acidic addition to mixed drinks.

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Grillades and Cheesy Grits

A New Orlean’s classic, grillades rely on succulent beef top round that’s cooked low and slow for hours until it becomes melt-in-your-mouth tender. Served with savory, cheesy grits and a luscious gravy using the fond from the beef, chef Michael Gulotta’s grillades and grits is comfort food at its finest.

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Sfogliatelle

Sfogliatelle is an Italian pastry that comes from the Campania region in Italy. The word “sfogliatella” translates to small, thin layer, but these pastries are often called lobster tails for their layers of pastry and curved shape. This recipe pays homage to the classic while adding a few special touches, like the cardamom and splash of orange blossom water, which give the pastry a nice floral note.

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Cola-Braised Short Ribs with Risotto

If you love the television show The Bear as much as we do, it’s likely you were also excited about the short ribs Sydney works on perfecting during the entire first season of the show. On television and in real life, nothing is cozier than a Dutch oven filled with braised, fall-off-the-bone tender short ribs served over risotto. Here, per Sydney’s creativity, the classic wine and stock braising liquid get a surprising addition from cola, which balances the savory with a touch of complex sweetness to create a smooth, rich sauce.

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Cocoa-Spiced Steaks with Red Wine–Chocolate Sauce

Seasoned with a cocoa rub, finished with a butter-cocoa mixture, and drizzled with red wine sauce, these pan-seared steaks are an easy upgrade to dinner for two at home. When combined with sweet paprika, allspice, and cayenne pepper, the cocoa powder offers a delicious, rounding earthiness in the spice rub.

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Bloody Majestic

This eye-catching riff on a classic Bloody Mary swaps regular tomatoes for yellow tomatoes, giving this drink an unexpected but eye-catching bright golden-orange hue. It’s a lighter take on a traditional Bloody Mary, with a fragrant citrusy aroma and flavor from the bitters, an acidic edge from pineapple, and a pleasant bite from the sake while still remaining tomato-forward.

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TCM-Inspired Mulled Wine

Warming the body, promoting healthy blood circulation, and lifting the mood are all benefits of drinking this mulled wine in cold and dry weather. This mulled wine is a soothing and delicious beverage, infused with whole dried spices and dried fruit, and just mildly sweet from a touch of dark brown sugar and jujube dates.

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Pasta ’Ncasciata (Sicilian Baked Pasta)

In Sicily, ’ncasciata has many variations. Chef Michael Gulotta’s version combines tender eggplant, buttery caciocavallo cheese, and crushed tomatoes with al dente rigatoni. Baking the eggplant rounds rather than frying them cuts down on the prep time.

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Thai Tea Crinkle Cookies

Thai tea is a sweet, aromatic tea that is relatively new in Thailand, but quickly became a Thai American staple. These cookies have perfect chew and get their delicately spiced, sweet flavor from instant Thai tea powder.

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Herbal Chicken Bone Broth with Soba Noodles

In China, this herbal chicken bone broth is traditionally given to postpartum women or post-trauma patients in recovery. Whole chickens are considered a fantastic medicinal ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine food therapy to nourish the kidneys, blood, and yin, which refers to qualities that help our bodies with hydration, calming, and anti-aging.

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Italian Beef Sandwiches

Perfect Italian beef sandwiches don’t just happen overnight; it’s a labor of love to make flawlessly tender roast beef and a deeply flavorful jus. Our sandwich is topped with homemade giardiniera and roasted sweet peppers to bring savory, bright, and sweet flavors all into balance.

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Chocolate French Crullers with Dried Raspberries and Fudge Glaze

From slinging s'mores at one of her The Baking Bean pop-ups to creating pastries for hot NYC spot Kimika to competing on popular cooking shows, there's never a dull moment for pastry chef Clarice Lam. Made with a classic choux dough, her French crullers are likewise full of personality, featuring a crunchy crust, an airy center, and a colorful topping of dried raspberries and fudge. Dip the chocolate crullers in the warmed fudge glaze so the dried raspberries stick for a sweet-tart topping that's as tasty as it is beautiful.

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Pernil Mac and Cheese

Pernil, a Puerto Rican–style roast pork shoulder, is flavored with garlic, oregano, and sazón—a seasoning blend that includes coriander and annatto. At their Durham, North Carolina restaurant Boricua Soul, Serena and Toriano Fredericks serve this garlicky pernil on top of a rich and creamy mac and cheese. Rubbing the seasoned garlic paste into the pork and letting it rest allows the flavors to penetrate deeply into the thick roast.

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Spaghetti with Clams and NOLA Hot Sausage

This recipe for Spaghetti with Clams and NOLA Hot Sausage comes together in a flash once the littleneck clams have been rinsed and cleaned. The clams cook in just about five minutes in a bath of white wine and spicy beef sausage that’s been browned with garlic and gochugaru. Once the clams have all opened, stirring the cooked pasta into the clam and sausage mixture with a little reserved pasta cooking liquid helps the spicy, savory, briny sauce cling to every strand of spaghetti.

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Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup

This immensely popular dish underscores Taiwan’s recent history, as it is made with beef and wheat-based noodles, which weren’t common on the island until the 20th century. Tomato, doubanjiang (chili bean sauce), star anise, and Sichuan peppercorns are complimented by the use of boneless beef shank, a cartilage-rich cut that becomes meltingly tender and full of contrasting textures when braised.

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Black and Tan Chocolate Popcorn

A recipe by the late chef Michel Richard inspired this fun way to serve popcorn coated in two kinds of chocolate. Half of the popcorn is tossed in caramelized white chocolate, and the rest in dark chocolate, creating a spectrum of bittersweet to milky sweet flavors and also a beautifully contrasting deep brown and golden tan color on the popped kernels.

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Steamed Pears with Sticky Rice

Purple sticky rice and mung beans fill the interior of these perfectly steamed pears for a light and refreshing dessert. Subtly sweet with a silky richness from ghee, these pears, stuffed with chewy mung beans, are perfectly tender with a lightly floral flavor.

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Soup Joumou

This recipe begins with an Epis, the aromatic flavor base that is one of the backbones of Haitian cooking, which is made by pureeing bell peppers, scallions, onions and garlic. Here, Epis is used as a marinade for the beef; freeze any leftover Epis for up to one month to use as a marinade or to swirl into soups, stews, or sauces.

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