15 Stews, Curries, and Casseroles That Make 5 p.m. Darkness Feel Like a Reward

Mississippi Roast with mashed potatoes on blue plates and blue surface, Napkins and cups are blue and gold decor — Serious Eats / Fred HArdy

Did you make a classic beef stew this summer? I didn’t. I grilled burgers, tossed together chilled grain salads with whatever vegetables were around, waited for my tomatoes to ripen so I could make BLTs, and ordered more than a few pizzas when it was too hot to cook.

Now that summer’s long gone, it’s officially comfort food season. I’m ready to pull my Dutch oven out of hiding and fill the kitchen with something slow-simmered and cozy. The only downside is the sun’s setting at 5 p.m. or even earlier, but at least these dinners make the darkness feel worth it.

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All-American Beef Stew

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

To make this classic stew its absolute best, start with a whole boneless beef chuck roast, brown it on all sides, then cut it into large stew-sized pieces. Cook veggies with the stew to add flavor and then discard them, and other veggies to serve with the stew. Different from what you’re used to doing? Yes, but you have to try this method that has a few other tricks up its sleeve, too.

All-American Beef Stew
Kare Raisu (Homemade Japanese Curry Rice) Recipe

Vicky Wasik

For this Japanese version of curry—or kare as they call it—toast a host of seeds and spices (12 in all) in a dry pan, then make a stew of chicken and veggies that you’ll thicken with a roux. By the time the stew is done and you’re ladling it over warm rice, your kitchen will smell amazing, and the aromas will make you unable to resist digging in immediately.

Kare Raisu
Boeuf Bourguignon (Beef Stew With Red Wine, Mushrooms, and Bacon)

Serious Eats / Fred Hardy

Made with cubes from a boneless chuck roll that become meltingly soft as it cooks low and slow, you’ll be glad to know this recipe for the classic French stew does not require marination time. The stew gets plenty of flavor from the dry red wine, plus a bump of extra umami from fish and soy sauce. And to keep the veggies from being mushy, it’s cooked with ones that are discarded, and newer vegetables are added toward the end of cooking.

Boeuf Bourguignon
Mississippi Pot Roast

Serious Eats / Fred Hardy

Simmering beef chuck with a packet of ranch seasoning, au jus gravy mix, a stick of butter, and a handful of jarred pepperoncini for hours in a Dutch oven with the lid cracked (allowing it to stay at a simmer rather than getting too hot) is one of the tricks of this simple roast. Using gelatin to add body to the sauce is another trick. Serving alongside mashed potatoes is a must.

Mississippi Pot Roast

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Chicken Chile Verde (Pressure Cooker)

Serious Eats / Greg Dupree

Make this green chicken chili with chicken thighs and drumsticks, tangy tomatillos and fresh green peppers (nothing canned here), plus a touch of Asian fish sauce to add umami depth. By using the pressure cooker—traditional or Instant Pot—the flavors of the fresh ingredients meld together more quickly, helping to get dinner on the table on a busy night.

Chicken Chile Verde
Instant Pot Lu Rou Fan (Braised Pork Belly Over Rice)

Serious Eats / Qi Ai

For this Taiwanese dish, using the Instant Pot shaves hours off the cooking time. Braise small, uniform diced pieces of pork belly in a flavorful sauce that includes fried shallots, soy sauce, sugar, and oyster sauce. Serve over rice.

Instant Pot Lu Rou Fan
Butter Chicken Recipe

Vicky Wasik

Coat bite-sized pieces of boneless, skinless chicken thighs in a marinade made with toasted spices, then broil after a 40-minute(ish) marinating time. Meanwhile, make the Makhani sauce with more spices, and additional ingredients fire-roasted tomatoes, cashews, heavy cream, and butter. When both are finished cooking, combine and serve over cooked rice.

Butter Chicken Recipe
Chicken and Dumplings

Serious Eats / Lorena Masso

For the most flavorful chicken and dumplings, you’ll make your own broth with chicken pieces (that you’ll shred for the chicken in the soup). The broth is flavored with onions, carrots, celery, garlic, and thyme, then evaporated milk and Worcestershire sauce go in to ramp up the flavor. The shredded chicken goes into the pot, and a homemade dumpling dough is dolloped on top to cook through for comfort food at its coziest.

Chicken and Dumplings

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The Best White Chili With Chicken

Serious Eats / Greg Dupree

The key to making this the best version is roasting the green chiles, onions, and garlic under the broiler to give them a smoky flavor, then pureéing them into the broth that’s full of bloomed spices, then poaching the chicken in that broth. There are beans in there, of course, and cheese, too, for a cozy white chicken chili that’s a bit involved but worth the extra effort.

The Best White Chili With Chicken
Easy Weeknight Chicken Pot Pie

Serious Eats / Morgan Hunt Glaze

This one-pan chicken pot pie first cooks the chicken in the pan, then cooks the vegetables in butter in the same pan. Once they’re done, stir in broth and cream, add back the chicken, cover with a puff pastry, and bake. In about an hour, you’ll have classic comfort food with just one pan to clean.

Easy Weeknight Chicken Pot Pie
French Onion Soup Mac and Cheese

Serious Eats / Hannah Huffman

A culinary mashup you need to try, you’ll caramelize onions while prepping the rest of the ingredients—shredding Gruyère, chopping fresh thyme, and cooking the pasta. The onions, along with beef bouillon, are added to what is otherwise a fairly traditional mac and cheese that’s topped with bread crumbs and crushed crispy fried onions. Bake and serve on its own or as a side for roasted or fried chicken.

French Onion Soup Mac and Cheese
Tater Tot Casserole (Hotdish)

Vicky Wasik

Make your own tater tots or use frozen ones in this Midwestern casserole known as hotdish. This version is all from scratch (unless you use frozen tots) with a ground beef and gravy base, creamy mushroom béchamel, peas, and corn, topped with the tots and baked until golden brown. Go ahead and serve it with ketchup.

Tater Tot Casserole

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Classic, Savory Shepherd's Pie (With Beef and/or Lamb)

Vicky Wasik

Make the mashed potatoes (but hold off on the cream) and cover. Then make the meat mixture with ground beef or lamb and onions, carrots, celery, garlic, red wine, peas, and seasonings, including some Worcestershire for extra deep flavor. Add the mixture to a casserole dish, finish the potatoes with cream, spread them on top of the meat, and bake.

Classic, Savory Shepherd's Pie
The Best Squash Lasagna

There’s a surprise inside this veggie lasagna—sautéed cubes of apple that enhance the flavor of the squash. There are layers of puréed creamy squash plus cubes of squash, Gruyére cheese, and a creamy white sauce flavored with maple syrup in between the sheets of pasta. This is a uniquely fall-inspired lasagna that will be welcome on a night when the sun has already gone down.

The Best Squash Lasagna
Cantonese Clay Pot Rice With Velveted Chicken and Mushrooms (北菇滑雞煲仔飯)

Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez

When you steam marinated chicken directly on top of rice, the fat from the chicken drips down into the rice and flavors it. That’s what happens here in this Cantonese dish when chicken marinated in seasoned soy sauce, mushrooms, and ginger steam gently on top of rice in a Cantonese clay pot. There are a few other precise tricks to seasoning this dish, but they’re worth learning for a meal that ends up with crispy rice on the bottom, fluffy, flavorful rice in the middle, and tender chicken on top.

Cantonese Clay Pot Rice