Cured Meat

Salt. Fat. Acid. Bacon. Hot fat from bacon drippings douses vinegar-drenched spring greens for a tasty salad to end all salads.

Make this spicy rigatoni your new go-to Sunday sauce. The meaty sauce has a host of flavor enhancers not often found in traditional sugos. 

Humble ingredients—eggs, pasta, cheese, and pork—combine to create glossy, glorious spaghetti carbonara that’s just as good at dinner as at 2 a.m.

Cranberry sauce, mustard, leftover sliced turkey, a few pieces of bacon (never hurt!), and three pieces of bread make this sandwich a post-holiday slam dunk.

Salty, crunchy, sweet, and meaty, this warm mix is a combination of party appetizer heavy hitters.

This refried beans recipe comes from cookbook author Rick Martinez’s dad, who uses salt pork and bacon drippings for deeply savory beans.

The best salad is really a deconstructed Italian sandwich, complete with an oregano and red wine vinegar dressing that tastes just like how your deli does it.

A classic combination of melon and cured meat gets upgraded with the addition of briny olives and buttery nuts.

Call it a BLT salad, call it ranch salad, this combination of bacon-y breadcrumbs, tomatoes, and creamy cool dressing has got just enough going on for us to call it dinner.

Cook a chicken burger in bacon fat, never look back.

Iceberg’s reign over the wedge salad stops here.

It’s not like a regular wedge; it’s a cool wedge—and by cool we mean stuffed with pickled jalapeños and paper-thin slices of mortadella and drizzled with tangy buttermilk dressing.

If plopping an entire stick of butter into a pot of noodles is your idea of a good time (it’s definitely ours), this saucy shrimp and salami pasta is for you.

Everything you could possibly want in a tostada (and then some): shredded chicken smothered with a smoky, spicy tomato salsa, bacony refried beans, and a smattering of cilantro and cheese.

For anyone who has ever thought they hate Hawaiian pizza: This pie is for you.

Juicy summer melon with a salty-sweet crunchy bacon topping makes for a low-effort but universally crowd-pleasing appetizer.

The classic reconsidered: less pasta, more crispy-chewy strips of guanciale, and more silky creamy egg to hold it all together.

Think of this as carbonara minus the eggs but still with massive amounts of flavor from guanciale, black pepper, and Pecorino.

This winter salad with peak season bitter greens, salami, and crispy chickpeas is hearty enough on its own, but not so over-the-top that you can’t also pair it with pasta for dinner.

These collard greens are great to make for a dinner party when you need to keep your oven and stovetop free.