Avocado

Warm tortillas, refried beans, sunny eggs, and a salsa you'll write home about.

This quick vegetarian enchiladas recipe doesn’t require individually dipping each tortilla in enchilada sauce.

This take on a poke bowl combines cubes of sashimi-grade raw salmon or smoked salmon with a spicy marinade of Tabasco, sesame oil, and gochujang.

This colorful farro salad tastes like spring and fall at the same time; it’s bright and refreshing, nutty and rich, and makes a great addition to a picnic basket.

Having a dependable turkey chili recipe in your culinary repertoire means that a hearty, crowd-pleasing weeknight dinner is never far from reach.

For this green cocktail sauce recipe, salsa verde gets amped up with fresh cilantro, lime juice, green hot sauce, and horseradish to embolden its color and add a bright, herby flavor. 

Crispy baked quinoa builds texture in this summer salad, tossed with a charred, herbaceous scallion dressing.

In this ceviche verde, halibut or sea bass is dressed with fresh lime juice blended with cilantro, mint, and pepitas.

The herbaceous sauce for this fresh vegetarian aguachile comes together swiftly in your blender.

This riff on the margarita gets a creamy upgrade with the use of fresh avocado. 

Garnishes make tortilla soup special (and famous)—top each bowl of sopa de tortilla with a combination of crispy tortillas and creamy avocado chunks.

Depending on their level of ripeness, plantains can be savory or sweet—for this sweet plantains recipe, look for mostly black ones.

This chilaquiles recipe is the blueprint for one of my favorite comfort foods. It’s a great way to use up tortillas (or tortilla chips) that are past their optimal freshness.

This easy chunky guacamole recipe gets warmth from a dash of cumin and heat from fresh or pickled jalapeño.

Avocado leaves are the aroma of Oaxaca, and they are the main flavor in this indispensable staple. So many things can be created out of this little bean paste flavored with anise-y avocado tree leaves. It is the base for memelas, tlayudas, molletes, enfrijoladas, and so much more. Growing up, we stopped at the market in Tlacolula—a small village located near Oaxaca City—just to buy the paste, already made, in little plastic bags. You buy some tasajo, you grill it, you get some fresh tlayudas, some salsa, and then you spread some of this paste all over your tortilla like it is a savory cake frosting.

For an outdoor dinner, most people would expect you to serve grilled vegetables with a straightforward dip, but here I’ve done something slightly more unexpected and paired barely-cooked vegetables with a grilled dip.

These nachos lend themselves to customization and are an excellent place to use up little bits of leftovers (extra black beans, crumbled sausage or bacon, roasted vegetables—or a random radish or extra scallion).