Christmas Salad

Brighten up your holiday table with this Christmas salad! It's fresh and colorful, made with juicy pomegranates, roasted squash, and winter greens.

This Christmas salad is a fresh, festive addition to a holiday table! It features ruby red pomegranates, candied pecans, shaved pecorino, and roasted squash over a bed of winter greens. My go-to apple cider vinegar dressing ties it all together. I make a version of this Christmas salad recipe every single year. I love the mix of tangy, sweet, and bitter flavors and creamy and crunchy textures. The jeweled tones of the winter produce are so pretty too. If you want to add a pop of color to your spread of Christmas side dishes, this stunning salad is the best…

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Baked Ziti

This baked ziti recipe is the easiest way to feed a crowd! Saucy, cheesy, comforting, and flavorful, this fuss-free pasta is always a hit.

vegetarian / dinner

This baked ziti recipe features layers of saucy pasta, creamy ricotta, and melty mozzarella cheese. Easy to assemble and always a hit, it’s one of my go-to recipes for feeding a crowd. I based this recipe on the baked ziti I ate as a kid. Reliably present at every potluck or party I attended, it was my favorite comfort food. I loved the jumbles of noodles mixed with tangy tomato sauce, gooey cheese, and Italian sausage or ground beef. These days, I skip the meat, but this baked ziti recipe is still hearty, satisfying, and packed with flavor. Try it on…

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12 Great Cookbooks to Gift in 2025

Cookbooks make great gifts! Find one for everyone on your list—from the home baker to the salad lover to the person who can't get enough pasta.

Every year, I buy cookbooks to give as holiday gifts. They’re some of my favorite presents for people who love to cook. Filled with bright photography, mouthwatering recipes, and the author’s personal insights, they provide me with tons of inspiration in the kitchen, and I love to share that with others. So many wonderful cookbooks are coming out these days that you can find the perfect one for everyone on your list—from the baker to the meal prepper to the person who just got back from Italy and is on an all-pasta diet. I’ve rounded up some of my favorite…

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Cinnamon Rolls

These easy homemade cinnamon rolls are soft, gooey, and delicious! They're my family's favorite holiday breakfast. Make-ahead instructions included!

breakfast

This cinnamon roll recipe is my family’s favorite holiday breakfast! Easy and delicious, it makes the best cinnamon rolls I’ve tried. They have a soft dough filled with a rich brown sugar and cinnamon swirl. A gooey vanilla glaze (or cream cheese frosting!) takes them over the top. I first shared this recipe in 2019, inspired by the cinnamon rolls my mom made on Christmas morning when I was growing up. Now with over 350 5-star reviews, it’s since become a reader favorite! I recently updated it with new photos, make-ahead and freezing instructions, and tips for cinnamon roll success.…

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Gingerbread Cookies

Our best gingerbread cookie recipe! These festive treats are soft and warmly spiced, with a rich molasses flavor. Perfect for spreading holiday cheer!

baking

What could be more festive than gingerbread cookies?! With Christmas just a few weeks away, I’m ready to turn up the holiday cheer around here, and making this gingerbread cookie recipe seems like a great place to start. For one, it makes the house smell amazing, filling it with the comforting aroma of cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. It’s also a blast to make—rolling out the dough, cutting out gingerbread people, baking them, and decorating them once they cool. But more important than all of that, these gingerbread cookies are delicious! They’re soft, warmly spiced, and richly flavored with molasses and…

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Homemade Hot Chocolate

This homemade hot chocolate is creamy, thick, and flavorful, made with both melted chocolate and cocoa powder. It's a perfect cozy treat for a cold day!

winter / beverage

This hot chocolate recipe is so much better than a powdered mix! Made with two types of chocolate—a chopped bar and cocoa powder—it’s deliciously rich, creamy, and just the right amount of sweet. It’s super easy to make too—it comes together with 5 simple ingredients in under 10 minutes. We’ve already made this homemade hot chocolate a few times this December, and I have a feeling that it’ll stay on repeat all month long. It’s the perfect warming treat for a cold winter night, especially if you have a kid (like ours) who loves cozying up under the Christmas tree…

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Pignoli Cookies

Learn how to make pignoli cookies! These Italian pine nut cookies are chewy, nutty, and full of rich almond flavor. They're perfect for the holidays!

These pignoli cookies are a new addition to my holiday cookie lineup, and I already can’t get enough of them. A toasty, crunchy pine nut crust surrounds the chewy cookies, which are bursting with almond flavor (my favorite at Christmastime). They’re easy to make with 7 ingredients, but I think they’d be the star of any holiday cookie plate. I first tried pignoli cookies on a trip to Italy years ago, and I re-discovered them more recently at a bakery near our cottage in Michigan. I bought so many over the last few summers that I knew I had to…

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Spritz Cookies

This spritz cookie recipe has been in my family for years! Buttery, tender, and decorated with sprinkles, they're our favorite Christmas cookies.

This spritz cookie recipe comes straight from my mom’s recipe box! My family has been making it every Christmas for over 40 years—my first kitchen memory is of baking these spritz cookies with my mom and sister for the holidays. Made with a 6-ingredient dough, these spritz cookies are buttery, tender, and scented with almond extract, not unlike sugar cookies or shortbread. What sets them apart from other cookies is how they’re made. Spritz cookies get their festive shapes from a cookie press. Their name comes from the German word spritzen, which means “to squirt,” which describes how the dough…

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Top 10 Kitchen Gadget Gifts

You don't have to break the bank to find the perfect gift for the cook in your life! Fun, unique, and useful, these kitchen gadgets all cost under $50.

Good things come in little packages, and these kitchen gadget gifts are here to prove it! They include unique gifts for vegetable lovers, bakers, and home cooks of all kinds. Though they all clock in under $50, they’re some of the most-used items in my kitchen. Perfect for stocking stuffers or standalone gifts, they’ll surprise and delight the cooks in your life. (Disclosure: I earn a small commission on items purchased. This post is not sponsored – these are kitchen tools we’ve selected because we love and use them every day. We hope you like them too!) Prices were accurate at…

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Creamy Potato Soup

Warm up on a cold day with this easy potato soup! Thick, creamy, and loaded with toppings like green onions and cheese, it's the ultimate comfort food.

winter / soups

This potato soup recipe is the ultimate comfort food for a cold day! It’s like a loaded baked potato in soup form—the thick, creamy, savory soup is piled high with toppings like sour cream, shredded cheese, and green onions or chives. Jack loves it so much that he can polish off half the pot in a single night. Luckily, this potato soup comes together in one pot with simple ingredients, so it’ll be easy to keep in our rotation this winter. It’s one of those recipes that’s so much more than the sum of its parts. You start with humble…

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The Best Holiday Gifts for Cooks

Searching for the perfect gift for someone who loves to cook? Our gift guide has you covered! Find stunning cookware, fun appliances, and more.

Our 2025 holiday gift guide is here! If you’re looking for gifts for the cooks in your life, you’ll find some amazing options in this post. I’ve included my favorite pots and pans, the BEST storage containers, an unbeatable immersion blender, and more. When I make this gift guide every year, my goal is to recommend gifts that the cooks you know will use and love. Every item is something I reach for regularly in my kitchen, and each one has stood the test of time through years of consistent use. As a recipe developer and cookbook author, I’d be thrilled…

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Hello, we're Jeanine and Jack.