What does “feel-good food” mean? It depends on who you ask. That’s why each month our Feel-Good Food Plan—with delicious recipes and a few wild cards—is hosted by someone new. This month test kitchen editor Kendra Vaculin writes about steamed squash, cooking as stress relief, and more.
My toxic trait is that I always want to cook. The morning after I’ve hosted a dinner party. The minute I get home from an international red-eye. On my own birthday, despite my friends and partner begging me to “please relax” and “sit down.” I never learned how to meditate and I’m bad at journalling; for me, the act of cooking is the ultimate balm.
I understand that this mindset puts me in the minority. Most people (sanely!) aren’t interested in tackling a cooking project when tired, stressed, or depleted. But I find that even on my most brain-dead days being in the kitchen is what feels most healing. Soup itself can’t cure jet lag or do my laundry for me, but cooking soup can briefly alleviate whatever’s weighing me down—and eating one certainly doesn’t hurt.
Of course, I have my limits. When I’m not firing on all cylinders, I am not building an intricate layer cake or pleating individual soup dumplings. Instead, I’m making warming, simple, one-pot recipes that fill me up in more ways than one. Like this homey twist on chicken noodle soup, featuring fall-apart kabocha squash and a big scoop of miso. Cooking the tiny pasta in the same Dutch oven where you built your broth keeps things mercifully easy, while the starch it releases builds up a velvety body. A better dish because it’s lazily made? To me, nothing feels better than that.
January’s Feel Good Recipes
These recipes show up in my rotation when I’m looking for the comfort of a home cooked meal without too much effort. They’re easy to commit to memory and don’t require rigid precision, so I can alter them based on what I have on hand and put down my phone after reading the instructions. Are you also interested in gentle culinary tasks that yield flavorful results? Read on.
A soup that’s equal parts nourishing and simple
The only prep work involved in this Miso Chicken and Squash Soup With Tiny Pasta is cutting half a squash and slicing kale, which is enough to feel like I’m doing something but not enough to turn me toward takeout. The method is just adding things to a pot of boiling stock—I can do that even when my brain is running on empty. The result is my idea of healing and wholesome: steamy and flavorful, with a luscious body from the broken down squash and red miso, and packed with greens (for health) and pasta (for sanity).
A one-pot porridge to top as you please
Testing deputy food editor Hana Asbrink’s Dakjuk recipe in the test kitchen was my first introduction to a technique I have since used countless times (including in the soup above): poaching chicken breast in a pot of water, which you then use as a subtly-flavored broth. Hana turns hers into a quick rice porridge, flavored simply with soy sauce and sesame oil; feel free to top with whatever vegetables you have on hand, a fried egg, and/or a big scoop of chili crisp.
Eggs to ruin you for soft scrambled
I thought steamed eggs, in all their silky lusciousness, were a restaurant thing, not an at-home thing—until I made chef and photographer Jessie YuChen’s Silky Steamed Eggs With Mushrooms. The nesting doll set up of a bowl in a steamer basket in a pot with a lid may seem like overkill, but you really aren’t dirtying much, as you’ll serve the finished eggs directly out of the bowl you cook them in. Prepare to never go back to soft scrambled.
Creamy pasta without any dairy
I remember when Sarah Jampel was developing this pantry pasta several years back. She theorized that mashed beans, of all things, were the ticket to a luscious vegan cream sauce—and as usual, she was right. The result is an absurdly easy weeknight dinner that will change the way you look at a can of cannellini. Don’t skip the nuts on top, though you can use any variety (I always sub pecans in for walnuts). And if you can find chewy, chubby pacheri pasta, like in the recipe photo, definitely grab a bag or three.
Many vegan cream sauces rely on blended nuts or steamed cauliflower, but this sauce is made of beans and pasta water alone—no soaking or blending necessary. It’s important that the beans are adequately hydrated: Once you start mashing, make sure there’s plenty of pasta cooking liquid in the pot and don’t let it evaporate.
More Feel-Good Finds for The Month
A perfectly gentle television show
Would you like a bit of conflict-free content to consume while eating your soup? I must recommend The Makanai on Netflix, which is comfort food in television form. The lovely series follows two best friends who move to the Gion district in Kyoto to train to become geishas. While one clearly has the poise and control required for the gig, the other discovers she is better suited to become the house makanai-san, or live-in chef, instead. Our heroine makes a seemingly endless series of craving-inducing meals, like chewy udon soup and simmering pans of oyakodon, to set out for the girls of the house. I am desperate for a second season.