Nik Sharma wants home cooks to better understand food science; in this episode of The Dinner Plan, he shares some of the best cooking tips from his new book, Fundamentals of Flavor: 100 Recipes for the Science of Better Cooking, and why they work. If you’ve ever struggled with dry pork tenderloin, you’ll want to listen in before you try to make that quick dinner staple again. Hear about Nik’s favorite flavor-boosting pantry essentials, his favorite fall dinners, and the one ingredient he could have named this book after, too.

Get Nik’s recipes for Caramelized Shallot Dip and Seared Gnocchi with Chili Garlic Shrimp

at TheDinnerPlan.Substack.com

To win Earlywood kitchen utensils, a Cuisinart countertop oven, a Hestan roasting pan, and so many cookbooks,

enter by Wednesday, September 23, 2026

• Staub: Find iconic Staub Dutch ovens now at Staub.com
• Dirty Labs: Use code DINNERPLAN to get 15% off your first order at DirtyLabs.com
• Equator Coffees: Use code DINNERPLAN for 25% off your first order at EquatorCoffees.com
• Made In Cookware: Visit madein.cc/dinnerplan to unlock your discount offer.
• Find Kishwar Chowdhury’s Smoke, Rice, Water: Recipes and Stories from a Bengali Home at Amazon, Bookshop, or wherever you buy books.

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Cortney LaCorte—also known as Cheese Gal—joins The Dinner Plan this week to share her best advice on how to make a cheese plate and all the ways she makes entertaining more relaxed. That includes tips on what to cook for a dinner party, the most important thing you can do for a dinner party guest, and the cleaning detail you really can skip. What to make with Boursin? Cortney's all over that. On this episode, she also shares snack ideas for TV nights on the couch, memories of her mother's dinner parties, and her favorite recipe for a quick dinner you can make with grocery store fried chicken.

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• Massican Wines: Use code DINNERPLAN for 10% off at Massican.com. Must be 21+
• McEvoy Ranch: Use code DINNERPLAN for 10% off at McEvoyranch.com
• Cheesy by Farideh Sadeghin is available wherever you buy books.
• Made In Cookware: Visit madein.cc/dinnerplan to unlock your discount offer.

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Olivia Tiedemann will be the first to tell you that working as a private chef isn't easy. You've gotta know what each guest likes and doesn't like, all the dietary restrictions, "who doesn't eat anchovies, who doesn't eat onions, who doesn't eat dairy. And there's 12 of them, and they're all there at one time," Olivia says. "How am I going to contort this same entree seven different ways?" But ultimately, she loves cooking for her clients, and shares everything she's learned in her new cookbook, Eat (Like) The Rich. In this episode of The Dinner Plan, Olivia talks with host Maggie Hoffman about what really matters in a great meal. Expensive lobster and steak is nice, but the difference all comes down to cooking technique. She walks us through a few favorite dinner recipes from the cookbook, the right way to sear a piece of fish, the way she thinks about creating a new dish for a dinner party, and reveals the popular ingredient she actually hates.

🍳 ENTER THE GIVEAWAY and get Olivia Tiedemann's Parsnip Gnocchi recipe on TheDinnerPlan.Substack.com 🍳

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Check out this week's sponsors:

• Made In Cookware: Visit madein.cc/dinnerplan to unlock your discount offer.
• Une Femme Wines: Use code DINNERPLAN at unefemmewines.com for 20% off. Must be 21+

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You may know Pati Jinich from her long-running series, Pati’s Mexican Table, or her previous cookbooks, but this fall you’ll be seeing a lot more of her, including her new docuseries, Panamericana, and her new cookbook, Foods of La Frontera. In this episode of The Dinner Plan, Pati chats with host Maggie Hoffman about the surprising dishes she tried while traveling along the Mexican-American border, and the way her time on the road has changed how she cooks at home. Pati shares favorite Mexican recipes from a wide range of border regions: lobster burritos, vegetarian pozole, surprising salsas, and easy tacos recipes you’ll want to cook this week.

🌶️ ENTER THE GIVEAWAY and Get Pati Jinich's chipotle chicken taco recipe on TheDinnerPlan.Substack.com 🌶️

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Check out this week's sponsors:

• Made In Cookware: Visit madein.cc/dinnerplan to unlock your discount offer.
• Listen to Food Friends on Apple podcasts or any podcast listening app.

More Mexican cooking episodes you might like:

• Rick Martinez’s new salsa book will transform your weeknight cooking
• Claudette Zepeda’s Secret Ingredients for Bigger, Bolder Flavor
• Crispy Zucchini Tacos With Andrea Aliseda

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When Carla Lalli separated from her ex and moved part-time into a sublet after decades of marriage, the first thing she did was make dinner. “I cooked because it gives me a sense of comfort,” Carla says in this week’s episode of The Dinner Plan. “It makes me feel like I’m in power, and it’s soothing, and it is a way to shut off other noise.” Carla shares the meals she made as she got in touch with her own cravings again and what freedom and flexibility she found cooking for one or cooking for two instead of four, and also gets into what she thinks a cookbook written by a human can offer in the age of AI. Carla’s new cookbook, Food Is a Feeling, is the rare cookbook that doesn’t start from the assumption that “every day is happy and perfect.” Instead, she says, “actually sometimes it's a really bad day, and that the best thing in your day might be this great thing that you make for dinner.”

📚📚📚

Get Carla's cookbook recommendations

+ the recipe for Carla's Chovy-Forward Fazool on our newsletter: TheDinnerPlan.Substack.com

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• Straus Family Creamery: Find Straus organic ice cream at Whole Foods nationwide or at strausfamilycreamery.com.
• Michele's Granola: Use code DINNERPLAN15 for 15% off your order at MichelesGranola.com
• Row 7: Get 10% off Row 7’s chef-prepared tinned vegetables using code DINNERPLAN10 at Row7Seeds.com
• Made In Cookware: Visit madein.cc/dinnerplan to unlock your discount offer.

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The high-protein vegetarian recipes in Grace Elkus's new cookbook, Protein-Packed Vegetarian, are exactly the kind of dinners I crave, packed with flavor and easy to make, even on a busy weeknight. In this episode of The Dinner Plan, I talk to Grace about her must-have kitchen gear, how to cook tofu so it actually gets crispy, and what to do if you just haven't come around to the idea of cottage cheese. I've been making the easy dinners from Grace's book over and over already, and I think you'll love them too.

Get Grace's recipes for sheet-pan veggie parm and unstuffed eggplant parmesan shells on our newsletter at TheDinnerPlan.Substack.com

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Check out today's sponsors:

• MaraBela: Find Marabela Alcohol-Free Sparkling Tea at MaraBelaTea.com
• Trimona Yogurt: Find Trimona's A2A2 Bulgarian-style yogurt at TrimonaFoods.com and stores near you.
• Michele's Granola: Use code DINNERPLAN15 for 15% off your order at MichelesGranola.com
• Dirty Labs: Use code THEDINNERPLAN to get 15% off your first order at DirtyLabs.com.
• Made In Cookware: Visit madein.cc/dinnerplan to unlock your discount offer.

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I've been looking forward to chef Pim Techamuanvivit's Thai cookbook for years. It's an essential guide to cooking Thai food, including fresh curry pastes, grilled dishes, curries, soups, and laab. In this episode of The Dinner Plan, I talk to Pim about how she learned all the Thai recipes she'd missed from home, why it matters that you seek out Thai ingredients to cook these recipes, and everything she'd put on a September dinner party menu, whether the guests eat meat or are vegetarian. You'll hear about Pim's favorite cookbooks and her advice for dealing with cooking burnout, too.

Get Pim's recipe for Kin Khao's chicken wings on TheDinnerPlan.Substack.com.

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• Thaan Charcoal: Get a free starter kit including Thai-style charcoal, fan, and fire starters with the Thaan Grill when you use code DINNERPLAN at thaancharcoal.com/dinnerplan
• Listen to Food Friends on Apple podcasts or any podcast listening app.
• Made In Cookware: Visit madein.cc/dinnerplan to unlock your discount offer.

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Steel Russell started The 99% Cooking Club after walking out of the grocery store with a single bag of food that cost $150. He focuses on tips for making easy, cheap meals taste complex and flavorful, and shares recipes for family dinners that stretch your grocery budget. In this episode of The Dinner Plan, we talk through the best budget-friendly ingredients to buy right now, and how to think about meal planning when you're trying to save money.

We’re all in this together, Steel reminds us. "I wanted to be able to show people how to make good food for cheap, but I also wanted to find a way to give people a place that they can come to and not feel isolated," he says. "I think we need to be reminded that, you know, my neighbor is going through the same thing I'm going through right now. On the other side of my house, they're going through the same thing I’m going through right now, but we don’t talk about it."

Steel gets into the backstory that inspires this work. Trigger warning: addiction.

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Check out this week’s sponsors:

• Find Ajinomoto at your local grocery store, and stocked in bulk at your nearest Costco.
• Made In Cookware: Visit madein.cc/dinnerplan to unlock your discount offer.
• MaraBela: Find Marabela Alcohol-Free Sparkling Tea at MaraBelaTea.com
• Straus Family Creamery: Find Straus organic ice cream at Whole Foods nationwide or at strausfamilycreamery.com.

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When you ask cookbook author Alex MacLaren how to save money on groceries, her answer is simple: don't go to the store for as long as possible. The author of We Use What We Have is known for making family dinners on a budget, thanks to smart substitutions and a lot of flexibility. Sometimes, you just gotta let things run out. In this episode, Alex explains why she doesn't think about meal plans until after she's already shopped, how she gets her kids to eat leftovers even when they claim to hate leftovers, and how she stretches a small amount of meat into a full meal. If back-to-school dinners are feeling overwhelming for you right now, you'll want to listen for Alex's easy dinner ideas and practical advice for cooking for kids.

Get Alex MacLaren's recipe for honey garlic slow-cooker ribs on our newsletter at TheDinnerPlan.Substack.com ➡️

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Discounts for you from this week's sponsors:

• Dirty Labs: Use code THEDINNERPLAN to get 15% off your first order at DirtyLabs.com.
• Michele's Granola: Use code DINNERPLAN15 for 15% off your order at MichelesGranola.com
• Made In Cookware: Visit madein.cc/dinnerplan to unlock your discount offer.
• Find CookShelf on iOS and Android, and use the code DINNERPLAN for 25% off your first year.

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Pierce Abernathy is my go-to source for summer vegetable inspiration, and he's exactly the recipe developer I turn to when I want to make the most of summer corn and tomatoes in every dinner I cook before the season ends. But Pierce's new cookbook, Every Leaf, Every Stem, goes beyond the pretty produce that gets all the attention and aims to help you fall in love with celeriac and rutabaga, mushrooms and squash. In this episode of The Dinner Plan, we talk about the best way to cook corn, Pierce's dream low-stress end of summer dinner party menu, and the way he'd meal plan for a week of eating more vegetables every day.

Get Pierce's recipe for the ultimate tomato toast with corn compound butter on The Dinner Plan's newsletter at TheDinnerPlan.Substack.com.

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Thanks to this week's sponsors:

• Find CookShelf on iOS and Android, and use the code DINNERPLAN for 25% off your first year.
• Dirty Labs: Use code THEDINNERPLAN to get 15% off your first order at DirtyLabs.com.
• Massican Wines: Use code DINNERPLAN for 10% off at Massican.com. Must be 21+
• Made In Cookware: Visit madein.cc/dinnerplan to unlock your discount offer.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.