Ali Rosen Won’t Caramelize an Onion on a Tuesday

The cookbook author shares actually quick meals that work when you’re juggling—or struggling.

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“I’m mostly a fly by the seat of my pants person, which is why I need short recipes,” says this week’s podcast guest, Ali Rosen.

The novelist, cookbook author, mother of three (plus a dog!), and host of Potluck with Ali Rosen writes recipes that aim to make life easier. Her Modern Freezer Meals offers techniques that lean on the freezer to ease the dinner lift; 15 Minute Meals focuses on cooking with pantry staples for quick, bold flavor.

I talked to Ali about what makes a weeknight dinner actually work for her—and no, she says, an hour-long recipe doesn’t qualify. She’s simply not going to caramelize an onion on a Tuesday. But luckily, Ali loves finding easy new ways to cook ground meat—like the simplified riff on chicken piccata she’s shared in full below.

Ali always weaves food into the love stories she writes, which is one of the reasons I wanted to talk to her for this week’s show. While she explains that she’s “a big ignorer of Valentine’s Day,” she also offered some smart, low-key ideas for celebrating the holiday.

Dial it down and consider pancakes, she says. “If you are stressed, it doesn't matter how good the food is, you know? Err on the side of a simple thing.”

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Ali mentioned:

A-sha noodles
Yasmin Fahr’s Keeping It Simple, especially the cod poached in broth
Souper Cubes for freezing
Jenna Helwig’s Bare Minimum Dinners
Libby app
Dorie Greenspan’s Everyday Dorie and Baking with Dorie
Adeena Sussman’s Sababa
Floyd Cardoz’s Flavorwalla
At Home with Madhur Jaffrey
Priya Krishna’s Indian-ish and Priya’s Kitchen Adventures
Ali Stafford’s Pizza Night and Bread Toast Crumbs
What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking by Caroline Chambers
Sarah Fennel’s Sweet Tooth
Unlikely Story (Ali’s newest novel!)
Ali’s Pistachio Raspberry Semifreddo (from Modern Freezer Meals, reprinted on Zwilling.com)

This newsletter contains affiliate links.

Maggie mentioned:

Jessica Battilana on The Dinner Plan
Sylvan Mishima Brackett’s Shoyu and Marmalade Chicken Drumettes (from Rintaro, reprinted on FoodGal.com)
San Francisco by Season (a cookbook from the San Francisco Chronicle)

Catch up on The Dinner Plan podcast

Zoe Barrie Soderstrom Gives Meal Planning the Restaurant Treatment
The Vegetarian Dinners Hetty Lui McKinnon Keeps on Rotation
For Carla Lalli Music, Cooking for One Is Not a Bummer

Photo: Noah Fecks

Ground Chicken Piccata

Excerpted with permission from 15 Minute Meals: Truly Quick Recipes That Don’t Taste like Shortcuts by Ali Rosen. Published by Mango, 2024.

I love the flavors of chicken piccata—zingy lemon matched with the pickled delight of capers—but it doesn’t have to always include a long bout of dredging raw chicken in flour. This version takes all of the gusto and none of the hassle by using ground chicken. To make it a full meal I like to serve it over fast-cooking couscous, but if you’re trying to avoid grains, serve over kale or spinach—or you can even throw the greens into the pot. It’s a one-stop flavor vehicle.

2 pounds ground chicken
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup couscous
3 lemons
3 tablespoons room temperature butter
¼ cup capers
½ cup parsley

Place a pot with 1¼ cups water to boil. Place a nonstick saucepan or wok on medium high heat. Add the chicken to the pan with one teaspoon of salt.

When the water is boiling, add the couscous, another dash of salt and the juice of 1 lemon. Remove from the heat, cover and let sit for 5 minutes. In the meantime, lightly chop the parsley.

Don’t move the meat for 3 to 5 minutes, or until it has browned on one side. Once it has, break it up fully and then add the butter, capers, juice of 1 more lemon and the parsley. Let the chicken cook for another minute or until it has just cooked through - be very careful here to not overcook. Since it has already browned on one side it just takes a little bit more to cook and since it is ground meat it can overcook quickly.

Remove the chicken from the heat and squeeze the last lemon on top. Serve the chicken on top of the couscous (or greens in you’d prefer).