Crispy rice and the rest of Hetty McKinnon’s vegetarian dinner rotation

Plus, get the 5-time cookbook author’s winter salad advice

This week’s podcast guest, Hetty Lui McKinnon, breaks down any week’s dinners into rotating categories. On Mondays, the author of five cookbooks and frequent New York Times Cooking contributor will ease into the week with a soup or something stewy, alongside a store-bought loaf of bread. There’s a pasta night—something with a lot of vegetables. There’s a night of hearty salad, often a riff on Caesar topped with some sort of protein, like crispy chickpeas or pan-fried tofu.

And then, “I’ll cook up a batch of rice, and that is the most flexible and exciting night,” Hetty says, “because I think that you can do so many things. You can do a curry, you can do some sort of stir-fry, some sort of like quick, you know, oven sheet-pan situation with a vegetable and tofu and a really good punchy sauce.”

She frequently makes mapo tofu or kimchi jigae—or crispy baked rice topped with furikake, sriracha, Kewpie mayo, served with avocado (and sometimes store-bought baked tofu) and wrapped in nori, bite by bite. That last recipe appears in her book, Tenderheart, and is reprinted in full below so you can make it this next week.

Hetty and I talked about the kitchen projects she wants to dive into in 2025, her secret love for out-of-season tomatoes, and how she layers varied textures and flavors to make the kinds of salads you’ll really get excited about eating—even in the depths of winter.

Hetty mentioned:

Saag Paneer (Brooklyn Delhi)
Marinated Celery with Couscous and Pickled Golden Raisins (from Tenderheart, excerpted in Broccoli Rising)
Tater Tot Egg Bake With Bitter Greens Salad (BA)
A to Z of Pasta by Rachel Roddy, especially ditalini and lentils, pasta e ceci, and fava bean pasta
Sebze: Vegetarian Recipes from My Turkish Kitchen by Özlem Warren, especially the cheese pide, and the “vegetables cooked in olive oil” chapter.
Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons by Diana Henry, especially the bulgur and spinach pilaf with labneh and chili-roasted tomatoes
Cook, Eat, Repeat by Nigella Lawson, especially the old-fashioned sandwich loaf
Creamy Mushroom Udon Noodles (from Tenderheart, excerpted on SBS Food)
Hetty’s recipes on NYT Cooking
To Vegetables, With Love on Substack

Maggie mentioned:

Hetty’s Ginger-Peanut Warm Kale Salad (adapted by Anna Jones)
Chef’s Table: Noodles (Netflix)
Napa Cabbage and Pomelo Salad with Coconut Peanut Crunch (find this one in Tenderheart!)
Roasted Cauliflower with Peas and Minted Pea Yogurt (from Family, reprinted on Spades, Spatulas & Spoons)

Photo: Hetty Lui McKinnon

Hijiki Baked Rice Wrapped in Nori

Excerpted from Tenderheart: A Cookbook About Vegetables and Unbreakable Family Bonds © 2023 by Hetty McKinnon. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

People often ask me what my family eats for dinner—if I’m being honest, we frequently eat the dishes featured in my books and columns. We have a varied, unpredictable diet, often led astray by my recipe-testing duties, so the recipes I prescribe are also what we eat. But then there are the meals that are more of an idea, rather than a set formula. This is one of them. You could call this lazy sushi rice rolls, or seaweed rice tacos, but we eat some iteration of this meal at least once a fortnight (which is a lot in our family, as we have a huge repertoire of favorites). It is the dish I turn to when I am craving rice but cannot be bothered to cook up several side dishes.

The beauty of this dish is that it requires zero thought, it’s nutritious and filling, and it can be topped with whatever vegetables you have on hand. Hijiki adds incredible umami flavor to the rice, and you can add more if you want a more pronounced seaweed taste. Cucumber or raw zucchini are nice toppings, too, but you could also add corn, pan-fried mushrooms, wilted spinach and more. Seaweed snacks, the small sheets of salty, crispy nori, are a staple in our house and they add a fun, cheeky element to this meal. However, if you can’t get the snacks, you could also toast a sheet of nori by holding it about 6 inches (15 cm) above a flame, until it smells toasty; cut it into four smaller pieces to wrap the rice.

SERVES 4

¼ cup (6 g) dried hijiki, soaked in 3 cups (720 ml) of hot water
6 cups (900 g) cooked white or brown rice (from 2 cups/400 g uncooked)
2 ½ tablespoons rice vinegar
4 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup (140 g) shelled edamame
extra-virgin olive oil or neutral oil
Kewpie, regular or vegan mayonnaise
sriracha sauce or hot sauce
vegan furikake
4 packs roasted seasoned seaweed snacks
1 avocado, sliced

Preheat the oven to 450°F (230°C).

Drain the hijiki in a fine sieve and rinse with cold water. Drain again, then transfer to a large bowl. Add the rice, rice vinegar, sesame oil, sea salt and sugar and mix to combine. Add the edamame and fold them in.

Drizzle a deep baking pan (about 17 × 12 inches/43 cm × 31 cm) with oil and add the rice mixture, pressing it down so it is spread right to the corners and edges. Place in the oven and bake for 20–25 minutes, until there are a few golden spots on top of the rice. Remove from the oven.

If you’re using regular mayonnaise, add a splash of water (just 1–2 teaspoons should do it) to make it more pourable. Spoon or drizzle the mayonnaise (I like Kewpie brand the best) over the rice in a zigzag fashion, and then do the same with the sriracha sauce or hot sauce. Scatter the furikake all over the surface.

Serve with the seaweed snacks and avocado on the side. To eat, place a scoop of rice on a sheet of seaweed, add a slice of avocado and roll it up.

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