How Yasmin Khan Gets Ahead on Dinner

The author of Sabzi shares two recipes—plus tips that’ll make it more likely that you’ll actually eat a vegetable this week.

Before we get into my conversation with this week’s guest: Did you enter to win this pantry & kitchenware & entertaining & cookbook haul yet? The drawing is coming up, so make sure you’ve followed all three steps!

A bonkers giveaway of cookbooks, kitchen gear, and superstar pantry ingredients

When I read this recent Vogue essay from cookbook author Yasmin Khan about the challenges of feeding a new baby, I knew I wanted to talk to her about something else: the challenges of feeding yourself when you’ve just emerged into parenthood.

Yasmin’s previous cookbooks, The Saffron Tales, Zaitoun, and Ripe Figs, were based on extensive travel and reportage—her latest, Sabzi, is rooted at home in London, in the food she makes most for herself and her vegetarian husband.

On this week’s episode of The Dinner Plan, Yasmin and I chat about how her cooking has changed since the birth of her daughter, and how nice it sometimes is to sneak away and feel like yourself in the kitchen again.

In those brief moments, Yasmin thinks about advance prep. And her advice is helpful even if you’re not juggling a sick toddler at home this week.

Yasmin always caramelizes more onions than she needs for an individual recipe, stashing the rest in the freezer for quicker dinners in the future. Over the weekend, she often roasts a bunch of vegetables to keep in her fridge.

“If you’re making a salad at lunchtime, you might throw some roasted beets in there. If you’re making a soup, you know, any of them could be blended together,” she says. “They go well with pasta, they go well in like stews; you will never regret having a fridge full of roasted vegetables.”

We also talk about how she adjusts traditionally meat-focused recipes to work for a vegetarian, and she shares a few of her favorite low-lift meals, like the two recipes from Sabzi that you’ll find reprinted below: a quick, creamy white bean and herb smash to eat with a hunk of sourdough, and a make-ahead-friendly bulgur pilaf with zucchini, frozen peas, and tons of mint.

Win a copy of Sabzi

In addition to the recipes you’ll see below, there’s so much I want to cook in this beautiful book: Persian eggplant stew topped with crispy potatoes, parsnip soup with hazelnut dukkah, smoky chickpeas with orzo and kale, the quince crumble (be still my heart.) Want to join me?

Here’s how to win a copy of Sabzi: Make sure you’ve become a paid supporter of Dinner Plan by end of day Sunday, August 31, 2025. Your support keeps new episodes and newsletters flowing—thank you.

Free subscribers can enter the giveaway by sending along a fridge voice memo for potential inclusion on the show. Just follow the instructions here by Sunday, August 31.

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Yasmin mentioned:

Broccoli and Lentil Salad With Curried Tahini and Dates (reprinted by Anna Jones)
Anna Jones’s One-Pot Pasta a Limone
Meera Sodha’s braised eggplant
Musaka’a from Zaitoun, reprinted by the National Post
Arabesque by Claudia Roden
The Gaza Kitchen by Laila El-Haddad
Lugma by Noor Murad especially the Bahraini dal and Loomi chicken
Halloumi Lasagna from Sabzi (reprinted on Epicurious)
Yasmin’s Substack, Rising Up

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Maggie mentioned:

Sue Li’s Coconut-Lime Wedge Salad (NYT Cooking, gift link)

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Photo: Jonathan Gregson

Zucchini, Pea, and Bulgur Pilaf

Excerpted from Sabzi: Vibrant Vegetarian Recipes. Copyright © 2025 by Yasmin Khan. Used with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

This fragrant salad uses bulgur wheat as its base, an endlessly versatile, slightly chewy grain that is very popular throughout the eastern Mediterranean, where it is used to stuff vegetables, thicken soups, and serve in warm or cold pilafs such as this one. The grains hold their shape and texture well when dressed, making them handy for preparing in advance and great for picnics. To make this dish more substantial I sometimes add a block of feta, crumbled into large chunks.

Serves 4

Dressing
2 tablespoons extra-­virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons lemon juice
½ garlic clove, crushed
1½ teaspoons sumac
½ teaspoon ground allspice
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 medium zucchinis (1 pound 7 ounces/500 g), halved diagonally and cut crosswise into large pieces
Vegetable oil
¾ cup/100 g bulgur wheat
½ cup/115 g frozen peas
¼ cup/25 g sliced almonds
Grated zest of 1 lemon
2 large handfuls mint leaves, roughly chopped
2 large handfuls parsley, roughly chopped
Salt

Preheat the oven to 400°F/200°C.

1. To make the dressing, whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, sumac, allspice, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper in a small bowl. Set aside to allow the acidity of the lemon to mellow out the raw garlic.

2. On a large baking sheet, toss the zucchini pieces with 2 tablespoons vegetable oil and ½ teaspoon salt. Roast for 12 to 15 minutes, until they are soft but still have some bite. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

3. Meanwhile, put the bulgur in a saucepan and top it with enough just-­boiled water to cover the grains by 1 inch/2.5 cm. Cook over medium heat for about 15 minutes, until soft. When the grains are ready, add the frozen peas and cook for another 2 minutes. Drain, rinse under cold running water, and leave in a fine-­mesh sieve in the sink for the excess water to drain.

4. Toast the almonds in a dry frying pan over medium heat for a few minutes until golden brown, then remove from the heat.

5. Transfer the bulgur and peas to a large bowl. Add the dressing, lemon zest, and herbs and toss well. Fold in half of the almonds and the zucchini, taste to adjust the seasoning, then top with the remaining almonds.

Photo: Jonathan Gregson

White Beans and Mixed Herb Smash

Excerpted from Sabzi: Vibrant Vegetarian Recipes. Copyright © 2025 by Yasmin Khan. Used with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

These creamy garlic- and lemon-infused beans topped with an herb and nut smash can be prepared in 15 minutes, making this dish perfect for midweek cooking. I use beans in jars for most cooking these days, as I find them to be better seasoned, plumper, and creamier, plus I can easily source them from my local Turkish greengrocer. That said, canned beans work just as well here, or you could certainly cook the beans from scratch. I make this with cannellini beans, but any kind of white bean will do. I like to serve this with a hunk of sourdough, some boiled new potatoes, and a simple green salad. You’ll probably have some leftover herb smash, which you can add to salads, sandwiches, or soups.

Serves 2 to 3 as a main with accompaniments or 4 as part of a mezze

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 (14-­ounce/400 g) cans white beans, drained and rinsed
¾ cup/180 mL just-­boiled water
Grated zest of 1 lemon
¼ teaspoon ground white pepper
Extra-­virgin olive oil
Salt

Mixed herb smash
½ cup/50g walnuts
2 cups/30 g mixed herbs (such as cilantro, basil, and parsley), roughly chopped
3 tablespoons extra-­virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon capers, rinsed and roughly chopped
Salt

1. Heat the vegetable oil in a large sauté pan over low heat. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute, stirring frequently so that the garlic doesn’t burn. Add the beans, just-­boiled water, lemon zest, ¼ teaspoon salt, and white pepper. Using the back of a spoon, crush one-­quarter of the beans so you create a thick sauce. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil, cover, turn the heat up to medium, and cook for 5 minutes, until the sauce thickens.

2. While the beans are cooking, make the herb smash. Put the walnuts in a mortar and pestle and pound until they resemble large bread crumbs. Add the chopped herbs, 3 tablespoons olive oil, lemon juice, and ¼ teaspoon salt and smash well to form a chunky sauce. Spoon in the chopped capers.

3. When you are ready to serve, spoon the dressing over each serving of beans and finish with another drizzle of olive oil.