Last year I made a post that listed everything I had made in 2024 and ranked them so to continue that tradition, I am doing it again this year.
This year I am changing up how dishes are ranked slightly. Dishes are still ranked on flavor but their ranking might be adjusted based on how healthy something is. This doesn’t usually play a factor unless it is an extreme.
Also note that this is purely based on how I cooked each dish. It does not fully represent the recipe or the dish since I might have screwed something up.
Ordering within each rank is arbitrary.
Here is the list:
S - Extremely good; I could eat these all week
- Pho
- Cumin lamb
- Nasi goreng (indonesian version)
- Green beans (with garlic)
- Chicken shawarma
- Taiwanese pork belly with a “Mei cai” twist
A - Very good; Would make again
- Baked salmon with herbs and spices (this one gets an A instead of a B just because it’s healthy and extremely easy)
- Chicken fajitas
- Pad thai
- Garlic eggplant
- Butter chicken (I ended up making several versions of this in 2025, this is just ranking the best version I made)
- Japanese curry
- Teriyaki chicken
- Hot and sour soup (with a mushroom + chicken stock base)
- Braised beef noodle soup
- Nasi goreng kampung (malaysian version)
- Lemongrass pork vermicelli bowl
- Lemongrass chicken vermicelli bowl
- Fuqi feipian (aka thinly sliced beef organ meat with a spicy “dressing”) (good but too much effort, I will look for a lower effort version of this recipe if I make this again)
- Kimchi fried rice (various, eg. with spam, chicken breast, broccoli, frozen veggies, etc).
- Kimchi (napa)
- Kimchi (radish)
- Beef broccoli
- Tonkotsu ramen (a huge amount of work)
- Simple broccoli + garlic
- Gobi manchurian cauliflower (it tasted good but it was also a lot of effort)
B - Decent; Would make again
- Kimchi stew (This was an S in 2024 but I think I either got tired of eating it or made it with too much meat)
- Beef tacos
- Mapo tofu
- Spaghetti + meatballs
- Fish sauce chicken wings
- Gong bao ji ding (I like to make this “dry” by limiting the amount of sauces and by cooking on high to dry up the juices)
- Banh mi
- Pork vindaloo (traditional style which is with pork and NO potatoes)
- Regular burgers
- Hot pot
- Oven roasted turkey breast + stuffing
- “Greek style” salad (the usual greek salad ingredients + lettuce + sundried tomato dressing)
- Smash burgers (smash burgers really highlight the beef so it wont taste nearly as good with crappy quality beef and unfortunately I made this with crappy quality beef)
- Simple bok choi + garlic
- “NYT broccoli salad”
- Chinese beef stew
- Pork bone soup
C - Ok; Would probably not make again (at least not for myself)
- biang biang noodles (I used store bought noodles, in order for this to be worth it I think the noodles need to be hand made)
- Chinese style dry pot
- Sundried tomato chicken with orzo (the chicken was horrendous, but the orzo was good)
- Southern style mac & cheese (this is a B taste wise but it’s just too unhealthy, I feel like I can’t eat too much of this especially now that I know how it’s made)
- Chinese cauliflower (the veggie is fine, I think my recipe sucked)
- Greek salad
D - No.
- Pork liver (the organ flavor was way too strong) (should probably try this with chicken liver instead if I decide to run this back)
Overall I think I repeated too many dishes in 2025. For instance I probably made pho for at least 4 different weeks in the year. For 2026 I will be making more of an effort not to repeat any dishes.
As for the best newest dish I learned it has got to go to nasi goreng. Not only is nasi goreng delicious but it’s also so versatile, having many many different variations and versions. I will definitely be adding this dish to my rotation.
One other call out I want to make is I got addicted to Greek frappes near the end of the year although I’m not sure if I should list it here.
That’s an impressive list. Which dishes would you add to your daily rotation? Basically those dishes that are so simple that you’d cook them in a week day after a long day.
This is a tricky question for me to answer because of how I plan my meals.
I don’t usually buy random ingredients and then decide each day what to make with the ingredients. Instead I usually plan 1 or 2 or even 3 things I want to make and then shop specifically based on that.
This has some pros and cons but one large pro is that basically I am fortunate enough to live by several grocery stores that all specialize in different things such as stores that carry more Italian, Japanese, Chinese or Korean ingredients. What I plan to prepare will help me choose which grocery store to go to since I have a rough idea of which key ingredients I can find where. Eg. if I’m planning on making a lot of Japanese curries for the week I am not going to the Italian grocery store or else I’m not going to find my ingredients however I can choose to go to the Chinese, Japanese or Korean grocery stores because the ingredients are general enough that any asian store would have them. But if I needed something really specific such as fresh perilla leaves for something like pork bone soup then I will need to go to the Korean grocery store because it’s that specific.
So because of this I don’t really have a dish that I just cook whenever I’m lazy because I would have had to shop for it in advance. That being said I do have “emergency rations” in the form of frozen foods or meal kits (Jamaican patties, dumplings, pizza, instant noodles, etc) that I can make in a pinch.
However I do have dishes that I plan to make for the week when I’m lazy because I can make several days of the stuff and basically have no prep time other than microwaving leftovers.
Some examples are:
- Any stew/curry (Japanese curry, green curry, butter chicken, chicken korma, Chinese-style beef stew are some of my favorites)
- Any fried rice (Mexican chicken rice, kimchi fried rice, nasi goreng are my favorites. But also pineapple fried rice, or a classic chinese-style fried rice can also be good here)
- Beef broccoli
- Spaghetti and meat balls. Although the spaghetti sauce takes a while to make, I usually make ~2 - 3L of it at a time so per meal it’s a lot less effort. (You can also just buy the sauce)
One pattern you might notice is that all of these meals have both veggies and a protein. This reduces cook time since I don’t have to make multiple things. Eg. if I make cumin lamb, I will feel compelled to pair it with a veggie dish as well. More dishes = more cook time.
All that said, I can also come up a different list of examples where I think you can prepare the entire meal in 1h or less from start to finish with cleanup time included
They are:
- Baked salmon (you literally just make a spice mix or buy one, season the salmon and bake), while the salmon bakes you can make a veggie (eg. salad, bok choi + garlic, broccoli + garlic) to pair it with + a starch of your choice (rice for me)
- Spaghetti and meat balls if you buy all the ingredients premade (eg. the pasta, sauce and meatballs).
- Green curry (back in college when I first started cooking and sucked at it, I used to buy these cans of green curry that basically had the “soup” premade so all you have to do is heat the “soup” chop some meat and veggies and boil and you are done)
- Any indian curry that you can get the sauce for in the store (same as green curry)
Basically if you want to reduce cook time significantly, you either need to parallelize and make multiple things at the same time (eg. by baking) or buy premade stuff from the store to skip the prep.
Wow, thanks for such a thorough reply! I should definitely learn some of those dishes. I don’t have access to specialized stores, but surely I can get enough spices for making some fried rice dishes.
I am in awe. I’ve been trying to expand the list of meals I make lately, but I can’t even imagine doing so many different ones in a year!
I’ve been cooking for over 10 years now. It takes a lot of time and consistency. You just have to keep at it. I believe in you!
I love Pho but have never even considered making it myself. Was it difficult or use specific ingrediants that I might not have. There a great place nearby and never saw the need but love cooking asian cuisine.
I was in the same boat.
Originally I never made pho at home because I thought it was too much effort. Every traditional pho recipe has the dreaded “boil for 6+ hours” step that always intimidated me and turned me off to the idea.
The first time I tried making pho was when I saw campbell sold a premade pho stock. I thought it was a great idea since thats the most annoying part to make so I tried it. It was pretty bad but it made me want to try again.
That’s when I stumbled across this 1 hour recipe. It got me curious if you could actually make a good pho in such a short period of time with little effort and no pressure cooker. So I tried it and honestly it was not bad for the effort.
These days I actually do make pho closer to the more traditional methods. I reduce “cook time per meal” by always making a large amount of stock each time I make it (4 - 6L). I bought some huge mason jars that I use to store the pho and put it in the fridge or freezer depending on how long I plan on using it for.
If you are in the same boat as I was and want to get your feet wet I would definitely recommend trying one of the “fast pho” recipes like the one I posted. And then later on you can decide whether you want to try the more traditional recipes.
The thing with pho is I swear every one has their own stock blend and I almost never use the same blend myself. What I use is based on what’s on sale and what I can get my hands on most of the time.
I’ve seen pho stock at the Asian grocery by my house and have been tempted. I might try it out. I have resisted making my own stock forever. It’s the storage for me really.
Try the 1 hour recipe. In my opinion is likely far better than any stock you can get from a grocery store. It is more work but it’s worth it.
Do you have a go to recipe site for these? Or links to specific recipes you used?
Usually what I do is research some recipes, paste them into a doc and then edit and modify them as well as adding notes for myself. I don’t like sharing the recipes publicly usually because I don’t always record where I took the recipes from and they are more for personal use.
If there are any specific recipes you want to see I can clean those docs up and post them.
Mostly I was interested in all of your S-tier, and maybe the A-tier recipes, but for specific dishes, I’d say the top four I’m interested in are Cumin lamb, Nasi goreng, Butter chicken, and Hot and sour soup, the last two just because there’s so many variations and I don’t think I’ve found the version I like best yet. Also pho for the same reason, though I saw your other comment explaining it.
Cumin lamb
- https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VVjD3Jm9jVwKLGFnjE7EaAFNlq9RERjz3h8RPPj_URk/edit?usp=sharing
- My major note here is to not over cook the spices. For years I’ve been frustrated because I can’t get the spices to taste “right” until I learned to add the spices in last and stop cooking right after.
Nasi goreng
Butter chicken
- https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QF2iXpz9MSydPjIolqkmp7cWDSD9woYXGq9EZcJ7_Lo/edit?usp=sharing
- My main note here is to use greek yogurt and tomato paste instead of regular yogurt and fresh (or canned) tomatoes for a tastier result
Hot and sour soup
Pho
- https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OjeslHUgzhRip4NUvcOb9vcMHwbsLHGTQStKBX3S_I8/edit?usp=sharing
- General notes here is I used to add the fish sauce when making the soup base but I found that the taste of fish sauce really changes when it’s cooked so these days I only add fish sauce when assembling the bowl. Although if you don’t like the taste of fish sauce, add it when making the broth instead.
The pho recipe is probably my worst recipe because I make pho so often I usually just wing it these days. The recipe I wrote is sort of a mess since it attempts to combine random notes from each time I make it. I can give some general guidance which are:
- Based on which ingredients you end up gathering for the broth, look up the cooking times of each ingredient and layer the ingredients so they all end up cooked at the right end time, that or set a timer and fish the ingredient out when you need. For instance beef can disintegrate after some time after boiling so if you want to serve that beef with the pho later, you will need to figure out how long to boil it before it disintegrates so you can remove it and cut it up for serving.
- You can pre-roast any of the meat and/or veggies and/or ginger in the oven before starting the broth. For veggies/ginger it can change the flavor while for meats I’m not exactly sure of the food science here but it seems to help with soup clarity and also seems to cut down on the cooking time for meats.
You’re my hero. Great work.
