46 head recipes

Traditional Rio Grande Valley barbacoa de cabeza, beef head pit-cooked overnight in coals with onion, garlic, and cilantro. The Sunday-morning tortilla filling that defines South Texas cooking.

Cheese and chile souffle with cheddar, hot salsa, and a classic bechamel base. Make it ahead and refrigerate or freeze up to 2 months before baking.

Make-ahead spaghetti and meatball casserole assembled the night before with uncooked pasta, jarred sauce, and frozen meatballs. Refrigerate overnight, bake, and serve.

Freezer-friendly sour cream drop cookies with cardamom that bake straight from frozen. Make the dough ahead, freeze for up to 6 months, and bake fresh warm cookies whenever the craving hits.

Pizza roll-ups made from flattened bread slices stuffed with tomato sauce, mozzarella, olives, and Italian seasoning, brushed with butter and chilled until bake time.

Vegetable-packed beer chili with kidney beans, chickpeas, zucchini, and carrots simmered in a cumin-chili spice base. Topped with cheese, sour cream, and sunflower seeds.

Traditional Pennsylvania Dutch buckwheat scrapple from hog's head, liver, heart, and sweetbreads, bound with cornmeal and buckwheat flour, seasoned with sage and mace.

Homemade seafood stock made from shrimp or lobster heads simmered with celery, onion, garlic, and lemon. A Cajun-style base for gumbo, bisque, etouffee, and chowder.

Traditional French farmhouse head cheese (fromage de tete): pork head simmered with vegetables, herbs, and aromatics, then molded with shallots and parsley into a sliceable charcuterie classic.

Made this while cleaning out the refrigerator... thus the name. John

Easy pasta salad tosses cooked pasta with frozen mixed vegetables, sweet potato, and low-fat dressing for a five-minute brown bag lunch. Pantry-staple weeknight side or work-from-home meal.

Make-Ahead: Baked Curried Beef and Sweet Potatoes recipe

Ossi di Morti (Bones of the Dead) Italian cookies flavored with cinnamon and clove oil, baked hard and meant to be dunked in coffee or tea. A traditional Italian All Souls Day treat.

Orjaleves is a traditional Hungarian pork and beef bone soup: a rich, clear golden broth perfumed with paprika and saffron, full of root vegetables, tender pork and hand-rolled spiral egg noodles. A heritage feast-day soup.