The 20 best easy comfort food recipes | Food

Start your day with Nigel Slater’s savoury croissants or Ravneet Gill’s brilliant blueberry pancakes. For lunch or dinner? Nigella Lawson’s easy cheesy chilli, Yotam Ottolenghi’s perfect baked potatoes, or Nathan Outlaw’s toad in the hole. Your midweek treat: Uyen Luu’s noodles or Amy and Emily Chung’s cheap and cheering family dal. Finish with Olia Hercules’s baked apples or Lopè Ariyo’s cobbler. A recipe list that almost reads like a lullaby.

A thick, creamy pottage that’s a cross between a stew and a slightly soupy, sticky risotto

Croissants cooked in the style of pain perdu, stuffed with dark curls of speck and pools of melted fontina

This is classic Scandinavian comfort food, a mash cooked with meat and lots of flavour, served with chives and pickled beetroot

For a classic macaroni cheese, you need to stand over a large pot of bechamel and personally load it with cheddar

Full of childhood memories, toad in the hole is simple and warming – just don’t take it out of the oven too soon

This brings together two of the most simple and comforting dishes: a baked potato and a soft-boiled egg

This dal – ideal for a midweek meal – is such easy-to-make comfort food: nutritious, filling and cheap

Enriched with coconut milk and the headiness of cardamom, this soup soothes and comforts beyond measure

A cold-weather dish, heavy with starch, cream and cheese that takes its inspiration from tartiflette

Think of this as a cross between a frittata, a toad in the hole and a delicious giant savoury pancake

There is something so moreish and savoury about butter and fish sauce, which turns this midweek dinner into a real treat

There is something so good about leeks and cheese together. Nothing else is really needed

Start the day with a savoury porridge that’s nourishing and great for wintertime. Add an egg for extra protein

Chorizo sausages combine with mince and mozzarella to make a quick Tex-Mex-inspired bowl of chilli

Perfect for a weekend breakfast, these pancakes can be made thick or thin, depending on who you’re feeding

With influences from west Africa and Jamaica, this aromatic vegetarian stew can be ready in less than half an hour

There’s no need to mash potato or make a white sauce with this crunchy-topped fish pie

Bake these apples until the skins burst, the flesh is fluffy and the ricotta is caramelised on top

Like a cross between a cake and a scone, this plantain pudding is drenched in a tropical syrup

A cake that’s elegant while remaining warming, nutty and completely comforting