Your 15 Favourite Recipes of the Year!

These are the dishes our readers loved most in 2017€”get ready to feast.

Looking at this year’s most popular dishes from our recipe database, it’s tempting to play armchair psychologist: there’s plenty of comfort food to be found on this best-of list, perhaps a sign of the turbulent times we’re facing in the world….orrrr maybe our readers just love carbs and pie. Either way, these crowd-pleasing recipes are sure to satisfy into 2018, too.

15. Lemon Cream Crepe Cake

A mile-high stack of crepes, layered with lemon cream, makes a stunning dessert that’s very much on trend—Instagram your heart out at your next brunch birthday celebration.

14. Bacon Sour Cream and Chive Scones

This recipe may not actually call for sour cream, but the combination of sharp cheddar and heavy whipping cream brings that tangy flavour into the mix.

13. Dirty Chips

Dirty Chips are a twist on traditional nachos that literally upends the usual presentation of the party staple.

12. Lemon Cream Tart

Edmonton’s Duchess Bake Shop makes their lemon cream tarts by the batches. Think 250 hand-zested and juiced lemons and a five and a half hour cook time for the cream—with stirring that occurs every half hour, on the dot. Luckily, making them at home is a tad easier. And the results? Just as delicious.

11. Sheet-Roasted Salmon, Asparagus and Tomatoes

From our feature on how to pack a better lunch, this sheet-roasted salmon can be easily prepared ahead of time. Simply pack it up with grains and drizzle with tahini dressing before you carry it off to work.

10. Pulled Chicken Burger

Angie Quaale’s pulled chicken burger recipe puts a welcome twist to the standard pulled pork buns.

9. Christmas Morning Wifesaver

Calgarians who lived here in the eighties will recall the recipe that made the Best of Bridge cookbooks famous—nowadays the authors say it’s more aptly called “Christmas Morning Domestic Partner Saver”—it’s a hefty, savoury sort of strata, made with day-old bread, bacon, cheddar and eggs.

8. Sharileen’s Sour Cream Cherry Pie

Another delicious pie from Duchess Bake Shop is the perfect combination of flavours sweet and tart.

7. Julia’s Caesar Salad Dressing

Chef and cookbook author Julia Turshen shared the recipe everyone begs her for—plus three easy ways to make it your own (vegan, vegetarian or cleverly transformed into a creamy mustard dressing).

6. Butter Chicken Pot Pie

This year, we shared four delicious cast-iron pan recipes, but it’s the butter chicken pot pie that our readers loved most—we even got word that photographer Clinton Hussey couldn’t stop eating (or making it at home!) once the photoshoot was done.

5. Lamb in Creamy Green Cardamom Curry

This flavourful curry is the ultimate in Indian comfort food, courtesy of all-star chefs Vikram Vij and Meeru Dhalwala. Serve this lamb curry with rice or naan bread or over boiled, salted potatoes.

4. Peanut Noodles with Chicken and Veggies

This infinitely customizable dish makes the most of whatever extra pantry items you have on hand—use surplus cooked veggies, grains, or pasta as a starting point and slather the whole mess with this irresistible peanut sauce.

3. Rich Dark Fruit Cake

Thirty years later, this recipe from a 1987 issue of Western Living still holds up. It’s made for baking in bulk, but it can easily be sized down for smaller batches.

2. Kale Salad with Lemon Pepper Dressing

Okay, so one healthy salad snuck on to this year’s top 15 list. But the lemon-pepper dressing packs such a pop, it’s hard to believe you’re getting a good dose of greens in the process.

1. Butter Chicken Schnitzel

Vikram Vij shared his Indian twist on chicken schnitzel back in 2015—and readers are still hungry for it now. (Even kids love this fusion-style chicken strip.)

Want more great WL recipes to kick off 2018? Visit our recipe finder.