The 10 most popular recipes of April 2022 are all new recipes and new recipe collections, such as this recipe for the juiciest Italian style meatballs, my cabbage roll casserole recipe for unstuffed cabbage rolls, Terence’s traditional pork carnitas recipe for mouthwatering Mexican slow-cooked pulled pork that’s fantastic on tacos, tostadas and tortas, and my easy salmon tray bake recipe for crispy skinned salmon fillets.
It’s that time of the month! It’s the end of April when we review the month’s stats and share our 10 most popular recipes of April 2022. I always find it so interesting to see what our visitors to Grantourismo searched for, read and (we hope!) cooked, or at least bookmarked to cook, and this month was even more fascinating than usual.
This month, like most months of the last two-plus years of the pandemic, you mostly searched for and spent most of your time browsing comfort food recipes, with meatball recipes proving to be very popular, along with soup recipes. If you’re one of those people, I have a few more recipes for meatballs coming up, and more soup posts, including an Italian wedding soup recipe later today.
But before I share our 10 most popular recipes of April 2022, we have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader-funded. If you’ve enjoyed our recipes, please consider supporting Grantourismo by using our links to book accommodation, rent a car or campervan or motorhome, buy travel insurance, or book a tour on Klook or Get Your Guide.
You could also shop our Grantourismo store for gifts for foodies, including fun reusable cloth face masks designed with Terence’s photography. Or you could also buy us a coffee, although we won’t buy coffee, we’ll put that donation toward cooking ingredients for recipe testing.
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Now let me share our 10 most popular recipes of April 2022 as it’s a delicious list!
10 Most Popular Recipes of April 2022 – Here’s What Our Readers Have Been Cooking
Here are the 10 most popular recipes of April 2022 on Grantourismo – the recipes you, our readers, searched for, spent time browsing and hopefully cooked this month.
Best Meatballs Recipe for the Tastiest Juiciest Italian Style Meatballs
Our best meatballs recipe for the tastiest, juiciest Italian style meatballs topped our list of 10 most popular recipes of April 2022, becoming the most read post this month. Based on a traditional Southern Italian meatball typically made with ricotta, parmesan and pecorino cheeses, the meatballs are fried until brown then simmered in a rich classic Italian tomato sauce.
My recipe will make you the kind of meatball your mum probably made in the 1970s and served with spaghetti. Remember those?! The recipe is based on the classic Southern Italian polpette, made in Sicily and Calabria. You can serve them as the Italians typically do, with a rucola salad – or (shhh…) your favourite pasta.
If you made my incredibly rich and delicious homemade Italian tomato sauce recipe, which can be used for pasta, meatballs, pizza, and parmas, then here’s what you need to do with it: pour it into your biggest fry pan or skillet and put it on the stove to heat it up so you can simmer these juicy meatballs in it after you’ve finished frying them.
This recipe is part of a series of posts on some of my favourite classic Italian-style comfort food recipes, all of which make use of that rich tomato sauce, including my spaghetti with meatballs recipe (below) and recipe for Italian-Australian chicken parmigiana or chicken parma, as we call the breaded chicken cutlets topped with tomato sauce and mozzarella.
Best Meatballs Recipe for the Tastiest Juiciest Italian Style Meatballs
Easy Cabbage Roll Casserole Recipe for an Unstuffed Cabbage Roll Casserole or Lazy Cabbage Rolls
This baked cabbage roll casserole recipe makes an unstuffed cabbage roll casserole or lazy cabbage rolls, if you like, and it was another one of our 10 most popular recipes of April 2022 coming in at #2, which I was very chuffed to see.
Blanched cabbage leaves are layered lasagna-like with a rich tomato sauce, farmer’s cheese and a cabbage roll fried rice made from the savoury ground pork, onion, garlic and carrot filling that are usually stuffed in the cabbage leaves to make traditional cabbage rolls.
If you enjoyed my recipe for traditional cabbage rolls stuffed with savoury rice and mince, baked in a rich tomato sauce called golubtsy (голубцы), which are cooked in Russia, Ukraine and neighbouring countries, then you’re going to love this baked cabbage roll casserole recipe.
I suggest you cook the rice in a rice cooker, then let it cool. If you’re able, cook the rice the day before you plan to make this. Don’t try to fry the rice straight out of the rice cooker as it will go mushy. I also recommend a round flat bottomed wok to fry the onion, garlic, carrot, minced meats etc, and most other dishes to be honest, as the wok heats up quickly, retains heat well, and food just cooks faster.
And if you’re a lover of comforting cabbage rolls, do try my original cabbage roll fried rice recipe, which is absolutely delicious, even if I do say so myself, and my hearty cabbage roll soup recipe, which probably had my baboushka rolling in her grave when I published that, but it’s also delish! And we’ve filed more cabbage recipes here.
Easy Cabbage Roll Casserole Recipe for an Unstuffed Cabbage Roll Casserole or Lazy Cabbage Rolls
Best Spaghetti and Meatballs Recipe for the Comfort Food Favourite from Southern Italy
Our best spaghetti and meatballs recipe makes an incredibly delicious version of the much-loved comfort food classic with juicy meatballs and a rich tomato sauce made from scratch, so I was delighted to see this recipe land at #3 on the list of our 10 most popular recipes of April 2022.
It tastes very much like the kind of old-fashioned spaghetti and meatballs we loved that our mums made back in the Seventies, that originated in the Italian diaspora, with an injection of Southern Italian authenticity plucked from spaghetti and meatballs recipes from Calabria and Sicily.
Because while spaghetti and meatballs is said to have been invented by Italian diasporas around the world, it is with Southern Italians from Abruzzo, Puglia, Calabria, and Sicily that Italian food travelled from Italy to the Americas, Australia and beyond, where it was served up as it always was before being adapted to suit the availability of local produce and local tastes.
Our recipe calls for quality canned Italian tomatoes and good quality sea salt and extra virgin olive oil. The spaghetti is combined with the sauce before serving, in true Italian style, and topped with the meatballs, plenty of Parmigiano Reggiano or aged Pecorino Romano and loads of fresh basil. Serve the second it is ready with crusty bread.
Best Spaghetti and Meatballs Recipe for the Comfort Food Favourite from Southern Italy
Pork Carnitas Recipe for Mexican Slow Cooked Pulled Pork Tacos de Carnitas for Taco Tuesday
Terence’s traditional pork carnitas recipe makes the mouthwatering Mexican slow-cooked pulled pork that’s fantastic on tacos, tostadas, tortas, burritos, and more. We adore carnitas, so we were thrilled to see this recipe at #4 on our list of 10 most popular recipes of April 2022.
This recipe makes the mouthwatering Mexican tacos de carnitas that we fell in love with in Mexico City many years ago. Carnitas means ‘little meats’ in Mexican-Spanish and the pork is slow-braised until it’s so juicy and tender that it easily falls apart. The heat is then increased to get crispy bits of pork for delicious contrasts of texture and flavour. Make a big batch.
Tacos de carnitas are made with melt-in-your-mouth slow-cooked pulled pork, a green salsa made from tomatillos, a little fresh coriander, and lime quarters on the side, and these minimalist tacos really exemplify that less is more approach.
We shared this recipe on #TacoTuesday which is always a good excuse to make Mexican food if ever there was one and to share our favourite Mexican taco recipes.
You’ll find our collection of Taco Tuesday recipes here, which (so far!) include everything from a tacos al pastor recipe inspired by the tacos we loved at Mexico City’s Salón Corona to more Mexican-American and Tex-Mex-style tacos from a chicken tinga taco recipe to an Austin-inspired breakfast tacos recipe.
Pork Carnitas Recipe for Mexican Slow Cooked Pulled Pork Tacos de Carnitas for Taco Tuesday
Easy Salmon Tray Bake Recipe for Crispy Skinned Salmon with Spring Vegetables for Easter Lunch
This easy salmon tray bake recipe makes crispy skinned salmon fillets baked so that the skin crackles but the flesh remains moist, with roasted spring vegetables that are just-done so that they’re still fresh and crunchy. It’s one of my favourite recipes, so I was thrilled to see it land on our list of 10 most popular recipes of April 2022.
Sprinkled with spring onions and fresh fragrant dill and served with lemon slices, it makes the lightest of roasts, perfect for an Easter lunch, which is why we published it as part of our Easter recipe series, and added it to our collection of salmon recipes.
If you’re a salmon lover, we have more of our best salmon recipes here, including Terence’s crispy skin salmon fillet with colcannon with prawns or creamy mashed potatoes. It was very cool to see that compilation was another of our most popular recipes of April.
Other salmon recipes in that collection include devilled eggs with smoked salmon and caviar, blini with smoked salmon, a Cambodian salmon ceviche-style appetiser, a fish soup with salmon, salmon potato salad, salmon pasta, clay-pot salmon, and more.
Easy Salmon Tray Bake Recipe for Crispy Skinned Salmon with Spring Vegetables for Easter Lunch
Best Chicken Curry Recipes for Comforting and Warming Mid-Week Autumn Meals
Our best chicken curry recipes include quick and easy chicken curries, a low and slow chicken curry, curried chicken pie, and braised chicken with curry gravy. Our curried chicken recipes are all fantastic chicken dinner ideas for mid-week meals in autumn when you want one-pot meals you can set and forget that are comforting, warming and can be shared.
This collection of our best chicken curry recipes is for readers in the southern hemisphere, where the evenings are getting chilly, who are looking for warming mid-week autumn meals to make. Why is it that once autumn (or fall) hits we’re searching for chicken recipes – whether it’s chicken breast recipes, chicken thigh recipes, chicken mince recipes, chicken soup recipes, chicken noodle soup recipes, sunday chicken dinner recipes, or chicken curry recipes?
Is it because we’ve learnt from the pandemic to always have some chicken in the freezer for those evenings when we just don’t feel like or can’t (!) pop out to the shops? Or is it because chicken can be so easy to cook compared to pork, beef and seafood?
It’s probably a bit of both, and so I compiled some simple and quick chicken curry recipes for those of you who are time-poor, with chicken in the fridge. Our best chicken curry recipes come from all over Southeast Asia and beyond, from Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia, along with South Africa, from the Cape Malay community in Cape Town.
If you’re looking for more than chicken curry recipes, click through this to collection of our best 30 curry recipes for everything from fish curries to pork curries, curried noodles to curried soups, and curried meat pies and sausage rolls to our curried egg sandwich recipe.
Best Chicken Curry Recipes for Comforting and Warming Mid-Week Autumn Meals
Spanish Garlic Shrimp Recipe for Gambas al Ajillo – A Spanish Tapas Bar Favourite That’s Easy to Make at Home
This classic Spanish garlic shrimp recipe for gambas al ajillo makes one of the most popular Spanish tapas dishes on the menu at tapas bars in Spain and around the world, and it’s one of our favourite Spanish tapas recipes.
It’s also one of the easiest Spanish tapas dishes to make at home, as long as you don’t over-cook the shrimps – or prawns. Sweet plump garlic prawns are just cooked in a fragrant, gently-spiced, garlicky virgin olive oil that’s just calling for you to mop it up with crusty bread.
This Spanish garlic shrimp recipe was next in our series of best Spanish tapas recipes, which we kicked off last month with this scrummy Spanish meatballs recipe for albondigas, then a recipe for chorizo and potato croquettes or croquetas de patata y chorizo, and more recently our chorizo in red wine recipe for chorizo al vino tinto, one of our favourite recipes with chorizo. Next up: calamari al plancha for smoky squid cooked on a griddle.
As with so many of the recipes we’ve been sharing since the pandemic began and these travel writers could no longer travel, our Spanish tapas series is a result of a longing for Spain, Spanish food and the quintessentially Spanish experience that is the tapas bar crawl, a leisurely bar-hop from one boisterous spot to another to sip wine or vermouth as you savour tapas, small plates of snacks. Sigh…
Pork Roast Recipe for Spice Rubbed Pork Belly Roast Stuffed with Herbs and Spices
This pork roast recipe makes a spice rubbed roast pork stuffed with garlic, herbs and spices that is as rich and delicious as it looks. I loved that this made the list of 10 most popular recipes of April 2022.
The slow cooked pork belly roast has a crunchy skin and moist pork belly infused with spices and herbs. It’s so rich, you wouldn’t want to eat it every weekend, but it was perfect for Easter Sunday.
We recommended this dish to readers who were looking for an easy set-and-forget pork roast for Easter instead of a ham. It has to be started the day before, however, as you need to massage your pork belly with olive oil, spices and herbs, roll it up, tie it up, and it needs to marinate overnight so it’s infused with all those wonderful flavours.
Then the day after you just need to roast it and roast some vegetables with it. When it comes to roasting the pork, low and slow is essential to render the fats, but you’ll need high heat initially to get that nice crunchy pork crackling.
Pork Roast Recipe for Spice Rubbed Pork Belly Roast Stuffed with Herbs and Spices
Classic Ribollita Soup Recipe for a Hearty Tuscan Style Bean, Kale and Bread Soup
This classic ribollita soup recipe makes the Tuscan bean, kale and bread soup invented to use up leftovers, including stale bread. It’s another one of my favourite soups, which is why I was so pleased to see it on this list of 10 most popular recipes of April 2022.
It was cool and breezy here in Siem Reap earlier this month, plus it has been randomly raining, which is just wild for April, typically the hottest and driest month of the year. Locals (used to) call March and April the ‘Cambodian summer’. So as soon as the temperatures drop to anything resembling spring or autumn weather, I make soup.
‘Ribollita’ means ‘re-boiled’ in Italian and traditionally this hearty vegetarian broth was made with leftover soup, such as minestrone or white bean soup that was re-boiled with old bread. Comforting and warming, it’s perfect for cool-ish evenings.
If you love soups as much as I do – fish soups, chicken soups, noodle soups, chicken noodle soups, warming winter soups, cold summer soups, I adore them all – then you’re going to love this ribollita recipe made from scratch, using stale sourdough bread.
Classic Ribollita Soup Recipe for a Hearty Tuscan Style Bean, Kale and Bread Soup
Chicken Parmigiana Recipe for a Classic Chicken Parma in the Italian Australian Style
Our chicken parmigiana recipe makes a scrummy chicken parma in the Italian Australian style that appeared in the 1950s and became a popular mid-week pub counter meal special in the 1980s. In our homemade parmy recipe, succulent chicken breast fillets with a crunchy breadcrumb coating are topped with a rich tomato sauce and melted parmesan cheese and mozzarella.
If you made and enjoyed our chicken schnitzel recipe and my rich Italian tomato sauce, above, then I guarantee you’re going to love this endearingly old-fashioned chicken parmigiana recipe.
And I have to confess that I’d much rather make a chicken parma at home than eat it at a pub. While there were some fantastic chicken parmas with crunchy coatings, moist chicken, and mouthwatering melted cheese, there were also soggy parmas with insipid sauces and a mound of grated vegetables masquerading as a ‘salad’.
Indeed, it’s the sides, a good fresh garden salad and crunchy potato fries or wedges, that distinguish an Italian Australian chicken parmigiana from its cousins in the USA, which are typically served with spaghetti or another pasta. I loved that this made the list of 10 most popular recipes of April 2022.
Chicken Parmigiana Recipe for a Classic Chicken Parma in the Italian Australian Style
Please do let us know if you’ve cooked any of our 10 most popular recipes of April 2022 in the comments below, as we’d love to hear how they turned out for you.
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