When in the throes of the deep freeze, it’s understandable that our food preferences and cravings tend to change. The depths of winter often pique our interest in comforting meals that warm our bodies from the inside out. How can we accomplish this culinary goal in the kitchen? By embracing cooking techniques and ingredients that infuse winter repasts with smoky, fiery, and crispy flavours.
When you’re yearning to turn up the heat on winter, food-preparation techniques such as broiling, pan searing, and roasting can yield highly rewarding results. Think perfectly charred vegetables, tender roasted fish, and seared citrus—just what you want when the weather is most frightful. From there, feisty ingredients, including chili peppers and smoked seasonings, will go one step further to perk up your meals by adding depth of flavour. Hot stuff, indeed.
These seasonally inspired fiery and smoky dishes are not just about providing us with comforting nourishment; they’re also here to celebrate the heart-healthy ingredients that can make this the season of living well.
Here are recipes that prove it’s not always a problem when your cooking goes up in smoke.
This collection was originally published in the February 2026 issue of alive magazine.