Recipes! Buffalo Chicken Salad, Air Fryer Tofu Nuggets With Honey-Mustard Sauce, Baked Fish Sticks With Tartar Sauce

What to cook during the week ahead, from Post Food editors.

I love it when a plan comes together, as the famous line from the 1980s TV show "The A-Team" goes. Looking over this week's new recipes presented me with an obvious theme (which, if I'm being honest, was less of a plan and more of a happy accident): Golden brown delicious.

You'll find that phrase thrown around the restaurant industry a lot, including in quite a few business names, and it means exactly what it sounds like — food that's crisp, richly colored and, often, fried.

Let's start with Aaron Hutcherson's Buffalo Chicken Salad, inspired by his favorite bar snack. After they're marinated in a mixture of buttermilk and hot sauce, bite-size pieces of boneless, skinless chicken breast get breaded and fried in 1 to 1 1/2 inches of oil. Paired with romaine lettuce, celery and cucumber, this salad is bursting with crunch.

Joe Yonan turned to one of our favorite countertop appliances for his Air Fryer Tofu Nuggets With Honey-Mustard Sauce. Plant-based nuggets are not always the easiest to perfect, but Joe uses a clever technique of freezing, defrosting and marinating cubes of tofu, in addition to a panko coating amped up by the power of your air fryer.

With Ellie Krieger's Baked Fish Sticks With Tartar Sauce, you can pick your own adventure. After going through a flour, egg and panko dredging process, the fish sticks can be baked on a sheet pan in the oven or popped into an air fryer. Either way, you'll end up with a delightful, nostalgic and kid-friendly dish.

If you're interested in trying these or any other recipes that give you crisp, golden exteriors, here are a few quick tips to keep in mind:

Get rid of moisture. Pat meat or seafood dry, let excess marinade drip off or, in the case of the tofu, squeeze out excess water.
Be patient. Make sure the oil in your pan is hot enough, and give your oven plenty of time to preheat. Not everyone says you need to let an air fryer preheat, but I usually do for just a few minutes. Waiting a short while will also help your breading set.
Don't overcrowd. This applies across the board to skillets, sheet pans and air fryers. Packing too much food closely together will prevent efficient circulation of heat, meaning you won't get that coveted color and texture. In the case of frying, a large batch of food can cause the oil temperature to drop too low.

Want more practical cooking advice? Join Aaron and me in our live weekly chat Wednesday at noon Eastern. We'll be answering your questions, which you can submit in advance.

Until next week, happy cooking!