Decide before you step into the grocery store: is this a meat meal or a dairy meal? You can’t do both in one sitting. If you’re making a Friday night dinner with brisket, your entire menu must be dairy-free. That means no cheese on the salad, no butter on the challah—just olive oil or margarine. Sounds sad? It’s not. Try a drizzle of good olive oil and flaky salt on warm challah; it’s a revelation.
For dairy meals, think quiches, pastas with cream sauce, or cheesy casseroles. Fish is a wild card here. It’s pareve, so you can eat it with dairy—like lox on a cream cheese bagel—but not with meat. So yes, a tuna melt is kosher, but a bacon cheeseburger? Nope. Sorry, America.
