Mother’s Day is coming up fast. If you’ve left booking a meal too late, or a restaurant is out of your budget this year, we have the next-best option: cook for mum (or your mother figure) at home. You’ll get bonus points for effort, be able to linger around the table well beyond what a restaurant reservation would allow, and can tailor your recipes to suit mum’s favourites. Need inspiration? Here’s what the Broadsheet editorial team is cooking for their mums this year.

Diana Chan’s flavourful pork dumplings in fiery chilli broth

My mum is a somewhat fussy eater. She hates eating fish, or anything fish adjacent, yet weirdly loves oysters. I know she loves homemade dumplings with heaps of spicy sauce, so this recipe from Diana Chan will definitely win me some points. We’ve made dumplings together a few times before, pleating way too many at her kitchen table and freezing the leftovers for easy midweek meals. It’s the recipe that keeps on giving.
– Michael Harry, national editor

Shane Delia’s baked salmon with tarator, burnt butter and pomegranate tabouli

For Mother’s Day a couple of years ago, I took Mum to one of those “hip cafes I’m always writing about” for lunch. She ordered a confit salmon bowl, I ordered god knows what. When her salmon arrived at the table, shining on a bed of Japanese rice, she howled at the sight: “It’s … RAW”. Sorry Mum! She does really like (cooked) salmon though, so I’m giving Shane Delia’s baked salmon with tarator, burnt butter and pomegranate tabouli a whirl. It’ll be maximum impact for minimal effort, and it’s exotic enough for Mum to feel like she’s branching out. Best of all, that salmon will be cooked right through.
– Dan Cunningham, directory editor

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1800 Lasagne’s pork and veal lasagne

What I think of as my mum’s lasagne recipe actually comes from The Australian Women’s Weekly Cookery Class Cookbook, published in 1980 (but possibly earlier – even the state and national libraries aren’t sure). “Lasagne is a full-flavoured specialty from Italy that makes a good, hearty main meal for the family, an unusual party dish or a distinctive entree,” reads the hilarious intro, written at a time when white-bread Aussie families like mine still considered lasagne somewhat “exotic”. Garlic had much the same status, and the recipe only includes a single clove. For an entire family-sized lasagne! Distressing. All this is to say I’d like to teach mum how to make 1800 Lasagne’s peerless take on the dish, which includes 12 cloves of garlic, thankyouverymuch. First, to show her how much better lasagne can be. Second, because it takes six bloody hours to make (I’ve done it several times – it’s worth it) so we’d get to spend the better part of a day hanging out.
– Nick Connellan, publications director.

Natalie Paull’s brownies

I won’t be with my mum on Mother's Day this year, but if I was a really good daughter I would make a batch of Natalie Paull’s brownies from Beatrix Bakes and pop them in an express post satchel to Canberra. When I was at uni in Brisbane, my mum would make caramel slice and send it up (wrapped in an ice pack) whenever she thought I could use a hug – birthdays, exams or when a boy had broken my heart. These dense, fudgy brownies feel like they would travel well and arrive mostly intact.
– Alice Jeffery, shopping editor

Flour and Stone’s chocolate, raspberry and buttermilk cake

Flour and Stone’s Nadine Ingram describes her chocolate, raspberry and buttermilk cake as “the fudgiest of all the chocolate cakes”. It’s what lured my family into making this a lockdown passion project. And it’s what keeps us coming back. This fudgy beauty is a labour of love (you’ll need about four hours between beating and serving) but so was raising me and my sister. Mum deserves it. For a special Mother's Day touch: whack it in a heart-shaped pan – you’re (the) golden (child).
– Stephanie Vigilante, head of social media

Joseph Abboud's tahini chicken

Phone calls with Mum always start the same. She reels off the five dinner dishes she’s making – usually a combo of extra-charred lamb chops, a garden-veggie salad and golden potatoes. In the background, I can hear her two housemates (anxious blue heelers) yapping and the smoke alarm going off (the chops). Sadly, I can't join Mum's feast this year. But I’ll whip up Joseph Abboud’s tahini chicken in her honour. And after mains? I'll give her all-time fave dessert a crack. They’re the kinds of dishes she’ll drop her phone over when we chat on Sunday night, looking at the photos I’ve sent her and asking: “Can you send me the recipes?”.
– Holly Bodeker-Smith, directory editor (app)

Ella Mittas's zucchini fritters

My dearest darling mum raised us to love fresh, whole foods. (Meaning a childhood spent protesting dinners of salads and tofu stir fries, and the lack of Roll-Ups in the cupboard.) But now I appreciate every little bit of it. Family dinnertimes spent around a veggie-laden table? Lucky. Chef Ella Mittas’s zingy zucchini fritters – popping with chunks of feta and a mish-mash of herbs – are bang up Mum’s alley, and I’ll be frying up a batch on Sunday. There’ll be a green salad and a plate of chopped tommies on the side, and chilli crisp for the fire. Balanced out afterwards with a slab of Beatrix Bakes’s brownie.
– Grace MacKenzie, Sydney food and drink editor

Jane’s crisp layered potato

Jane is one of my mum’s favourite restaurants. When we celebrated her birthday at the Surry Hills diner a few years ago we ordered this beautifully tall potato galette. It’s crispy, it’s crunchy, it’s carby, it’s perfect. I’m hoping that by making this potato piece de resistance I’ll bring back memories of that birthday dinner spent at Jane. Will mine be as perfectly layered with paper-thin potatoes and truffle? No. But it will be made with love and that’s what counts, right Mum?
– Lucy Bell Bird, national assistant editor (BAP)

Reynold Poernomo’s honey-glazed Basque burnt cheesecake

Cake is undoubtedly my mum’s favourite food. If I go to a bakery and return without a treat for Min Payne, I risk the silent treatment. She’s not a huge cheesecake fan, but I’m pretty sure she has a mini-crush on Reynold. So this will have to be my Mother’s Day bake.
– Audrey Payne, Melbourne food and drink editor