What a good question. We just dealt with that in our kitchen.

We had fluorescents that were in a 4 x 6 recess with clear panels that made the ceiling one flat surface.

But we read that you should light your kitchen like an operating room. So, we realized that that was what we had been missing in the kitchen was good lighting.

Since we were doing a complete remodel anyway, we took out the diffuser panels, took down the existing light fixture and used the wiring coming down into the recessed ceiling to wire into the new fixture which is a light bar with 8 bulbs, bistro style.

We took down all of the rails, painted the narrow wall up to the recessed ceiling and then put up the same border paper that I had used on the top of the walls below the lower part of the ceiling. I covered the recessed ceiling with the same white tin I used on the lower ceiling, and then we put up the light fixture—what a difference.

And, a crisp new look. We put a dimmer switch on the light so we can change the brightness and it has been so useful.

I don't know what your size of recess is but it is very easy to accomplish. My husband helped me because it took two people to hold the new fixture up and to get the old one down, but we just used wire nuts to marry the fixture wires to the existing wires.

Our other choice was to put up track lighting with movable directional lights, which is also very easy.

Good luck