What to Make for Dinner Quick and Easy
PHOTO: ERIK BERNSTEIN; FOOD STYLING: MAKINZE GORE
Had a crazy busy day, and now somehow it's already dinnertime and you've got NO plan for what to eat? We've all been there. If you've got more important things to think about than what's for dinner, let us help take some of those decisions off your plate. From proteins to pasta to super simple sheet-pan, slow-cooker, and air-fryer recipes, there's something in here for everyone. Did we mention they all come together in less than an hour (and some in only 25 minutes)? Now that's a weeknight dinner miracle. Check out our best quick dinner recipes—they're big on convenience and flavor.
The best thing about these recipes is that they can be made for any occasion, any night of the week. Making a quick, casual meal before heading out for the evening? Try our copycat chicken lettuce wraps (30 min.), our cheesy ground beef tacos (25 min.), our sheet-pan Italian subs (55 min.), or our hot dog Cubans (20 min.) for easy, portable options you can take with you out the door. Looking for recipes that'll get the whole family to the dinner table? Try a quick pasta dish, like our penne alla vodka (35 min.) our cacio e pepe (25 min.), or our pasta pomodoro (50 min.). Need more protein? Check out our tofu stir-fry (50 min.), our creamy steak fettuccine (30 min.), or our one-pan creamy chicken & gnocchi (40 min.). Really craving take-out, but know you should cook at home? Make our curried chicken & garlic golden rice (45 min.), our General Tso's chicken (35 min.), our copycat Panda Express chow mein (20 min.), or our pad Thai (25 min.). You can make them faster than it'll take for delivery to even arrive. Want to celebrate a special occasion? Even though time is tight, you can still turn out a remarkable meal. Try our Caprese chicken saltimbocca (35 min.), our veal marsala (45 min.), or our tricolore skillet lasagna (35 min.). They all taste like labors of love, with much less work.
Need more easy dinners? Try our best cheap and easy recipes, our top 20-minute meals, and our favorite easy desserts too.
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French Bread Pizza
Craving homemade pizza, but don't want to deal with finicky pizza dough? We get it, that stuff can be tricky. Skip it altogether, and grab the nearest loaf of French bread instead. The loaf makes for a delicious pizza "crust" that will get crispy on the outside, while staying nice and soft on the inside. It's truly the best of both worlds.
Get the French Bread Pizza recipe.
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One-Pan Creamy Chicken & Gnocchi
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Caprese Chicken Saltimbocca
For this summery dish, you'll start by crisping up chicken cutlets that are wrapped in prosciutto (this technique comes from the Italian "saltimbocca" dish made with veal, wine, and sage rather than chicken, balsamic, and basil). Next, you'll finish them off in a tangy vinegar sauce, then top the whole thing with mozzarella and tomatoes for a fresh and fast crowdpleaser.
Get the Caprese Chicken Saltimbocca recipe.
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Copycat Chicken Lettuce Wraps
In our attempt to copy the fan favorite from PF. Chang's, we flavored ground chicken with hoisin sauce (a fermented bean paste that gives the chicken the quintessential Chinese-American flavor), soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sriracha, and sesame oil. Water chestnuts add a nice crunch here, too.
Get the Copycat Chicken Lettuce Wraps recipe.
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Honey Garlic Glazed Salmon
A longtime favorite of Delish readers, this savory-sweet salmon never disappoints. Hot tip: Let the fillets cook undisturbed for a few minutes. That and super high heat is how you get that delicious crust here.
Get the Honey Garlic Glazed Salmon recipe.
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Tricolore Skillet Lasagna
We love a classic lasagna, but it can be a lot of work. This easy skillet version has everything we love about the original—including the frilly-edged long noodles—but without the confusing layering steps!
Get the Tricolore Skillet Lasagna recipe.
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Baked Feta Pasta
Obviously roasting a block of feta with bursting tomatoes is going to be amazing. But is it good enough to break TikTok like this one did? Our answer, begrudgingly, is yes. It's genius—super easy, but fancy enough for date night. 😍
Get the Baked Feta Pasta recipe.
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Shrimp & Snow Pea Stir Fry
This dinner is the perfect fix for a busy weeknight. Only 5 ingredients and 1 skillet and you're on your way! Allowing the shrimp some time to marinate adds an extra layer of flavor to really make those 5 ingredients stretch. But DON'T let that stop the imagination from flowing—just like you can swap the ingredients, you can add more as well.
Get the Shrimp & Snow Pea Stir Fry recipe.
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Seitan Lomo Saltado
Lomo Saltado is a very popular Peruvian dish that takes aji amarillo (Peruvian chiles) and papas fritas Ffrench fries) and prepares them in the style of a Cantonese stir fry. Though typically made using beef, we subbed in seitan to create a deliciously filling vegan meal.
Get the Seitan Lomo Saltado recipe.
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Creamy Tuscan Chicken
When it comes to chicken breast recipes, it's hard to beat this one. The sauce is simple, but so flavorful, thanks to garlic, tomatoes, and most importantly, cream. It's a great fall dinner whether you're craving comfort food or need something to serve to guests. Just be sure to have some crusty bread on hand to sop up the killer sauce!
Get the Creamy Tuscan Chicken recipe.
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Pad Thai
Any beginner cook can accomplish this recipe, but it's important to note that we did skip some traditional ingredients (such as dried shrimp, tamarind, pressed tofu, and bean sprouts) in lieu of ingredients that you can pick up at your local grocery store (and to make it faster and easier!). Absolutely necessary for our recipe, though: fish sauce. It's easy to find at nearly every grocery store, and it adds an unbeatable punch of umami goodness.
Get the Pad Thai recipe.
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Tofu Stir-Fry
For best results use extra-firm tofu that has been frozen so it can absorb flavors more readily, and simmer the tofu in salted water briefly to make it hardier and less likely to crumble when jostled in the pan. It is an extra step, but trust us, it's worth it.
Get the Tofu Stir-Fry recipe.
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One-Pan Cajun Orzo with Sausage
A dish this easy and good doesn't come along everyday. It's creamy and spicy with all of the comfort and ease you crave for a weeknight dinner. It comes together in just about 30 minutes and the cleanup is even faster, which means you can make this even on those night you feel you have no time to make a satisfying dinner.
Get the One-Pan Cajun Orzo with Sausage recipe.
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Sheet Pan Chicken Fajitas
Making a whole recipe on one sheet pan is perfect for meal prepping. For these fajitas you simply toss all of the ingredients—chicken and vegetables—in an easy marinade of avocado oil and taco spices like cumin and chili powder and then bake it all together on a sheet pan for just 25 minutes. Turn them into tacos, serve them over rice, whatever you like!
Get the Sheet Pan Chicken Fajitas recipe.
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Sheet-Pan Green Chile Chicken Nachos
What's better than a tray of nachos? Four cheese chicken nachos! Don't worry, though, a couple cans of chopped green chiles cut the richness of all that cheese. (Not that we're complaining.) We'll leave the toppings up to you, but we suggest The Works, aka red onion, radishes, avocado, jalapeño, cilantro, and hot sauce.
Get the Sheet-Pan Green Chile Chicken Nachos recipe.
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Creamy Steak Fettuccine
When we crave steak, this dish is always at the top of our list. It comes together quickly and is so full of flavor, plus the steak makes it feel extra special. It might just make you forget chicken Alfredo ever existed.
Get the Creamy Steak Fettuccine recipe.
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Sheet Pan Pineapple Shrimp Tacos
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Shrimp Scampi
If you love shrimp scampi (and who doesn't?), look no further than this super-easy recipe. While you cook the pasta, sauté the shrimp with butter and garlic (at least 3 minced cloves), then add wine, lemon juice, and red pepper flakes. Assuming you buy peeled and deveined shrimp (which you should!) the whole thing comes together in just 20 minutes. 🙌
Get the Shrimp Scampi Pasta recipe.
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Chicken Salad Sandwich
There's definitely more than one way to make a chicken salad sandwich, but this is our favorite— green apple, red onion, and celery add crunch, while mustard, mayo, and red wine vinegar add creaminess with the perfect amount of tang.
Get the Chicken Salad Sandwich recipe.
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Cacio E Pepe
Cacio e pepe literally translates to "cheese and pepper." These two ingredients are usually thought of as small components to a dish but in this pasta recipe, they take center stage. The fruity bite of freshly ground pepper is complex, earthy, sweet and spicy all at once, and this pasta is the perfect way to show off that flavor.
Get the Cacio e Pepe recipe.
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Falafel Chickpea Vegetarian Stuffed Peppers
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One-Pot Chicken Alfredo
Oh, chicken alfredo: It's the classic pseudo-Italian pasta we just can't seem to get enough of. Of course there are tons of jarred pasta sauces you can buy, but making Alfredo sauce from scratch is actually SO easy (and surprisingly fast!).
Get the One-Pot Chicken Alfredo recipe.
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Penne Alla Vodka
This is the best creamy and bright vodka sauce any of us in the test kitchen have ever had. The secret? Tomato paste. Tomato paste has a more concentrated flavor, and texture-wise, it makes for a smoother, almost velvety sauce. BTW, you can swap penne for other similarly shaped pastas, like the rigatoni shown here.
Get the Penne Alla Vodka recipe.
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Buddha Bowls
The beauty about grain bowls is that they're infinitely adaptable. And this is certainly true for Buddha bowls! You can roast just about any veggie, use any number of toppings and it'll taste amazing in this recipe. The only thing we might insist you must keep on the bowl is the peanut dressing—it's truly incredible.
Get the Buddha Bowls recipe.
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Veggie Paella (Paella Verdura)
This veggie-packed paella comes together in under an hour, and, even better, most of the cooking happens in the oven. Briefly returning the skillet to the stovetop after baking is the key to achieving a crispy rice crust on the bottom, often referred to as socarrat (meaning "burnt" in Catalan).
Get the Veggie Paella (Paella Verdura) recipe.
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Chili Mac & Cheese
Mac & cheese remains one of our favorite meals no matter how old we get. This chili mac changes things up a bit and makes this a heftier meal that's very shareable. Make it in all year round, in just 30 minutes.
Get the Chili Mac & Cheese recipe.
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Chicken Stew
If you're looking for a hearty, healthy dinner, you've come to the right place! Not only is this one-pot meal easy to prepare, it also tastes like it's been simmering on the stove for hours... even though it only takes 45 minutes from start to finish. Cooking the chicken in the stew means that it releases all its juices into the broth as it cooks, giving the stew a ton of extra flavor.
Get the Chicken Stew recipe.
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Air Fryer Korean-Inspired Pork Tenderloin Lettuce Wraps
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Air Fryer Pork Chops
Most of the time, we don't get very excited over pork chops. Often overdone, they come out dry, sad, and flavorless. Cooking them in an air fryer changes all that. Due to the intense heat circulation that happens, the outside crisps slightly while the inside stays nice and juicy (in only 20 minutes!).
Get the Air Fryer Pork Chops recipe.
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Bacon & Spinach Stuffed Chicken
Source: https://www.delish.com/cooking/menus/g1478/quick-dinner-ideas/
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