5 Recipes for Crave-Worthy Dinners

Five dinners delicious enough to look forward to all week long.

By
Sara Bir
Sara Bir
Sara Bir
Sara is a chef, culinary educator, and author of three cookbooks, The Pocket Pawpaw Cookbook, Tasting Ohio and The Fruit Forager's Companion. The latter won a 2019 IACP Cookbook Award.
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Published March 30, 2021
Sara Bir
"What's For Dinner" with Cauliflower Steak Sandwiches pictured behind the caption.
Simply Recipes

Do you ever anticipate dinner all day long because you’re making is a favorite recipe or something you’re excited to try? I love it when that happens! As a young person I understood this in a vague sense, that when I showed up when mom called us to the table, sometimes dinner featured an ingredient I enjoyed a lot, like shrimp.

But I didn’t do the shopping and the planning, and I usually didn’t do the cooking. Now I get it. I put a lot of time into the Tetris game of meal planning for my family, yet I ask, “What would you like for dinner next week?” to indifferent replies.  

So, let’s turn that indifference into some excitement. Put cauliflower steaks on sandwiches for a surprisingly hefty meal. Sauté a skillet of buttery, garlicky shrimp. Have fun with grown up pigs in a blanket. Yes! Now we’re talking. Even if you, the meal planner, are the only one listening.

  • Cauliflower Steak Sandwiches with Red Pepper Aioli

    Easy Cauliflower Steak Sandwich arugula
    Sally Vargas

    Meaty vegetarian sandwiches can be so much more than sad hockey pucks of frozen veggie patties. To wit: bake slabs of cauliflower at high heat until they brown, serve them on sandwiches slathered with a gussied-up red pepper mayo, and tuck into the kind of veggie entree you look forward to ordering at your favorite eatery.

  • Chicken Florentine Pesto Pasta

    Chicken Florentine Pesto Pasta
    Elise Bauer

    Marry creamy, spinachy Florentine pasta with flavor-packed pesto and you have a pasta everyone wants seconds of!

  • Pressure Cooker Lamb Stew with Spring Vegetables

    Easy Lamb Stew with spring vegetables.
    Sally Vargas

    Looking for a hearty spring stew? Look no further, thanks to a pressure cooker this recipe comes together in about an hour with only 10 minutes of hands-on time. It’s a truly satisfying one-pot simmered meal.

  • Shrimp with Zucchini Noodles and Lemon-Garlic Butter

    Zucchini noodles with shrimp
    Sabrina Modelle

    Lighten up your evening meal with this easy, one-pan dinner of sautéed shrimp and long ribbons of zucchini. If you don’t want to cut your own noodles, buy pre-cut twirly zucchini noodles from the store.

    Continue to 5 of 6 below.

  • Sausage Rolls

    Sausage Rolls Recipe
    Sheryl Julian

    Think of these as deluxe pigs in a blanket. This is slumber party/game day/potluck food, but perhaps you’ve been somewhat deprived of that fare. No reason not to make it for dinner! Use store-bought pizza dough and it’s just a matter of assembling and baking.

  • Weekend Baking: Classic Lemon Bars

    Lemon Bars Recipe - lemon bars on blue plate
    Alison Bickel

    So yellow and tart and creamy and pretty, with a rich shortbread crust. Who doesn’t love lemon bars? Make these and see how long they last.