Weeknight Dinner Recipes So Good You'll Add them to the Rotation

Relish the dinner routine with these five easy-to-make weeknight recipes.

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 Easy Tomato Soup pictured behind the caption.
Simply Recipes

What routines or rituals do you have for staying healthy and content? Mine are walks, yoga, journaling, and getting a good night’s sleep. 

Not everyone has time to go on walks, or the quiet space to do yoga, or the inclination to journal. And a good night’s sleep can be maddeningly elusive. But if you’re reading this, there’s one ritual we all share: making dinner. 

Even if you are wiped out from whatever the day requires of you, dinner presents a time to focus on the basics and follow your senses: how things look, smell, sound, taste. We hope these recipes create as much satisfaction for you in making them as in sharing and eating them.

  • Spring Succotash

    Spring Succotash
    Elise Bauer

    This easy to make colorful succotash is peppered with bits of ham in a bounty of corn, carrots, spring peas and fava beans. The best part? It’s ready in 20 minutes.

  • Easy Tomato Soup

    Easy Tomato Soup with bread.
    Alison Bickle

    Tomato soup never fails to comfort—especially with grilled cheese on the side. For twists to make this soup creamy and add a fiber boost puree it with white beans. Double the recipe for leftovers to serve with tomorrow’s salad, if you like.

  • Poached Egg and Bacon Salad - Salad Lyonnaise

    Poached Egg Bacon Salad Lyonnaise
    Elise Bauer

    Make your home a French bistro with this classic salad. Bacon, homemade croutons…what’s not to love? If you don’t prefer frisée lettuce, use spinach or mesclun mix. 

  • Tuna and Tomato Pasta Casserole

    Pasta with Tuna and Tomato Sauce
    Elise Bauer

    For a tuna-pasta combo that’s a change of pace from tuna noodle, boil up shell pasta, toss it with a buttery tomato-based sauce, and bake it just long enough to melt the Parmesan cheese.

    Continue to 5 of 6 below.

  • Vietnamese-Style Sticky Chicken Skewers

    Vietnamese style chicken skewers
    Sally Vargas

    There’s something about skewers that make dinner more fun. These are salty-sweet and get a little charred in spots from the broiler (you can grill them instead). Serve with steamed rice and Asian coleslaw.

  • Weekend Baking: Laura Bush's Cowboy Cookies

    Cowboy Cookies
    Elise Bauer

    Back in 2000 (a gentler time, perhaps) Family Circle magazine did a reader vote for cookie recipes (Laura Bush vs. Tipper Gore). The broad appeal of these chunky oat-coconut-pecan-and-chocolate cookies sparked a cookie phenomenon that’s still going strong.