Main Dish Recipes & Ideas

Juicy summer bruschetta meets easy, one-pan chicken dinner.

If there’s a food that’s not improved by grilling, I’ve yet to find it. The open flame and sizzling grill grates add flavor, complexity, and gorgeous grill marks to meat, veggies, fruit, and extra-firm tofu (what we’re talking about today!). With just a few smart steps — including dredging the planks in a simple spice rub and finishing them with a punchy herb sauce — tofu can be one of the most flavorful foods to come off the grill.

Carbonara plus corn equals perfection.

It's a weeknight staple.

Get your toast ready.

No special ingredients needed.

It's all about the marinade.

Picture this: You’ve got guests coming over for a cookout in less than an hour. What can you grill that will be both impressive and quick? The answer is almost always grilled pork tenderloin. Pork, especially the pork tenderloin, takes incredibly well to the smoky char of the grill. With just a smart dry rub of sugar, salt, and spices, pork tenderloin grills up with a thin, tender-crisp crust, while being incredibly juicy and, well, tender in the interior.

If you’re craving a juicy, tender, cheese-topped burger — one that you can really sink your teeth into — then you need to try the stovetop method. No dry hockey pucks here! Just the kind of burger you’d normally pay big bucks for at a restaurant. Today we’re talking burgers. From the best kind of ground beef to use to tips for shaping the patties, with a step-by-step recipe for simply the best burgers you’ve ever had — at home or elsewhere. Ready?

Make it fancy with an easy herb butter.

Perfect for nights when you just can't.

At home, the guac isn’t extra.

My family asks for it every week.

This basic chicken breast technique gets meal prep done faster!

A step-by-step guide to the best sandwich of summer.

Fresh salmon that’s been rubbed with herbs and grilled slowly over wine-soaked cedar planks: Let me tell you, this right here is some of the best salmon you’ll ever put in your mouth. This is such a simple and elegant technique for cooking salmon. The fish steams gently in the heat of the grill, staying incredibly tender and moist. It also picks up smoky flavors from the grill and woodsy flavors from the cedar, along with whatever was used to soak the planks. So good.

Whether you’re a first-time fryer or a seasoned chef, this step-by-step guide for making the very best fried chicken at home will create the most honest-to-goodness, crispy, juicy, finger-licking delicious chicken — a fried chicken with a glistening coating so full of crunchy ripples, herbs, and spices that it is hard to stop eating it once you start.

In need of a new winning chicken dinner? This is it! You just need five ingredients to bring this buttery, lemon-kissed chicken to the table. Serve it alongside crispy skillet-fried potatoes and roasted broccoli for an easy weeknight dinner. It’s sure to become a new family favorite that everyone will love! Here’s how to make it. Chicken: Use boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

Petition to put coconut shrimp in the shellfish hall of fame.

It’s ready in just 30 minutes!

You only need 15 minutes.

Psst: It’s all about that marinade.

Plus, it’s kid-approved!

And they have so much flavor.

For all the times I have ordered chicken lettuce wraps at restaurants like P.F. Chang’s, inhaled entire “appetizers” by myself, and sighed with happiness while licking sticky sauce from my fingers, it never once occurred to me to try making this dish at home. Partly, lettuce wraps have always felt like an indulgence that needed restriction to restaurant visits only.

No messy breading and frying required.

It doesn’t get any better than this.

A Juicy Lucy is a simple but ingenious twist on a cheeseburger (with a super-cute name). Instead of cheese melting on top of a hamburger patty, it’s stuffed inside of it, creating an oozy, cheesy center.The first time I heard of this concept, I was instantly intrigued (which isn’t surprising, given how much I loved Oscar Mayer cheese-stuffed hot dogs growing up).

Every bite is perfection.

It’s so crispy!

I can’t wait to cook this again!

Two ingredients and less than half an hour is all you need.

Friday nights will never be the same.

Get ready to feast.

And you only need six ingredients.

It's bursting with corn flavor.

Where once I’d pounce on a chef-made bowl of al dente pasta and crisp-tender spring vegetables, now it’s a dish I prefer to make at home. Using what’s fresh and new at the market, I slice and dice carrots, bell peppers, peas, spring onions, and baby Broccolini before tossing them into a pot to quickly cook with penne pasta. Finished with bright and citrusy lemon butter and a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese, this warm-weather supper is perfection. And the best part?

It’s phenomenally good.

It’s all about the crispy potatoes.

I’ll be making it again and again.

You’ll definitely be fighting for seconds.

It’s time to ditch the big pot.

Every bite is pure nostalgia.

No sandwich press needed.

Here’s my dinnertime strategy: Bring on the vegetable recipes. I try to make vegetables the star of the show most of the time when I am thinking about what to make for dinner (in addition to keeping mealtime easy, of course!). By making my plate more about the vegetables, I find I automatically eat a more wholesome diet without radically changing much. Some nights that means eating a big dinner salad, while other nights I’ll make a hearty veggie sandwich or one-bowl meal.

This is our favorite method.

Ah summertime: it’s when temperatures soar and we all head outdoors to soak up every bit of the season. Who wants to spend time indoors cooking this time of year? Since we can’t subsist on refreshing watermelon and icy popsicles alone, I’ve armed myself with a roster of quick and easy dinners I know I can pull off — even on the hottest of nights.

Chop chop! Lunch is already made.

Just 5 ingredients!

The spice blend is everything.

It’s so fresh!

They are zesty, tangy, a little bit spicy, and absolutely irresistible.

Sticky-sweet BBQ chicken is the quintessential summer dinner that shouldn’t be limited to the lucky folks with backyard grills. I love BBQ chicken from the grill as much as anyone, but if we’re being really honest here, it is kind of time-consuming to do well. You’ve got to cook the chicken pretty perfectly without the sauce, and once the sauce is added you have to spend a lot of time flipping and basting to get that burnished-but-not-burned coating we all crave.

Given the opportunity, my 6-year-old would eat hot dogs every single day. And I can’t blame him. These snappy, savory sausages packed into squishy buns are satisfying and delicious. There are so many ways to cook hot dogs, too. While he and his neighborhood crew would settle for a boiled dog, I miss the sizzle of a skillet-seared, air-fried, or grilled hot dog. Now, when I’m feeding a crowd of hungry kids (and kids at heart!), I skip the simmer and click on the oven instead.

I have to admit an unpopular opinion: I am just not into mayonnaise-based summer salads. When it is hot out, I want to eat light and refreshing salads, not thick and creamy ones. So when I say this is the best pasta salad ever, it’s with that opinion in mind. But a mayo-free pasta salad can still come with a degree of creaminess. In this case it’s by way of an olive oil-rich vinaigrette and a sprinkling of flavorful soft cheese.