When it comes to feeding our families at home, we—food editors who cook for work all day long—need easy weeknight dinner ideas more than you can possibly imagine. Meatballs we don’t have to sear on the stovetop, for example, tomatoey shelf-stable gnocchi roasted on a sheet pan, or five-ingredient soups dreamed up by some of our colleagues in New York.
Are these low-investment, high-reward dinner ideas magical? Maybe, but more importantly, they’re strategic. So, no, you won’t find mashed potatoes here, nor will we ask you to dust off your slow cooker. And while a stir-fry is the ultimate easy dinner, you won’t see that in this list of easy weeknight dinners, either, because we already devoted an entire gallery to stir-fry recipes. What you will find below are easy recipes that you can lean on when you need a quick dinner—just like we do.
