7 Easy Yet Delicious Weeknight Dinner Recipes

What to feed the people you love/live with for dinner—no offense to Hamlet, but that is the question…always!

Thus, here are seven of my favorite weeknight dinner recipes. They’re easy, delicious, and perfect for this cozy/soulful/comfort-food-worthy season of fall we’re in. My family loves them…and I hope you and yours do too!

Recipe No. 1: Spaghetti Carbonara

The other day, I felt as if we had no food in the house. Agh!

But I scrounged around in the fridge, and found bacon, eggs and Parmesan cheese. Predictably, there were boxes of pasta in the pantry too. A lightbulb went off in my head: Spaghetti carbonara, the sure-to-please Italian staple that’s basically breakfast for dinner (with pasta, of course!).

I used this recipe for spaghetti carbonara, compliments of the Spend With Pennies website. Everyone loved it:

Recipe No. 2: Homemade Hamburger Helper

I first got the idea for “Homemade Hamburger Helper” from the “Skinnytaste: One and Done” cookbook (2018). Here’s the exact recipe from page 152 of that cookbook.

Meanwhile, here’s another, similar option for Homemade Hamburger Helper from the Salt & Lavender website.

Whichever recipe version you use, made-from-scratch Hamburger Helper is just a smidge more effort than the boxed adaptation—while being much more flavorful, and healthier too:

Recipe No. 3: Tortellini Soup With Italian Sausage and Kale

About a year ago, I discovered this truly amazing recipe for Tortellini Soup With Italian Sausage and Kale, compliments of The Modern Proper website.

I kid you not, friends: I have made this soup recipe at least 20 times in the past 12 months alone. It is fantastic, and I am always recommending it to people: family members, friends, co-workers, all my library patrons who are checking out other cookbooks.

Stanton and the girls adore this soup…although not as much as I do! Just trust me, and make this soup. You won’t believe how easy it is, or how delicious:

Recipe No. 4: Baked Penne Chicken Puttanesca

This recipe also is from The Modern Proper (I promise they don’t pay me to do their PR!). The recipe isn’t available online, but you can find it on page 122 of their 2022 cookbook.

You can buy the book; check it out from your local library; or, if you know me in real life, ask me for a picture of this recipe for baked penne chicken puttanesca:

Recipe No. 5: Spaghetti With Turkey Marsala Meatballs

One day while flipping through Food Network Magazine, I found this recipe for spaghetti with turkey Marsala meatballs. While I personally prefer red-meat meatballs to white-, this recipe is a fun, different-flavor twist on plain ol’ spaghetti and meatballs:

Recipe No. 6: Classic Chili

Chili is such a wonderfully quintessential fall food. Not to mention foolproof. Take my favorite chili recipe, for example.

When I decided to make this on Sunday, in between watching NFL games with Stanton and the girls, I realized I didn’t have beef broth or petite diced tomatoes. Absolutely no worries: I substituted beer and regular diced tomatoes, respectively, and the recipe still tasted good.

You just can’t mess up chili, no matter what you put it in:

Recipe No. 7: Sweet and Sticky Pork and Asparagus

This last recipe, for sweet and sticky pork and asparagus (also from The Modern Proper), offers some accessible gourmet to any weeknight. Serve alongside rice:

OK, friends…let me know what you try, and what you think! Enjoy!

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Like what you just read? Then check out Melissa Leddy’s e-books on Amazon.com. Short fiction and creative nonfiction writing that’s engaging, witty and from the heart.

6 Easy Dinner Recipes (and 1 Dessert!)

The other day, I was grocery shopping with my two daughters. I began steering our cart toward the prepared-foods section. The girls saw where I was headed…and began groaning.

“No, Mom, no!”

I sighed. “Girls, come on…”

“This way, Mom. This way.” Anna tried to wheel the cart away from…the rotisserie chickens.

Yes, friends, that’s right: Nobody in my family gets excited about having rotisserie chicken for dinner.

I mean, I get it. Rotisserie chicken is, basically, functional—fuel, not fun. It’s so easy, though, which is why “rotisserie chicken” often appears on my grocery list.

I’ve been trying to branch out a bit, though. Thinking beyond rotisserie chicken and making some new (easy!) recipes.

Maybe you’re in need of some new inspiration too. If so, here are my six favorite new dinner recipes, along with one dessert at the end. Hope you enjoy, friends!

Recipe No. 1: Garlic Butter Roasted Cod (from “Everyday Grand,” Jocelyn Delk Adams)

I hardly ever make seafood, but this recipe is so good and amazingly easy. The recipe appears on page 157 of “Everyday Grand: Soulful Recipes for Celebrating Life’s Big and Small Moments,” the just-published cookbook from Jocelyn Delk Adams of Grandbaby Cakes. Check out the cookbook from your local library (this is what I did!), buy it, or scroll through Jocelyn’s website for her free Southern-inspired, full-of-heart recipes:

Recipe No. 2: Lentil-Chicken Salad (from Market 32)

I found this recipe in my grocery store’s Summer 2023 promotional magazine…and it’s actually really good! Funnily…it calls for rotisserie chicken…and you all know what my daughters think about that. 😉 Thus, I made it sans rotisserie chicken (although I did serve it with chicken cutlets on the side):

Recipe No. 3: Easy Pasta Salad (from Love and Lemons)

This is such a good and perfect-for-summer recipe, friends. I’ve made it countless times at this point (and I’m bringing it to a get-together this coming weekend…it never disappoints!). Easy Pasta Salad is excellent on its own as a vegetarian main dish, or as a hearty side for a pizza-takeout night or outdoor BBQ:

Recipe No. 4: Creamy Chicken Toscana (from “The Comfortable Kitchen,” Alex Snodgrass)

This recipe is decadent yet very manageable to prepare. It appears on page 162 of “The Comfortable Kitchen: 105 Laid-Back, Healthy, and Wholesome Recipes” by Alex Snodgrass of The Defined Dish (where you can access her free recipes). Originally, I checked this cookbook out of my library (where I also work!), and then I did something I rarely do (because I work among hundreds and hundreds of books): I actually bought the book.

Note: “The Comfortable Kitchen” embraces Whole30/paleo-ish/gluten-free cooking, but no need to restock your pantry with cassava flour and ghee, for example—regular flour and good ol’ butter will work fine in Alex’s recipes too:

Recipe No. 5: Vodka Sauce Baked Gnocchi With Baby Broccoli (from “The Modern Proper,” Holly Erickson & Natalie Mortimer)

A year or so ago, I discovered my favorite soup recipe of all time, Tortellini Soup With Italian Sausage and Kale, from The Modern Proper website. This soup is flavorfully perfect, in my opinion, and I make it almost every week during the fall and winter months. So when The Modern Proper’s first physical cookbook crossed my desk at work one day, I checked it out…and ended up buying it because all the recipes I’ve made from it thus far are so good. Turn to page 159 for this Vodka Sauce Baked Gnocchi With Baby Broccoli, a sneakily easy any-time-of-the-week recipe, or try the modified free version via the website:

Recipe No. 6: Meatballs in Buttery Marinara With Pesto Garlic Bread (from “The Modern Proper,” Holly Erickson & Natalie Mortimer)

I’m Italian-American, friends, which means a few things: 1) When I get together with my family of origin, we’re super loud; 2) my dad and I can have a whole conversation that consists entirely of “Goodfellas” and “My Cousin Vinny” quotes, and 3) I know a good meatball when I taste one. These meatballs from “The Modern Proper” (page 231) are excellent.

The recipe calls for them to be served alongside pesto garlic bread, but I skip that step and stick with spaghetti. If you’d rather not get the cookbook, search the Modern Proper website for other “meatball” options—you’ll get 100+ free recipes:

Recipe No. 7: Sutton’s No-Bake Monster Cookie Bites (from “The Comfortable Kitchen,” Alex Snodgrass)

This recipe, on page 219 of “The Comfortable Kitchen,” appears in the “Something Sweet” section at the back of the book…but I just had these monster cookie bites for breakfast this morning! They taste great alongside my morning coffee. I tell my daughters I make this recipe for them…

But the truth is, I totally love it too. Various free versions of “monster cookie bites” are available online, too, like this one from Ambitious Kitchen. They’re a fun breakfast, snack or dessert, plus they’re fun to make with your kiddos:

There you have it, friends: six easy dinner recipes and one dessert. Enjoy!

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Like what you just read? Then check out Melissa Leddy’s e-books on Amazon.com. Short fiction and creative nonfiction writing that’s engaging, witty and from the heart.