100 Easy Dinners for Right Now

Summer is hot dogs and ice pops, shaggy dinners at dusk, the melting mixture of energy and malaise that gives the season its shape. But that’s not fall. Fall is crisp. Fall is orderly. There’s no malaise and no melt. Those anything-goes August dinners give way to meal plans sketched out on Sunday and empty lunchboxes waiting to be filled.

I’m guessing the last thing you want to do is figure out those meal plans (and don’t even get me started on those lunchboxes). Maybe you even want to reboot your cooking altogether? Let me help you.

I write a newsletter for New York Times Cooking called Five Weeknight Dishes, and last September, I created a list of 100 dinner recipes for you to try. Now I’m back with a whole new list for you to make in the months ahead, in honor of the back-to-school energy that rolls off Labor Day weekend and propels you through the months ahead. (And, to keep that momentum going, and to answer the eternal question of “what should I make for dinner?,” we’re also starting a new newsletter, Dinner Tonight. Starting Sept. 16, it’ll send a fast, easy recipe to your inbox every Monday through Thursday around 4:30 p.m. Eastern. Sign up here.)

The list below is brimming with jammy eggs, chile crisp, citrus and feta. There are smooth sauces, crisp edges and caramelized crusts. There are many, many ways to chicken. But the thing all of these recipes have in common — aside from their fast cook times and streamlined approaches to ingredients — is that they are all delicious.

Suqaar Digaag (Spiced Chicken and Vegetable Sauté) Buy or make a batch of xawaash, the cumin-rich Somali spice blend, to use here and in the baasto iyo suugo tuuna (pasta and spiced tuna sauce) below.

Sheet-Pan Chicken and Potatoes With Feta, Lemon and Dill Breezy enough to throw together for a post-work dinner, yet nice enough to serve to guests.

Grilled Tahini-Honey Chicken Thighs Easy, great and versatile — you can use the grill, stove or oven. Add a sprinkling of za’atar if you really want to have a good time.

Roasted Chicken Thighs With Hot Honey and Lime One of the flavors of the moment — hot honey — mingles effortlessly with butter and lime.

Lemongrass Chicken Punchy, spicy, salty, bright and extremely straightforward to make.

Pasta, Noodles, Rice and Other Grains

Peanut Butter Noodles This latest contribution to the New York Times noodle canon is this nutty, salty, creamy dish that you could make with your eyes closed.

Spinach One-Pot Pasta A pound of greens stirred into the pot means you don’t need to bother with a vegetable on the side.

Angel Hair Pasta The pasta darling of the 1990s turns out to be a timeless choice.

Brown-Butter Orzo With Butternut Squash It’s giving chic but cozy autumn vibes.

Kale Sauce Pasta Blend kale with garlic and oil to coat this easy and dazzlingly green dish — an NYT Cooking classic.

Lemon-Garlic Linguine Kids can eat this silky, lemony pasta plain, and adults looking for something more can add seared shrimp, scallops, fish or mushrooms.

Lemony Pearl Barley Soup You can bulk up this cheerful pot of soup for dinner by adding more vegetables, white beans, shredded chicken or maybe even an egg.

Fish and Shrimp

Roasted Gochujang Salmon All you need to do is spread the fish with garlic, sugar and gochujang (or miso, or harissa), and then let the ingredients do their thing in the oven.

Tomato-Poached Fish With Chile Oil and Herbs The combination of juicy fish, toasted garlic, bright cherry tomatoes and handfuls of herbs makes this recipe just about perfect.

Shrimp Pullao Shrimp mingle with gently spiced rice in this recipe adapted from Madhur Jaffrey, the queen of Indian cooking in America.

Coconut-Lime Shrimp Poaching shrimp in coconut milk with lime is precisely as good as it sounds.

Spicy Tuna and Avocado Tostadas Serve this zippy salad of tuna, avocado and lime on tostadas or with tortilla chips, or pile it on greens or rice.

Tuna Mayo Rice Bowl Possibly the best instant dinner if you’ve got cooked rice in your fridge or freezer (keep cooked rice in your fridge or freezer!).

Beef and Pork

Pepper Steak The speedy classic stir-fry, made with soy sauce, honey and several grinds of black pepper.

Lomo Saltado (Tomato Beef Stir-Fry) Another excellent stir-fry, but with Peruvian influences (yellow chiles, French fries) skipping along in the pan.

Sweet and Salty Grilled Steak With Cucumber Salad Inspired by nuoc cham, the marinade here — fish sauce, brown sugar, garlic, lime and jalapeño — couldn’t be better.

Bistek Here’s a sublime rendition of the Filipino treasure, with simply cooked steak, onions and juicy citrus.

Easy Burritos Because I would never ask you to make difficult burritos on a Tuesday.

Mushrooms on Toast Just mushrooms, butter, garlic and toast. Some days, dinner doesn’t really need to be much more than this.

Sheet-Pan Paneer Tikka A winning after-work dinner: Coat firm, slightly salty paneer with spiced yogurt, then roast with onions and peppers. Swap out the paneer for tofu if you can’t eat cheese.