Weeknight Meals

Thick-cut bacon grills much better than thin strips, which have a tendency to get burnt and overly crisp.

Give vegetables a head start in a hot oven before turning the heat way down. Then lay the fish on top, and let everything finish cooking together.

Set up all of your mise en place before you start cooking. You’ll go from raw ingredients to a glossy stir-fry in the time it takes to make a pot of rice.

Mushrooms just need a quick sear in a hot pan before being tossed with pasta and cream in this easy weeknight dinner.

Cool yogurt, crunchy seeds, and herbs turn lentils into a lunch salad you’ll actually be excited to eat. Serve it with warm pita for swiping up the garlicky yogurt.

Nutritional yeast adds a hit of umami that plays well with earthy kale and buckwheat noodles. We suggest using curly kale, which roasts into light, crispy chips.

When you have more eggplant and squash than you know what to do with, turn to this quick curry.

This sandwich gets immense flavor from a modest list of ingredients like eggs, vegetables, and herbs. The fish sauce spiked-mayo packs a powerful punch.

Crosshatching and salting zucchini before cooking removes excess moisture, allowing them to sear instead of steam.

This is a quick and easy-to-throw-together, eat-the-rainbow revelation.

Cut into steaks, pork shoulder is a well-marbled, quick-cooking cut that's terrific for grilling—especially when seasoned with a barbacoa-style rub.

This recipe packs in all the punches puttanesca is known for—salty! briny! olive-y!—without the need to cook a sauce. Two types of tomatoes are involved: beefsteaks get blended until smooth, and then tossed with cherry tomato halves.

The key to this classic pesto recipe is to add the basil at the very end, instead of blending everything all at once—that way, the basil maintains its flavor and vibrant green color.

Cooked in a pan on the grill, this double-decker smash burger won’t smoke out your kitchen, blanket your stove with grease, or force you to spend even one more minute of the sweet summer nights indoors.

Lamb chops need enough time on the grill to let the fat render. You’ll get flare-ups as the fat melts onto the coals—that’s inevitable—but instead of letting the chops char, just move them to a new spot as needed and keep going.

If you’re going to turn on the oven in August, it better be for a good reason: This sauce, made from broiled tomatoes and peppers, is tangy, smoky, juicy, and definitely worth it.

Sweet corn is perfectly paired with briny clams in this dish that’s easy enough for a weeknight, but elegant enough for a special occasion. Serve it with plenty of good bread to dunk in the broth.

Our go-to I’m-feeling-fancy dinner is a perfectly medium-rare steak and a pile of vegetables. And the more cherry tomatoes, corn, and cucumbers you throw into the mix, the more it’ll feel like summer.

Switch up this endlessly riffable salad to suit your preferences, but try to always include a mix of cooked and raw vegetables for the best textures.

Double-down on the dairy by tossing torn pieces of mozzarella in a bowl with sour cream, lemon juice, and salt to make an extra-rich, luscious topper for this greens-and-grains salad.