10 Easy Dinner Recipes That Will Become Family Favorites

10 Easy Dinner Recipes That Will Become Family Favorites
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

A recipe that the entire family loves is priceless — mainly because you won’t hear “I’m hungry” five minutes after clearing the table. From Grilled Chicken Fajitas to Turkey Burgers, these easy recipes will become some of you’re most requested. The best part? They’ve all been tested, perfected and reader-approved, so you know they’ll come out just right the very first time.

It’s easy to replicate your favorite restaurant-style fajitas at home, and you can do all of the prep ahead of time so all that’s left to do at dinnertime is grill the chicken. Plus, they’re fun — perfect for getting the whole family sharing everything at the table or a casual dinner party. GET THE RECIPE

This dish is made almost entirely from pantry and freezer staples, so it’s perfect for when you need to hit the kitchen running. You begin by making a quick Greek-spiced tomato sauce on the stovetop. Then you nestle the shrimp in the sauce, top it with chunks of feta, and slide it into the oven to bake. Before serving, you flash the pan under the broiler to brown the cheese and sprinkle the whole lovely dish with fresh mint. The sauce is plentiful and packed with flavor so be sure to serve lots of crusty bread or pasta on the side to sop it up. GET THE RECIPE

My whole family loves these chicken enchiladas. You can make the sauce and filling ahead of time, and then assemble and bake the enchiladas later for a quick and easy weeknight meal. GET THE RECIPE

Sun-dried tomato pesto gives these quick grilled cheese sandwiches a gourmet twist. My son calls them “pizza paninis” since they taste like hot, crispy pizza sandwiches. GET THE RECIPE

Here’s a quick and easy riff on spinach and ricotta cannelloni. Instead of stuffing pasta shells with the classic spinach and ricotta filling, you toss penne pasta in a creamy spinach, basil and ricotta sauce, top it with cheese, and then bake it until golden brown. You can get the pasta in the oven in just 20 minutes — toss a salad while it bakes and dinner is done! GET THE RECIPE

Marinated in seasoned buttermilk and pan-fried to crunchy perfection, these homemade tenders are delicious on their own, perched on top of a salad, or dipped in your favorite sauce. GET THE RECIPE

This lasagna comes from Julia Turshen’s lovely cookbook, Small Victories: Recipes, Advice + Hundreds of Ideas for Home Cooking Triumphs (Chronicle Books, 2016). Not only is it the simplest lasagna you’ll ever make, it’s also the lightest and most elegant. GET THE RECIPE

If you’re wondering how to get your children to eat — or even love — fish, try feeding them this. Tilapia fillets are lightly coated with panko, pan fried to crispy perfection, and served with a tangy garlic and lemon mayonnaise. GET THE RECIPE

Sometimes it seems impossible to make a meal the whole family loves: what one child happily eats, the other one is “not in the mood for” (really?!). But every once in a while, I come upon a winner, like this delicious orecchiette pasta dish adapted from Lidia’s Italian Table by Lidia Bastianich. Not only is it quick and easy to make — 25 minutes tops — the whole family eats it up, broccoli and all. GET THE RECIPE

Most turkey burgers are dry and tasteless and leave you yearning for the real deal. Not these! I’ve added Italian turkey sausage — a trick often used with meatballs — which amps up the flavor and makes them incredibly juicy. The best part is that you can throw them together in a matter of minutes; only five ingredients and no chopping, slicing or dicing required. GET THE RECIPE

For a super-quick and easy family dessert, whip up a batch of these gooey Rice Krispies Treats. A few tweaks to the original back-of-the-box recipe — extra butter (and it’s browned), extra marshmallows, vanilla and salt — take them to the next level. Yum! GET THE RECIPE

Popular in the Community

Close

HuffPost Shopping’s Best Finds

MORE IN LIFE