Easy Dishes to Learn: Recipes for Beginner Cooks

Are you new to cooking and feeling overwhelmed? Don't worry, these easy dishes are perfect for beginners! These recipes are weeknight-friendly, flavor-packed, and doable, designed to get dinner on the table fast without feeling boring.

Why Start with Easy Recipes?

Many people find themselves in a position where they need to cook but lack experience. This can be due to various reasons, such as growing up with convenience foods or relying on restaurants. The key to overcoming this hurdle is to resist perfectionism and redefine what a home-cooked meal is.

Essential Tips for Beginner Cooks

Before diving into specific recipes, here are some essential tips to keep in mind:

Read the Recipe: Always read the entire recipe before you start cooking. This helps you understand the process, identify any unfamiliar terms, and ensure you have all the necessary ingredients and equipment.
Prepare Your Ingredients: Chop vegetables, measure spices, and have everything ready to go before you start cooking. This will streamline the process and prevent you from feeling rushed.
Don't Be Afraid to Deviate: If you're missing an ingredient or piece of equipment, don't let it stop you. Get creative and find a substitute.
Taste as You Go: Season your food throughout the cooking process, tasting as you go to ensure the flavors are balanced.
Start Simple: Begin with basic recipes that require minimal ingredients and steps. As you gain confidence, you can gradually move on to more complex dishes.

Essential Tools and Pantry Items

Having the right tools and a well-stocked pantry can make cooking much easier. Some essential tools include:

Sharp chef's knife
Cutting board
Large skillet (nonstick and cast iron)
Large pot
Sheet pans
Air Fryer
Dutch Oven

Essential pantry items include:

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Cooking oil
Salt
Pepper
Dry seasonings
Sugar
Corn starch
Baking soda
Soy sauce
Lemon
Garlic

Easy Dinner Recipes

Here are some easy dinner recipes perfect for beginner cooks:

Quick Noodles

A spicy, peanutty, noodley bit of super easy comfort food! Or Sweet and creamy savory broth ladled into bowls with noodles, crispy crumbled tofu, and fresh veg!

Easy Tacos

Just 20 minutes to get these chicken tacos on the table! Or Egg rolls meet tacos! I love this! THE BEST shrimp tacos loaded with avocado, spicy shrimp, and a homemade creamy lime slaw? Or Tangy, creamy, crunchy, smoky, seasoned vegetarian goodness on a perfectly crisp little corn tortilla disk.

Cozy Curries

Amazingly creamy, saucy chickpea curry served over rice with a dollop of chili crisp and a side of cucumber salad. Or Caramelized red curry chicken sits next to a bed of hot, fluffy rice and steamed broccoli and then totally sauced up with the BEST spicy cashew sauce. Or Coconut Curry Salmon! Maximum flavor, minimal dishes.

Sheet-Pan Dinners

Sausage, peppers, onions, shrimp, and cauliflower rice all roasted up on a sheet pan.

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Simple Bowls

Crispy bits of chicken tenders, crispy cucumbers, and briny pickled onions, all on a bed of fluffy quinoa with a swoop of cool mint sauce on top. You absolutely cannot go wrong with these bowls. Or A burger in a bowl! Saucy shredded chicken, yellow rice, pickled onions, greens, and cilantro pesto on top. Part bowl, part salad, part sandwich folded up into any kind of bread you like, and I’m here for it in every form. Or Sesame Beef and Broccoli! Full of protein, green broccoli goodness, and sticky-sweet garlic and ginger flavor. We are living our best bowl life this week. Seasoned sweet potato wedges and chicken meatballs or rotisserie chicken all piled onto a plate with a little puddle of punchy green avocado mojo sauce. Or These Spicy Peanut Tofu Bowls are a meal prep / weeknight dinner life-saver!

Burgers

These Gochujang Chicken Burgers are next-level good. And a perfectly sweet-spicy kimchi bacon jam piled high on top? Or These Chicken Teriyaki Burgers are amazingly simple while also being ridiculously delicious. Caramelized burgers that are fried up in minutes, a pile of sesame slaw on top, and a perfectly toasted bun.

Salmon

Bang Bang Salmon! Creamy, sweet, savory, and punchy. Served with some steamy rice and an avocado cucumber salsa. Wow wow wow! Or We’re making a summery salmon with a beautiful, big-flavored basil sauce that is so good, you’re going to want to just drink it.

Meatballs

These Ricotta Meatballs are an easy and delicious family favorite! Tender, juicy homemade meatballs with a jar of good marinara and a crispy topping to finish it all off. Or these butter chicken meatballs are covered in a rich and mildly spiced tomato gravy that is made luxurious with just a little bit of butter and cream.

Other Recipes

5 Ingredient Spicy Pork! A fancy-feeling dinner recipe that actually comes together in snap. Or Golden, juicy, thinly sliced pan-fried chicken swims in a creamy coconut-kale gravy-like situation with slips of shallot and a bit of heat. Or Pillowy sun-dried tomato focaccia gets piled with pesto mayo, turkey, juicy tomato slices, and greens. Or Shiitake mushrooms and chicken wontons swim in a brothy flavor-filled sauce and get finished with a swirl of sesame oil and chili crisp on top.

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Easy Pasta Recipes for Beginners

Pomodoro Fresco: Inspired by a recipe created by Top Chef winner Joe Flamm of Rosemary in Chicago, this rustic pasta is bursting with fresh flavors and can be prepared in just 20 minutes! This meal is made with just a few basic ingredients: tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, basil, parmesan cheese, pasta, black pepper, salt, and a sun-dried tomato. The tomatoes are pureed to create a simple homemade tomato sauce cooked with olive oil and basil.
Sweet and Spicy Sausage Farfalle: This is a great simple recipe because it takes just 20 minutes to make, and all the ingredients are inexpensive and easy to find in grocery stores. You can easily make this recipe your own by adding your favorite vegetables.
Easy Beef Pasta Skillet: This rich creamy beef pasta skillet is made with roasted tomatoes, ground beef, and mascarpone cheese to make an irresistible pasta dish. To prepare this meal, first you roast tomatoes on a sheet pan. After roasting, the tomatoes are pureed and mixed with cooked ground beef, sauteed mushrooms, and mascarpone to create a creamy beefy sauce. Fresh pasta gets cooked right in the sauce.
Creamy Cheddar Mac and Cheese: Everyone loves macaroni and cheese, and this recipe for stovetop mac and cheese with a crispy panko topping is super simple and can be made in just 20 minutes. The secret to this easy weeknight meal is that crispy toasted panko breadcrumbs mimic the taste of baked macaroni and cheese. It is an easy hack that adds so much flavor to the meal. The most important thing to keep in mind when preparing this meal is that you want to use good ingredients. Get a flavorful sharp aged cheddar.
Shrimp Scampi: Jocelyn's easy Shrimp Scampi can be made in 15 minutes or less! While shrimp is a special ingredient, you probably have the other ingredients in your pantry.
Roasted Garlic, Goat Cheese, and Tomato Pasta: This delicious vegetarian pasta recipe with simple, fresh ingredients comes together in 40 minutes. The sauce is a mixture of roasted garlic, melted goat cheese, and roasted tomatoes thinned out with a touch of pasta water.
Spaghetti alla Rustica: The ingredients for this meal cost just $10, and you will have enough for four servings.
Ricotta Gnocchi - From Scratch: Please believe me: you can make ricotta gnocchi from scratch in just 10 minutes. This is an unexpectedly easy recipe for beginners. You only need ricotta, 00 flour (special flour for pasta that is available in most grocery stores), pecorino romano cheese, and salt. The dough is very easy to work with, and the gnocchi takes just a moment to cook.

Meat Main Courses for Beginners

Bacon Wrapped Jalapeño Popper Chicken: Chicken is stuffed with cream cheese, diced jalapeños, and Mexican cheese, wrapped in bacon, and then baked. A super flavorful chicken recipe that takes just 25 minutes of active preparation time.
Mustard and Mushroom Chicken: The best part of this recipe is that you can add different vegetables to make the recipe feel new if you are cooking it often.
Instant Pot Pork Tenderloin: Amy's balsamic glazed pork tenderloin can be made in less than 25 minutes, and it makes 8 servings.
How to Roast a Chicken: New cooks can be intimidated by the idea of cooking a whole chicken, but roasting a chicken is one of those cooking skills that everyone should learn. This recipe requires minimal ingredients and yields a lot of food.
Chicken and Rice Soup: This healthy soup can be made on the stovetop or in the instant pot. You can prepare this one pot meal loaded with healthy ingredients in just 20 minutes of prep.
20 Minute Sesame Chicken: Inspired by one of my favorite take-out dishes, I wanted to turn it into a healthy meal that I could prepare in less time than it takes to get delivery.
Classic Pot Roast: My Dad's recipe for a classic pot roast only requires five ingredients and about 5 minutes of active preparation time! We ate this on repeat throughout my childhood because it is one of those simple meals made with very affordable ingredients.
Sherry Mushroom Chicken: If you want a quick and easy recipe that seems fancy, this is your best bet. Chicken breasts are quickled seared and then covered creamy mushroom and sherry sauce and put in the oven to finish cooking. The basic technique of searing meat to lock in the juices before letting it finish cooking in the oven at a lower temperature is something that home cooks should master.

Salad Recipes for Beginners

Spinach Salad: This spinach salad is topped with diced chicken breast, blue cheese, hard boiled egg, tomatoes, mushrooms, crispy prosciutto, and a homemade blue cheese dressing. It's fantastic.
Brussels Sprout and Kale Salad: Inspired by the famous Brussel & Kale Salad, add gem lettuce since brussels sprouts and kale are so gaseous that they can give me a stomach ache. The salad is topped with crispy bacon, parmesan, slivered almonds, dried cranberries, and an easy homemade maple tahini dressing.
Asparagus Salad: This salad is an easy healthy recipe made with fresh asparagus, chicken, tomatoes, and mandarin oranges in a light yogurt dressing. It tastes like summer thanks to the fresh herbs in the dressing!
Balsamic Chicken and Sweet Potato Salad: The chicken roasts in olive oil and balsamic vinegar before getting chopped up and added to a spinach salad with chopped roasted sweet potato, goat cheese, toasted pine nuts, and dried cranberries.

Easy Recipes for Beginners Made with a Slow Cooker

4 Ingredient Taco Chicken: Throw four simple ingredients in a crockpot, and a few hours later, you have chicken perfect for making tacos!
Beef Stroganoff: This meal of tender chunks of beef, mushrooms, and onions in a creamy sauce takes just 20 minutes of active preparation time. You just need to quickly brown the beef and saute the mushrooms and onions before throwing everything into a crockpot to cook for 5 hours.
BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches: I love this recipe because you can customize your sandwiches with your favorite toppings. Just like the other crockpot recipes, you just need to throw a bunch of ingredients together and let your meal cook. This is another perfect recipe to serve at a party.

Meal Prep Recipes for Beginners

Veggie Lasagna Roll Ups: I roll each lasagna sheet up instead of layering them. I think this makes the lasagna faster to assemble and easier to serve. The other difference is that I add extra veggies. I add thin strips of zucchini, spinach, and bell pepper. Sometimes I add some grated carrot (no one even knows it is there). When I prepare this meal, I make a double batch and put one in the freezer. This recipe is as easy as it gets. The only cooking involved is boiling the lasagna sheets and baking the lasagna. The rest is easy assembly.
How to Meal Prep Chicken: The secret to cooking a super tender chicken breast is slowly cooking it in white wine with a drizzle of olive oil. The best thing about this recipe is that it takes just 5 active minutes of meal prep. Plus, it is easy to prepare a large batch of chicken.
Beef Taco Pie: This recipe is basically a Mexican lasagna with tortillas taking the place of pasta.

Easy Breakfast Recipes:

How to Make Perfect Sunny Side Up Eggs: This is a basic recipe that everyone should know. This post breaks down the process of making sunny side up eggs with a fully cooked white but a runny yolk.
Puff Pastry Breakfast Tarts: Save this recipe for when you have houseguests. While this meal looks fancy, anyone can master making this breakfast.
Chilaquiles: Chilaquiles is a classic Mexican breakfast made with pantry staples like salsa, tortilla chips, broth, and beans. I often turn leftovers from taco night into chilaquiles. If you have any leftover taco meat, add it right in!
Breakfast Egg Bars: Making these is a genius way to make breakfast for the week all at once.

Additional Easy Recipes

1. This is by far the easiest recipe on this blog.
2. Burrito bowls are a staple.
3. Kielbasa is a great ingredient to keep on hand, because it’s such an easy and tasty protein for simple meals.
4. Slow cooker recipes are often some of the easiest meals you can make, because there aren’t many steps usually-you just add the ingredients, turn it on, and wait.
5. Beef in cornstarch helps thicken the sauce.
6. Cooking fish can sound intimidating, but if you can get the flake-with-a-fork-to-test-doneness technique down, you’re all set. This is a four-ingredient recipe for frozen salmon filets.
7. Quinoa rice, or another type of grain for the base to this colorful combo.
8. Loaded baked potato. This one uses roasted broccoli, but when I’m feeling lazy, I just microwave some frozen broccoli to add on top. Also, just microwave a baked potato for 5+ minutes (after stabbing it with a fork a few times), and it’s the great base for whatever toppings your heart desires.
9. One-pan meal. If you can chop fresh veggies (or just buy them that way), you can make this one-pan meal. The possibilities are endless with what you include in this. I pretty much never make it the same way. Just make sure your veggies are similar sizes (so they cook evenly), and the biggest veggies are cooked before you take them out of the oven.
10. Taco soup is often called “7-can taco soup” because you just dump a bunch of canned ingredients to make the meal (and add ground turkey/beef if you want).
11. Pesto chicken, and noods-that’s really all you need for this one. Pesto is a great way to jazz up certain dishes (like sandwiches or pasta). Any time I make homemade pesto, I aways end up making some sort of combo like this one.
12. Fajitas Slice some peppers, onion, and chicken; sprinkle the seasoning blend on it; and bake until done!

More Easy Dinner Recipes

Noodles and Pasta Dishes

1. One-Pot Mac and Cheese Made with only seven ingredients (most of which are likely in your kitchen right now), this easy dinner recipe for beginners is much better than mac and cheese from a box-and it's just as simple to prepare.
2. Stir Fried Noodles with Kimchi and Pork Kimchi offers the noodles plenty of briny, spicy flavor, while a touch of butter curbs its intensity just right.
3. Sungold Spaghetti Carbonara Sungold tomatoes offer bright acidity and a pop of color to the rich pasta.
4. One-Pot Tomato Basil Pasta Instead of cooking your pasta and your sauce in separate pots, you cook them together at the same time. Add ground beef or crumbled sausage for a boost of protein.
5. Pasta alla Norma with Eggplant, Basil & Pecorino This simple take on the pasta dish, made with savory eggplant and fresh sauce, is the next best thing.
6. BLT Pasta Salad Juicy tomatoes, crispy bacon and crunchy lettuce mixed with diced avocado and creamy, mayo-based dressing.
7. Linguine with Bacon, Peaches and Gorgonzola This easy dinner recipe for beginners takes just 30 minutes from start to finish.
8. Meal-Prep Turkey Meatballs with Zucchini Noodles This meal can also be prepped in advance to save time before dinner. The meatballs are tender, rich and juicy, plus they’re baked instead of fried for minimal mess.
9. 50-50 Buttered Noodles and Greens I have a feeling your picky kids will have no problem eating cheesy, buttery pasta for dinner. With just six ingredients-two of which are salt and pepper-this recipe is about as fuss-free as it gets.

Skillet Dishes

10. Vegetarian Sloppy Joes Legumes stand in for traditional ground beef in this easy dinner recipe for beginners, starring an old-school sauce of ketchup, tomato paste and vinegar.
11. Crispy Kale and Egg Skillet for One When you're really pressed for time, eggs can be a total lifesaver. Pair them with greens, cheese and a drizzle of hot sauce, and you're in business.
12. Cheater’s Skillet Paella A sophisticated dish that tastes like you spent all day making it-despite being ready and on the table in less than an hour.
13. Skillet Gnocchi with Sausage and Broccoli Rabe How impressive does this guy look? Just don't tell anyone that all you had to do to make this easy dinner recipe was throw all the ingredients in a skillet and wait 30 minutes for them to cook through.
14. Chicken Tinga Tacos Psst: Your dinner guests will never know that these tacos started with a rotisserie bird (or that the whole meal only took you 30 minutes from start to finish).
15. Bruschetta Chicken One-pan dinners are the way to go when you're looking to save time.
16. Easy Stir Fried Rice Cakes with XO Sauce These chewy, sticky rice cakes are about to win the dinner game.

Sheet Pan Meals and Casseroles

17. Tater Tot Nachos Any dinner that starts with a bag of frozen tots is one after my own heart.
18. Sheet Pan Lemon Butter Veggies and Sausage This mouthwatering easy dinner recipe is hands-off and leaves you with practically zero dishes to wash, so I'd call it a win-win.
19. Keto Sheet Pan Chicken and Rainbow Veggies I'm only making sheet pan meals from now on, and I'm starting with this dairy- and gluten-free masterpiece.
20. Ravioli Lasagna While standard lasagna can be tedious (all that assembly), this version is significantly less fussy. You're basically just layering a homemade meat sauce with ravioli (any kind you like!) and cheese, then popping it into the oven.
21. One-Pan Roasted Chicken with Carrots Just place all the ingredients on a sheet pan and pop the whole thing in the oven-what’s easier than that?

Crockpot and Instant Pot Meals

22. Slow Cooker Chicken Teriyaki Let your favorite appliance take care of dinner while you focus on more important things…like chilling on the couch.
23. Slow Cooker Pulled Chicken Just ten minutes of prep work are all that's required for this crowd-pleasing easy dinner recipe.
24. Slow Cooker Meal-Prep Burrito Bowls The answer to your dinnertime prayers? Spicy, nourishing burrito bowls.

Ready in Less Than 30 Minutes

25. Spicy, Crunchy Tuna Salad Lettuce Cups Newly on keto? This gluten-free method of serving tuna salad substitutes carby bread with greens, so it's on your diet.
26. 15-Minute Lemony Broccolini Pasta This easy dinner recipe requires as much work and know-how as opening a jar of marinara, despite looking significantly more impressive.
27. Cacio e Pepe Rich, creamy and oh-so simple. Once you've mastered this decadent, five-ingredient easy dinner recipe starring cheese and black pepper, it'll become your weeknight go-to.
28. 15-Minute Mezze Plate with Toasted Za’atar Pita Bread The easiest dinners to make are those that require no cooking at all.

Cooking Tips for Beginners

Read the whole recipe before you start cooking. That way, there are no surprises and you can time your steps and prep accordingly.
Measure and chop your ingredients before starting. This not only allows you to cook without any pauses or hiccups, but you also won't feel rushed when slicing and dicing, which will help you practice. Yay knife skills!
Taste as you go. When you're seasoning with salt and pepper to taste, sample the food as you go to avoid over- or under-doing it.
Invest in the essentials. Everyone should have a sharp chef's knife, a cutting board, a large skillet (I'd say have one nonstick and one cast iron) and a large pot. You can tackle most recipes with these.
Stock your pantry. You should always have a few different types of cooking oil, salt, pepper and dry seasonings on hand, as well as basics like sugar, corn starch, baking soda, soy sauce, lemon and garlic. This will make cooking recipes on the fly much easier (read: you won't need to run to the supermarket for a last-minute purchase).

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