Weeknight Meals

You won't believe this hearty, flavorful lasagna was cooked in just 15 minutes using a microwave.

An elegant Mediterranean-inspired fish dinner with green beans, tomatoes, and olives is just a push of the microwave button away.

On an afternoon in May, a favorite Provençal bistro served us this utterly delicious and totally beautiful spring salad of blanched asparagus, a perfect poached egg draped with a shiny, fragrant slice of ham from the French Basque region, and a tangle of soft greens.

With the crunch of the iceberg and onions, the soft richness of the avocado, the saltiness of the bacon, the sweetness of the tomato, and the bite of the blue cheese, this salad has it all! And it is beautiful to boot.

Tart kiwi and sweet blueberries make a unique salsa to dress your basic pork loin. This is a leaner cut of pork, so be sure not to overcook it; you can test the meat by slicing it with a paring knife or using an instant-read thermometer, which should register 145ºF.

Wild salmon tops the list of fish that are high in omega-3 and low in mercury. So swap out farmed salmon, which contains food dyes, for the real thing. Frozen sides of wild salmon offer the best value. Garlic scapes are the young, soft stems and unopened flower buds of hardneck garlic. This variety of garlic tends to be prevalent at farmer's markets. The season for scapes is short, so if you can't find them you can substitute scallions or baby leeks.

This classic pasta has only a few ingredients, but they transform into a surprisingly velvety, flavorful dish.

De Laurentiis uses Peroni, an Italian beer, for this 20-minute dish, but any light-bodied lager will work and make a perfect drink pairing as well.

When things in the crisper drawer aren’t looking so crisp anymore, make this soup.

It truly doesn’t get any easier than this one-pot sensation.

Stuffing halibut fillets with zesty pesto is faster than marinating, but just as flavorful.

This fresh salad was inspired by the elements of a Passover Seder plate.

When kale started to take over the food world, I noticed it was juiced, made into chips, put into smoothies, and even sneaked into chocolate bars. So why not put it in a pasta dish? The nuts in this recipe give the dish another layer of flavor and a nice crunchy texture. The bitter, citrus, crunch, and chili all combine for a unique pasta.

For this noodle bowl, I took inspiration from Heidi Swanson’s Black Sesame Otsu in Super Natural Every Day, in which a blanket of black sesame seeds is toasted until it smells heady, then pounded with a mortar and pestle and combined with some Asian pantry staples to make a thick, savory, and tangy dressing, here given a bit more punch with wasabi. Like other cold noodle dishes, this is a good dish for packing up, and in my experience has been wonderful on the beach. The shredded egg and wisps of radish incorporate into the noodles, the shallot brings crunch and zing, and the final drizzle of kecap manis—the Indonesian soy sauce— brings the whole bowl together in the most satisfying way.

This is probably the most famous lentil dish coming out of India—yellow lentils tempered with spices and the usual holy trinity of garlic, ginger and chile. It has always been a favorite of mine and it would grace our family dinner table at least once a week when I was growing up. There are lots of different recipes for flavoring the oil (tadka), so play around with your spice pantry and see what you come up with. If you don’t have half of these spices, then don’t worry; just add a tablespoon of your favorite spice paste and it will taste just as delicious.

Citrus segments get saucy in our play on duck à l’orange.

If your largest skillet isn’t large enough to hold 12 oz. pasta and toss everything together, dump the mixture back into the pot from cooking the rigatoni and toss.

Don’t toss out your Parmesan rind. Use it to flavor the beans and broth for this comforting classic.

This is like pouring a cooked mojito over stewed chicken, with the rum, lime, and herbs mingling beautifully with the chicken juices. Serve it with rice and a cold, crispy Alsatian white like a Pinot Blanc.

Frozen peas are a gift to the breakaway cook: their creamy, earthy goodness bursts with flavor, and they couldn’t be easier to store and prepare. The pesto-like tarragon emulsion, made even creamier by the addition of Greek yogurt, really brings out the best in them, and the sprinkling of pistachios on top lends a lovely toasted, nutty texture. Try them with a broiled fish fillet and a glass of grassy Sauvignon Blanc.