Weeknight Meals

If your local Chinese restaurant made fried rice like this, you'd want to eat there every day! This recipe brings you the flavors of water chestnuts, La Choy® Soy Sauce, and eggs. Dig in!

Unlike a heavy béchamel, this streamlined cream sauce won't mask the earthy-sweet flavor of the greens.

A nice alternative to its fermented cousin; put this on pork chops or fish.

Affordable leg of lamb is a great way to break out of the usual beef-chicken-pork rut, especially when used in a quick-cooking but complex-tasting dish like this.

Done well, this should be crunchy, fresh, spicy, sour, and a little bit funky. Taste as you go and adjust as needed.

A favorite, try this versatile crunchy peanut mixture with braised-chicken-thigh lettuce wraps.

We like to serve this main with couscous, rice, or grilled bread to sop up all of the shrimp's intensely flavored cooking liquid.

Some parsnips can have a woody core, which you'll want to cut away before cooking.

This hits all the notes of a great slaw: creamy, tangy, and crunchy.

An unfloured surface provides some traction, so it's easy to roll the dough very thin.

If you can't find freekeh, use another whole grain, like spelt or rye berries.

Why have plain white rice when you can have taco rice instead? Taco rice slices, it dices, it juliennes... okay, maybe not, but it does have many different uses. Eat it as a side dish, stuff it into a burrito, use it as a base for a bean-and-rice bowl, or use it as a base for a casserole, like in my Southwest Veggie & Rice Casserole . Taco rice doesn't take much more time than cooking regular white rice, but has so much more to brag about.

Koreans celebrate the first one hundred days of life, so for my son, Hudson's, hundredth-day party, we had a bash with lots of Korean food. The next day, with my taste buds toned and thinking of the great Korean tacos I've devoured at food trucks in Los Angeles, I created this version. The marinade for the steak is to die for. I guarantee you'll want to try it with Korean-style short ribs, pork tenderloin, and grilled chicken. A little planning and prep a day ahead is a great way to save time on hurried weeknights. This steak gets even better with an overnight marinade, so you could marinate it on Monday, and it's ready to grill on Tuesday night. If you're doing it all on the same night, use the marinating time to multitask—prep your vegetables and whip up the guacamole. You'll be surprised how quickly it comes together.

I'm probably not supposed to play favorites, but this recipe is definitely my favorite. Pad thai is the epitome of simple ingredients creating dazzling flavor. It's fresh, light, exotic, and faster than any takeout (unless, of course, you happen to live above a restaurant that delivers). Fresh lime is key to creating the unique flavor, but one lime should be enough for a single or even double batch of this noodle dish. Fish sauce, which you can find in the Asian section of most major grocery stores or at Asian markets, gives this pasta a more authentic flavor, but if you can't find any, skip it; this dish will still rock your world.

This curry is doubly rich from the coconut milk and the deep red curry, but the pineapple keeps it from being too heavy and gives a beautiful freshness to the dish. I like to cook the lobster in the shell because it makes for a more flavorful sauce, and I like to serve it that way too. You can be as refined as you like or, like me, pick up the shell and make an animal of yourself. If lobster is going to blow the budget, you can still have a delicious curry by substituting shrimp or monkfish.