Easy dinner recipes for two are their own skill, and most recipes are no help at all because they quietly assume there are four of you. The ones here are portioned the way you actually eat: one skillet, two plates, and nothing sitting in the fridge on Thursday that nobody wants. There is fast weeknight food in here, chicken and shrimp and pasta on the table in half an hour, and there is the other kind too, the steak and the pan sauce for a night you want to make a fuss. The first sauce my dad ever taught me was bearnaise, so I have a lot of time for anything that ends with something spooned over the top. Pick one for tonight and one for Saturday.
1. Garlic Butter Steak Bites
Eight ounces of fillet cut into cubes feeds two people properly, which is what makes this a real dinner for two rather than a scaled down one. The butter goes in with garlic, horseradish and Worcestershire, so the sauce is sharper and more savory than the usual garlic and thyme. Get the pan genuinely hot and do not crowd it. On the table in about fifteen minutes.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
2. Easy 20-Minute Shrimp Scampi
Shrimp, olive oil, butter, garlic, a pinch of hot pepper flakes, white wine, lemon and parsley over spaghetti, and twenty minutes from start to plate. Shrimp cook in about three minutes, so everything else needs to be ready before they hit the pan. Open the wine you are cooking with and pour two glasses. This is the recipe for the night you want dinner to feel like an occasion and have no time.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
3. Easy Skillet Chicken Thighs
Boneless thighs seasoned with onion powder, garlic powder and paprika, seared in butter, then finished in a pan sauce of chicken stock, lemon, cream, thyme and a little heat. Thirty minutes, one pan. Thighs are the right cut for a small dinner because they forgive you if the timing slips, which breasts absolutely do not. Serve it over rice or potatoes and mop the pan.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
4. Apple Walnut Cranberry Salad
Mixed greens and spinach with green apple, dried cranberries, walnuts and gorgonzola, dressed with an apple cider vinaigrette. It reads like a side and eats like a meal, especially with a piece of chicken on it. The apple has to be tart to stand up to the cheese, so a green one rather than a sweet one. The kind of dinner you want when the last three have been heavy.
Get the full tutorial at Flavor Mosaic.
5. 15-Minute Creamy Garlic Pasta
Butter, olive oil, six cloves of garlic, stock, cream, baby spinach and a lot of freshly grated parmigiano reggiano. Fifteen minutes, and the only thing that will ruin it is browning the garlic, so keep the heat low until the liquid goes in. Add grilled chicken, bacon or ham if two of you want more than pasta. Do not freeze the leftovers, a cream sauce will not survive it.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
6. One Pan Caprese Pasta
Onion, dry pasta, basil, garlic and sliced grape tomatoes all go in one pan, then water or broth over the top. Ten minutes covered while the pasta absorbs everything, then the lid comes off and the liquid reduces down for another seven. Rigatoni holds the sauce best. The pasta cooks in the flavor instead of in a pot of plain water, which is the entire trick.
Get the full tutorial at Yellow Bliss Road.
7. Surf and Turf for Two
Scallops rather than shrimp for the surf, filet mignon for the turf, and a wine and rosemary pan sauce over the top. Scallops take three minutes total, so they go in last while the steaks rest. It is portioned for exactly two and it is the most expensive thing on this page, which is rather the point: this is the anniversary dinner, not the Tuesday one.
Get the full tutorial at Iowa Girl Eats.
8. Creamy Chipotle Shrimp
Shrimp, red bell pepper, garlic, chipotle sauce and milk, finished with cilantro and sliced jalapeno. Smoky, creamy and quick enough for a weeknight, and it goes over rice, cauliflower rice, pasta or into tortillas depending on what you feel like. Chipotle carries the whole dish, so use one you actually like the taste of. Two of you will finish the pan without much discussion.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
9. Honey Garlic Shrimp Recipe for Two
Six ingredients, seven steps, twenty minutes. Honey, soy sauce, garlic and ginger make the marinade, half of it goes on the shrimp and half is held back to become the sauce, which is the bit that makes this taste finished. Get your rice and vegetables going while the shrimp marinate. Red pepper flakes or hot sauce if you want heat, and the filling also works in lettuce wraps.
Get the full tutorial at Zona Cooks.
10. Caprese Garlic Bread
A loaf of French bread split lengthways, spread with butter mixed with parmesan, garlic, garlic powder and parsley, layered with mozzarella and baked at 400 until it melts, then tomato and basil on top. Half a loaf each with a salad is a genuine dinner and nobody will feel short changed. Make it in August when the tomatoes are worth eating raw.
Get the full tutorial at Your Homebased Mom.
11. Guinness Shepherd's Pie For Two
Ground lamb or beef cooked with vegetables in a tomato gravy, topped with creamy mashed potato and baked, and the Guinness is what gives the filling its malty depth. It is scaled for two and it is gluten free, which shepherd’s pie usually is not. Make it in March and call it a St Patrick’s dinner, or make it in February because it is cold and you want it.
Get the full tutorial at Homemade In The Kitchen.
12. Easy One-Pan Steak and Peppers
Flank steak sliced thin across the grain, sweet onion, shallots and red, orange and yellow peppers, all in one pan with tamari and a little garlic powder. Slicing across the grain is what keeps flank tender, so take the extra ten seconds to find it. Cheap cut, fast cooking, one pan to wash. The kind of dinner that rescues a Wednesday and uses up whatever peppers are going soft.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
13. Pan Seared Sirloin Steak Dinner for Two
A whole steak dinner for two out of a cast iron pan: top sirloin filet, mashed potatoes, sauteed mushrooms and steamed vegetables. The cut is the interesting part. A top sirloin filet looks like a filet mignon and costs around twelve dollars a pound less, trading a little tenderness for considerably more beef flavor. A fair trade most nights, and an easy one to explain to whoever is eating with you.
Get the full tutorial at Life Tastes Good.
14. Italian Chopped Salad for Two
Crisp romaine, beans instead of bread for the heft, cured meats, tangy cheese and a zesty homemade dressing. It started life as a fridge clearing exercise and that is still the best way to use it, because once the balance of crisp, creamy, salty and sharp is right the specific ingredients barely matter. Lighter than a sandwich and just as filling, and it is honestly good the next day.
Get the full tutorial at Pinch and Swirl.
15. Rib Eye Steak and Shrimp with Parmesan Sauce
An Applebee’s copycat, improved: ribeye instead of sirloin and the shrimp grilled rather than pan fried. Thirty minutes for a surf and turf for two with a parmesan and basil cream sauce over the top, and that sauce is worth making on its own for chicken or potatoes another night. Buy the shrimp already peeled and deveined. Low carb almost by accident, if that matters to you.
Get the full tutorial at Zona Cooks.
16. Chicken Scampi With Garlic Parmesan Rice
Chicken breast cooked in butter, garlic, lemon and white wine, with the rice cooked right in the same pan in chicken broth and finished with parmesan. One pan, pantry ingredients, and the rice comes out tasting like the chicken because it cooked in everything the chicken left behind. Halve it comfortably for two, or make the full amount and be pleased about lunch tomorrow.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
17. Au Gratin Potatoes For Two
Cheesy, creamy au gratin potatoes baked in two individual dishes instead of one big one, which is why they belong on this list at all. An hour and ten minutes, mostly unattended, so start them and go do something else. This is not a light side and nobody is pretending otherwise. Put them next to the surf and turf or the sirloin further up and call the evening a success.
Get the full tutorial at From A Chef's Kitchen.
18. Easy Chicken Fajita Quesadilla
Fajitas and quesadillas folded into one thing, which is the correct decision. Peppers, onions and cooked chicken go in with the cheese, the tortilla gets crisped in a dry pan, and dinner for two takes about ten minutes. Use leftover chicken or a rotisserie bird and it is faster still. Cut into wedges with sour cream and salsa and it stops being a shortcut and starts being the plan.
Get the full tutorial at Yummy Healthy Easy.
19. Zucchini Noodle Bacon Cacio E Pepe
Cacio e pepe is cheese and pepper and nothing else, so it lives or dies on technique. Here it goes over spiralized zucchini with bacon added, which turns an Italian classic into a light dinner that still tastes rich. Zucchini releases water as it cooks, so keep the noodles moving and do not let them sit. If one of you is resistant to vegetable noodles, this is the dish that changes their mind.
Get the full tutorial at Inspiralized.
20. Chicken Thighs Marsala for Two
Brown the thighs skin side down over high heat, cook the mushrooms and shallots in the same pan, then Marsala and cream turn the whole thing into a sauce. One skillet, under an hour, restaurant flavor on a weeknight. Boneless thighs if you are serving it over pasta so you can slice them, bone in if it is going next to mashed potato. That choice is the only decision you have to make.
Get the full tutorial at The View From Great Island.
21. Broccoli Rabe Peanut Soba Noodles
Broccoli rabe is not broccoli, it is closer to a turnip, and it is pleasantly bitter in a way that stands up to a spicy peanut sauce. Sauteed, it goes almost noodle like and twirls around the fork with the soba. An extra pinch of salt takes the edge off the bitterness if it is new to you. A quick vegetarian dinner with a lot more going on than most.
Get the full tutorial at Cookie and Kate.
22. Bacon and Feta Stuffed Chicken Breast
Butterfly a chicken breast, stuff it with feta and cooked crumbled bacon, pour over olive oil mixed with garlic and oregano, and bake. It is close to impossible to ruin and it can be assembled hours ahead, which is the whole reason to make it when people are coming. Your house will smell extraordinary. Two breasts is two dinners with no leftovers to negotiate over.
Get the full tutorial at Baking Mischief.
23. Kung Pao Chicken Zoodles For Two
Fifteen minutes, under three hundred calories a bowl, and it tastes salty, sweet, sour and spicy all at once the way kung pao should. Two tips make it work: trim the zucchini noodles to about six inches so they are eatable, and pull them off the heat at under two minutes. The sauce is left deliberately thick because the zucchini will water it down as it cooks.
Get the full tutorial at Skinnytaste.
24. Avocado And Heirloom Tomato Toast With Balsamic Drizzle
Hearty bread brushed with olive oil and toasted, then avocado, heirloom tomatoes, fresh basil, a balsamic reduction and sea salt. It is a dinner in the way a good piece of bread is a dinner, which is to say it works in late August and would be sad in January. Make the balsamic reduction yourself, it takes minutes and the bottled stuff is sweeter than you want.
Get the full tutorial at Blissful Basil.
25. Homemade Salisbury Steak for Two
Salisbury steak mixed up in under fifteen minutes using as few dishes as possible, with roasted baby red potatoes instead of mash so the oven does that job while you do the steaks. Portioned for two and built specifically to keep the cleanup small, which is a design decision I appreciate in a comfort food recipe. The gravy is the whole point, so do not rush it.
Get the full tutorial at Food Fanatic.
26. Easy 5-Star Cajun Shrimp Pasta
Seasoned shrimp seared and set aside, then a sauce of onion, garlic, tomato paste, Cajun seasoning, spinach, cream and parmesan over fettuccine. It tastes like the version you order out, and the heat is entirely yours to set. Season the shrimp separately from the sauce, because doing both at once is how Cajun food goes from warm to unpleasant. Twenty five minutes, one pan, two very full plates.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
27. Easy Pesto Shrimp Tortellini Salad
Four main ingredients and twenty minutes: basil pesto, cheese tortellini, tomatoes and quick cooking shrimp. Warm it is dinner, cold it is the thing you take to a barbecue, and it is equally good either way. Cook the tortellini a minute short of the packet time because it keeps softening in the pesto. Buy good pesto or make it, because with four ingredients there is nowhere for a bad one to hide.
Get the full tutorial at Kim's Cravings.
28. One Pan Philly Cheesesteak Pasta
Thin sliced deli roast beef, peppers, onions and cheese cooked with pasta in one pan, under thirty minutes start to finish. Ask the deli counter for the rarest roast beef they have and have it sliced thin, because it finishes cooking in the sauce and anything already well done turns to leather. All the cheesesteak flavor with a fork instead of a hoagie roll.
Get the full tutorial at Yellow Bliss Road.
29. Lemon Garlic Shrimp
Shrimp sauteed in butter and garlic, finished with lemon juice, done in fifteen minutes in one pan. There is nothing clever about it and that is exactly its value, because every household needs a dinner that requires no thought on the nights when there is none left. Do not walk away, shrimp go from perfect to rubbery in under a minute. Rice, pasta or bread, whichever is nearest.
Get the full tutorial at Dinners, Dishes and Desserts.
30. Caprese Chicken
Chicken breasts sauteed in one pan, topped with mozzarella, garlicky tomatoes and fresh basil and finished with balsamic. Thirty minutes, minimal washing up, and it is the one to reach for when you have run out of ideas for chicken again, which happens to everybody. Let the balsamic reduce slightly in the hot pan rather than drizzling it cold. It sharpens everything underneath.
Get the full tutorial at The Novice Chef.
