50 Of The Easiest One-Pot Meal Ideas Ever (2024)

Went apple picking, and now have a glut of fall's best fruit? Make this skillet dinner! The smoky and warm bourbon, zingy mustard, sharp cheddar, and heavy cream allow the apples and chicken to really pop off.

Get the Creamy Apple Bourbon Chicken Skillet recipe.

We’ve developed more Tuscan recipes than we care to count—Tuscan butter salmon, creamy Tuscan chicken, Tuscan butter gnocchi, you get the idea—but this new spin on our old favorite flavors is sure to earn a spot at the top of your weekly dinner rotation. Savory pancetta gets paired with sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, and oregano, then simmered with heavy cream and finished with grated Parmesan and fresh spinach. It’s tossed with cooked tortellini, topped with fresh mozzarella, and broiled to creamy, melty, just-slightly-browned perfection.

Get the Tuscan Tortellini Skillet Bake recipe.

Crunchy and golden—and if you don’t know it already, you will after making this recipe—crispy rice is an absolutely wonderful way to enjoy rice. Especially when it turns into a crust and cradles a really delicious cheesy chorizo and chickpea filling. Crisping rice in a little olive oil adds a beautiful textural contrast to steamed rice and additional flavor as the rice crisps and turns golden.

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While it may seem fancy, this chicken Alfredo recipe is a beginner-friendly dish that truly anyone can master. With a creamy, cheesy sauce and tender chicken breasts, it's the pasta dish we turn to time and time again when we're craving the ultimate comfort meal. This one-pot dinner comes together in 30 minutes, making it a perfect easy meal to whip up for any occasion, whether you're searching for a romantic meal for two or the most satisfying weeknight dinner.

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This Spanish dish is a guaranteed crowd-pleasing centerpiece for special occasions and parties, but honestly, this dish is enough reason to celebrate all on its own. What makes a paella unique is the famous socarrat. It’s that thin layer of crisped rice at the bottom of the pan that holds the key to an umami house party in your palate—we're talking Studio 54 party. Listen to the crackling and peek through the rice in the middle to ensure that it’s browning properly and not burning (you can always hide the hole with a piece of shrimp 😉).

Get the Classic Paella recipe.

If you love creamy risotto, but not the time it takes to make it, this Italian-inspired orzo recipe is for you. It all comes together in one pot, with starch from the miniature pasta helping to thicken the sauce to great effect. The prep here is minimal and cleanup is easy, but the payoff makes this dish totally dinner party-worthy, all year round. Best part? It only takes about half an hour to cook from start to finish.

Get the Creamy Tuscan Orzo recipe.

Some things go perfectly together. Peanut butter and jelly. Bacon and eggs. Sausages and sauerkraut. (Seriously!) In this cozy one-pot dinner, you'll nestle beer-braised bratwurst and tender baby potatoes into sauerkraut and finish the dish with fresh herbs and spicy mustard. (If you've never beer-braised anything before, you're sure to love it. Try this technique with chicken nachos or cabbage.)

Get the Sausages and Sauerkraut recipe.

A classic main player on holiday tables, this slow-cooking dish is the meal to make when you want to impress and satisfy without a crazy amount of effort. The shredded beef meal comes complete with tender potatoes and carrots and a sauce you’ll want to spoon over everything. You’ll need some time and patience, but trust us—the result is more than worth it.

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A creamy, rich pasta sauce with fresh lemon and tangy feta, plus juicy chicken thighs all come together in one pot for a very simple but satisfying meal. It’s the even easier version of everyone’s favorite baked feta pasta. The lemon butter sauce feels light thanks to the bright citrus and is perfect for transitioning into spring. There’s no need to boil the pasta first. It cooks in the sauce, which works double-time to flavor the pasta while the pasta also thickens the sauce.

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Love our , but craving a little more flavor? In this rendition, deglazing your pan with the pickling liquid from pepperoncini gives creamy rice a zappy hit that leans more sweet than spicy.

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When our weeknight dinners start to feel a little snoozy, we activate our go-to formula for supper success: Start with a dish you love, then add something new. Here, the dish we love is chicken piccata, the Italian-American classic, and the new ingredient is one of our favorite pantry items, boxed gnocchi. The lemony, buttery, caper-spiked sauce is the star of chicken piccata, and thanks to this recipe, we now know that it’s also a great sauce for cooking gnocchi.

Get the Creamy Chicken Piccata With Gnocchi recipe.

This light but satisfying dinner is perfect for two people (or one if you want amazing leftovers all week long), making for the easiest date night star. It starts with a vibrant sauce made with some of our favorite flavors: sweet bell pepper, nutty white miso, and earthy turmeric, along with plenty of garlic and ginger. Topped with garlicky sautéed shrimp, this meal comes complete with protein, carb, and plenty of veg.

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We're always looking for new ways to switch up our weeknight chicken dinner, and when we're craving something light and easy, this one-pan meal is one we turn to again and again. Chicken, asparagus and cherry tomatoes are all cooked alongside a sharp, acidic, yet sweet homemade balsamic glaze in this recipe, so you can enjoy a dinner with maximum flavor and minimum cleanup.

Get the One-Pan Balsamic Chicken and Asparagus recipe.

If our creamy Tuscan chicken is a mainstay at your house, this recipe is going to be just the thing to shake up your weeknight dinner routine. We paired quick-cooking chicken cutlets with a spicy-sweet coconut milk sauce that’s out-of-this-world tasty. Tomatoes (and tomato paste) bring it back down to Earth, so you can make this over and over (and over!) again. Not convinced? Did we mention this comes together in just one pan, in less than thirty minutes?!

Get the One-Pan Coconut-Lime Chicken recipe.

Traditional shakshuka has runny eggs that have simmered in the warmly spiced tomato sauce, but in this version we traded out the eggs for ravioli and it's every bit as satisfying. It's the perfect version for dinner and honestly, the pasta is a lot easier than stressing over getting that egg perfectly runny. Serve it with some crusty bread for swiping in the sauce and you have the coziest weeknight dinner in about 30 minutes.

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Pad see ew is on everyone’s top 10 Thai dishes list, and after you give it a try, you’ll understand why. The combination of thinly sliced, wok-seared meat, Chinese broccoli, and the signature wide, chewy rice noodles will make this Southeast Asian specialty an instant favorite. It comes together just like any other stir-fry, starting with marinated protein, stir-frying the noodles and sauce, and ending with tossing it all together. For a full Thai feast, whip up a batch of green papaya salad or summer rolls.

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We’re big fans of one-pot pastas and French onion soup-flavored everything, so it was just a matter of time until we combined those two awesome things in one dish. At the heart of this dish are the caramelized onions. Two pounds of sliced onions might look like a lot, but they cook waaaayyyy down, and you want to make sure you have plenty of the jammy, deeply flavored onions to pair with your pasta. There’s no way around it, it does take time to caramelize the onions, but it’s also 100% worth it.

Get the One-Pot French Onion Pasta recipe.

This recipe is a bit of a riff on a pasta puttanesca, using familiar ingredients such as capers, anchovies, and olives. But instead of sitting over a pot of simmering tomato sauce, I used sun-dried tomatoes to form a paste that, when combined with pasta water, is transformed into a luscious sauce–and it’s all made in one pan!

Get the One-Pan Tuna Pasta recipe.

This dish has all the eggplant Parm flavors you love—including sliced rounds of tender eggplant, tangy marinara sauce, and plenty of cheese. Instead of breading each slice of eggplant, though, you'll top the entire skillet with panko bread crumbs, making it easy enough for a weeknight dinner.

Get the Skillet Eggplant Parm recipe.