Family Dinner Wins: 5 Easy, Back-Pocket Meals That Save Us From Takeout

Sometimes the best family recipes are not the ones handed down over the generations—the brisket your grandmother used to fuss over for hours, the potato salad your uncle always brings to the summer reunion. Sometimes the best family recipes are the ones you invented on the fly—maybe (read: definitely) on a night when you got home late and the kids were cranky and you hadn't planned dinner and you threw something simple and ingenious together without even thinking about it.

In my house that recipe is a sheet-pan sausage dinner, a mix of sweet and hot sausages, chopped potatoes, and cabbage wedges that turned out to be so easy and fast we've made it over and over again for years. Sometimes we swap out the cabbage for kale, or drizzle the whole thing with a vinaigrette. Almost always we add a side of frozen peas—if my kids won't eat the greens, they'll definitely eat those.

These are the kinds of dinners we refer to as a "family dinner win." FDWs are fast and simple, but they're never boring. And most importantly, they make every member of the family happy.

Almost all of us have FDWs. Sometimes they feel too simple or obvious to even talk about, but they're not. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that FDWs are the backbone of weeknight cooking. So I asked a few of our favorite food writers to share the FDWs their own families love. Here's what they had to say:

Samantha Seneviratne's Caramelized Onion Pasta

At exactly 5:30 p.m. my sweet and loving toddler starts his Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde routine, vacillating between crying and hysterically giggling in 45-second increments. Both creepy and hilarious, it’s a sure sign that food should be applied liberally. Most of the time I have a freezer full of emergency pint containers for when the fridge is empty. I make extra beans, rice, meat sauce, and soup as often as I can so that all I have to do is defrost a block of something in the microwave, and the beast is tamed. But sometimes, after a particularly grueling work week, the freezer is bare. That’s when I turn to my trusty caramelized onion pasta.

Caramelizing sliced onions in a little butter and olive oil turns them into something exponentially more wonderful. They become sweet and yielding, almost luscious. Pasta water and Parmesan do double duty, adding salt and depth while turning the whole tangle into a creamy sauce. If I’m feeling fancy I might throw in a couple of handfuls of cherry tomatoes, herbs, hot pepper flakes, or some oil-packed tuna. Or, I throw in any leftovers or old veggies that need a final resting place. Stale bread can make buttery breadcrumbs that add excellent crunch.

But really, the only thing this dish needs is time. It takes about 30 minutes to transform the onions, but it's mostly hands-off work. And while I shouldn't advise you to walk away from your stove, the reality is I do it all the time. I keep the flame low, stirring very occasionally, and take those minutes to tidy up the living room or even give my little monster a super-quick bath. It’s not a perfect system but it works. And it’s always delicious. -SS

Caramelized Onion Pasta

Samantha Seneviratne is the author of Gluten-Free for Good and the James Beard-nominated The New Sugar and Spice.

Carla Lalli Music's Skirt Steak With Spicy Coconut Dressing

This recipe, which is adapted from my cookbook, Where Cooking Begins, is exceptionally weeknight-friendly—it goes from start to finish in less than an hour—and fully adaptable depending on the tastes of your family. At its core, this is a pairing of a quick-cooking protein and a crunchy salad, with a dressing built on pantry items. You can use skirt steak, flank steak, thin-cut pork chops, skinless, boneless chicken thighs, or a fish fillet, such as skin-on salmon, red snapper, or striped bass. In place of iceberg, you can substitute savoy cabbage, romaine hearts, or sliced cucumbers—so just use what you happen to have or whatever is in season.

One key: Don’t shake the can of coconut milk before opening it—you’ll use the layer of cream on top as the fat for the sweet-and-spicy dressing, which is mellowed by the cooling iceberg lettuce, rich avocado, and marbled cut of steak. Transfer the unused coconut milk to a clean jar and refrigerate it for making soup or a curry (it will hold for several days). -CLM

Skirt Steak with Spicy Coconut Dressing

Carla Lalli Music is the food director for Bon Appétit and the author of Where Cooking Begins.

Tara O'Brady's Sesame Pork Burgers

My sons are reasonably broad-minded when it comes to what they eat. (I’m still trying to convince them on mushrooms, though.) That said, if I ask for a dinner suggestion, I’d bet money their answer will be burgers.

In response to their request one night, I came up with these pork burgers. I had the ground pork in the fridge already, and I was in the mood for punchy, zingy-fresh vegetables—which seemed like it would go really well against sizzling, crusty meat. Scrounging around the refrigerator, I collected ingredients that were generally southeast Asian, without faith to any one cuisine. A quarter of a cabbage leftover from another day came out, too.

My plan was simple: skinny patties made interesting with garlic and cilantro. Drops of sesame oil and fish sauce to bring richness and a deep saltiness, respectively. In went a spoon of sambal oelek—an Indonesian hot sauce with a fresh, bright chile flavor—adding color and the barest spark of warmth. My younger son has a thing for the creamy sauce served with the fried shrimp at our favorite Japanese place; it became the inspiration for a simple coleslaw.

Truth be told, the recipe is full of shortcuts and ample opportunity for swaps. I don’t measure the cilantro—I just use a handful—and sometimes I swap it out for basil, or use both. I make the slaw in the bowl I serve it in, to cut down on clean-up. The sweet and spicy mayo dresses both the slaw and the burgers, and any extra becomes a dip for the (frozen) sweet potato fries I serve alongside.

This is how it usually goes; I season the ground pork. My husband babysits the fries in the oven. One son toasts the English muffins, while the other sets the table. I might put one in charge of the mayo sauce, too. Husband tosses the slaw while I fry the pork. We assemble. We eat. We're happy. -TO'B

Sesame Pork Burgers with Sweet and Spicy Slaw

Tara O'Brady is the author of Seven Spoons.

Sarah Copeland's Cheesy Loaded Sweet Potatoes

My kids are pretty good eaters, but like all growing people, they sometimes go through picky phases. Without fail, the food that gets us back on track are sweet potatoes, steamed and mashed with butter and salt. Steaming offers the benefit of being fast, and yields creamy, soft interiors with a moist skin that's tender enough to eat. My crew thinks they’re getting a treat, and I’m off the hook for any fancy prep work.

But a simple sweet potato isn’t quite a meal for grown-ups, so I win the best reviews all around when I steam them, split them in half, cover them with shredded cheese, and crisp them under the broiler. The result is a hybrid between a potato skin and a taco—with equal crowd appeal.

The best part is the toppings, which you can put out on the table so everyone can customize their own plate. The kids usually stick with cheese, sour cream, and avocado, while grown-ups load up with shaved radish, scallions, and pickled onions.

The second-to-best part? I can have everyone sitting down to a feast they adore in 30 minutes, with little more than a pot and a cookie sheet to clean up on the other end. -SC

Cheesy Loaded Sweet Potatoes

Sarah Copeland is the author of Every Day Is Saturday and The Newlywed Cookbook.

Chris Morroco's Cashew Chicken

A lot of my family's favorite meals start with one of us putting a pot of rice up in the rice cooker and then figuring out something to serve with it. And this simple riff on cashew chicken from Test Kitchen senior food editor Chris Morocco is one of those recipes you can make time and time again without getting bored. Your kids don't like string beans? Try snap peas. Red onions a no-go? Leave them out—or do as Chris does and just serve your kids the chicken and green beans along with a scoop of rice and keep the onions for the grown-ups.

The recipe includes a couple of tricks that streamline the cooking time. Instead of adding a cornstarch slurry to the dish with the sauce, Chris coats the chicken in cornstarch before stir-frying, which helps thicken the sauce and gives the chicken a golden crust. The addition of oyster sauce gives the stir-fry richer flavor and also adds body to the sauce, but if you don’t feel like making a special trip for it, you can just use 2 tablespoons water instead of the 1 tablespoon already called for in the recipe. -AH

Cashew Chicken

Chris Morocco is the senior food editor at Bon Appétit.