21 Best Friday Night Dinner Ideas
on Sep 24, 2023
Every Friday in our house, someone has a different craving. One kid wants noodles. The other wants something cheesy. I want whatever uses the fewest dishes. This list exists because of that exact standoff.
Some of these take 15 minutes. A few have been in the slow cooker since morning. One involves Fritos in a casserole dish and I have zero regrets. If I had to pick just one to make tonight, it’d be the Mississippi Roast. Ten minutes of prep in the morning and dinner handles itself.
Asian Weeknight Dinners
The cabbage cooks down fast. It gets soft and a little sweet at the edges in a sauce that’s savory and faintly tangy. 20 minutes start to finish. I make this at least 2x a month, sometimes more when I’ve forgotten to plan anything else.
Slice the beef before you do anything else. (I know. I still forget sometimes. You can tell. The beef comes out grey instead of brown.) High heat, no crowding, beef sliced thin. That’s the whole formula. 15 minutes if you set yourself up right.
Super Easy Chinese Rice Cooker Fried Rice
Everything goes into the rice cooker. That’s it. I was skeptical the first time. But it actually tastes like fried rice cooked in a wok. Not the sad, clumpy version you’d expect from a rice cooker. I keep the ingredients stocked just for Fridays when I have nothing planned.
The glaze goes thick and glossy in the pan. It coats the chicken in a way that bottled teriyaki sauce never quite does. Rice underneath. Dinner on the table in 15 minutes. My kids ask for this almost every week and I never argue.
These dried glass noodles cost less than $5 a bag and last forever in the pantry. Soak them briefly and toss into a stir-fry. They go slippery and slightly chewy in a way that’s nothing like regular noodles. Every time I make this, someone at the table asks what they are. Not the prettiest dish I make. Might be my favorite one in this section anyway.
Slow Cooker & Comfort Stews
Ultimate Crockpot Mississippi Roast
The ingredient list sounds like a dare. Pepperoncini, ranch packet, butter, pot roast. I raised my eyebrows the first time too. But after 8 hours in the slow cooker, it turns into something fork-tender and tangy. There’s a rich, buttery sauce you end up pouring over everything on the plate. 10 minutes of morning prep. I’ve recommended this to more people than any other recipe on the site.
Dump it in and walk away. The pork should cooks slowly in the crock pot until it falls apart. It’s flavorful enough on its own that you don’t need a sauce. I always cook extra because the leftovers become tacos the next day. One Friday cook that handles Saturday lunch too.
Easy Bisquick Chicken and Dumplings
This isn’t a slow cooker recipe. But it belongs here because it has the same energy. One pot, no fuss, warm enough to fix a bad week. The dumplings use Bisquick so they come together in minutes. No scratch dough. No waiting. When it’s cold and the week has been rough, this is the bowl I want.
Baked & Air Fryer Mains
Baked Chicken Breast With Rib Meat
Most baked chicken breast recipes dry out. That’s because they use boneless, skinless breast with nothing to keep it moist. The rib portion fixes that. That small strip of meat along the bottom has enough fat to keep things juicy all the way through. If you’ve given up on baked chicken, try it once with the rib meat still on.
Easy Air Fryer Ribs with Barbecue Sauce
I was skeptical. Ribs in an air fryer? But they come out with actual bark. A little crust on the outside, pulls clean from the bone, coated in sticky barbecue sauce. Not fall-off-the-bone (which, unpopular opinion, just means overcooked). If you’ve got an air fryer, this is worth your Friday.
Pork ribeye is the cut I wish more people knew about. It’s marbled like a good steak and cooks fast. The sweet glaze goes almost lacquered in the pan. Sticky at the edges, a little charred. Nothing like what you’d expect from a 20-minute chop. About 20 minutes, pantry ingredients.
Under 15 minutes. Crispy on top, flaky all the way through. The broiler does everything. Just don’t walk away. Broilers go from perfect to burnt in about 90 seconds. I’ve ruined at least 2 fillets by wandering off to check my phone.
Crispy Oven Baked Chicken Fillet (Lemon Garlic Parmesan)
The coating is lemon, garlic, and parmesan. It gets crispy in the oven. Not oven-crispy (which usually just means slightly soft). My daughter asked if we could have this for her birthday dinner the first time I made it. We’ve made it probably 20 times since.
Takeaway-Inspired Night
Soft, almost focaccia-like base. Bright red sauce. That specific cheese pull from the cafeteria. My kids didn’t believe I could make it at home. Then they tasted it and it became a standing Friday request. It hits a nostalgia button I didn’t know existed.
Fritos on the bottom, chili and cheese baked on top. And somehow the Fritos stay crispy. (I don’t understand the physics of this. I’ve stopped questioning it.) About 30 minutes. Looks chaotic on paper. Absolutely delivers at the table.
Fritos, ground beef, chili beans, cheese. Baked together. That’s the whole recipe. Unapologetically Tex-Mex. Completely satisfying. Some Fridays dinner should be this easy. This is the one I make when I want that.
Comfort Classics
Bobby Flay Salisbury Steak (With Mushroom Gravy)
The mushroom gravy is the reason to make this. Rich and deeply savory. It pools around the patties and soaks into whatever you put underneath: mashed potatoes, egg noodles, plain white rice. Salisbury steak stopped getting taken seriously somewhere around 1987. That’s a mistake this recipe corrects.
Gigi Hadid Pasta (TikTok Spicy Pasta)
I went in fully expecting to be unimpressed. A celebrity pasta recipe that went viral on TikTok — how good could it actually be? Turns out: very. The tomato cream sauce has heat that builds slowly. A richness that a 20-minute pasta has no right to. I’ve made it probably 8 times now and I’m still a little annoyed at how good it is.
Olive Garden Chicken and Shrimp Carbonara (Copycat)
Carbonara-style sauce with both chicken and shrimp. It clings properly instead of pooling at the bottom of the bowl. The homemade version is better than the restaurant’s for one reason: you control the portion. The Olive Garden version is enormous in a way that stops being fun about halfway through. This one is just dinner.
Quick and Easy Pepper Steak And Rice
Rice is already in the dish. No side, no second pot, no decisions about what starch goes with flank steak and bell peppers. Everything cooks together in one pan. On the table in under 30 minutes. This is the recipe I go to when I want dinner done with no thinking involved.
Golden thighs, mushrooms, artichokes, wine cream sauce. It takes 35 minutes and the pan looks like you spent twice that. I make it when the week has been long enough that I want dinner to feel like it counts.
What I’ve Learned About Friday Dinners
The slow cooker only works if I actually use it. I’d plan to start something in the morning, completely forget until 4pm, and end up ordering pizza. Now I set an 8am alarm every Friday. Not elegant. But the Mississippi Roast at 6pm makes it worth it every time.
For stir-fries: slice everything before the pan goes on. I know. I’ve heard it a hundred times. I still skip it sometimes. I always end up with steamed grey beef instead of seared brown beef and I always know exactly why. Do the prep first.
And keep these 4 things stocked: bean thread noodles, stir-fry sauce, Fritos, Bisquick. With those on the shelf, you always have a Friday dinner that’s faster than waiting for delivery.
