Dinner Tonight: 200 Quick Recipes for Inspired Weeknight Cooking

by America's Test Kitchen

Bold flavors meet time-saving tricks in 200 recipes (all ready in 45 minutes or less) that make weeknight dinners fun and stress-free.

When time is short and bellies are grumbling, America’s Test Kitchen’s streamlined guide to weeknight cooking meets you in the moment—with great meals that don’t require a ton of work and bring new flavors to the table. No matter your craving, you’ll find a dinner that fits the bill in under 45 minutes with easy cleanup. That could be chicken salad with a fantastic dressing (Yogurt-Tahini Chicken Salad with Preserved Lemon); umami-rich noodles (Chili Crisp Noodles); or a deeply comforting soup (Sausage and White Bean Soup).

Edited by Jack Bishop, TV cast member, tasting guru, and creator of the twice-weekly Dinner Tonight newsletter (which goes out to more than 1 million fans), this collection of 200 go-to recipes delivers plenty of ways to improve your weeknight

Fresh Ideas for Pantry Are you staring blankly at your pantry? These recipes give it new life (canned tuna = Spaghetti al Tonno; frozen peas = Beef Keema Matar).Modern Flavor Every recipe showcases a smart way to add flavor, like an Old Bay–spiked lemon compound butter that melts over salmon fillets and pools into a bowl of confetti grits; or pomegranate molasses that becomes a one-ingredient glaze for chicken.Flexible Got parsley but no cilantro? Ground turkey but no pork? These recipes indicate when swaps make sense.Riff on Recipes to Make New The sauce for Murgh Makhani (aka Butter Chicken) is so perfectly spiced, you’ll want to try it with tofu or chickpeas—we show you how.Comfort-Food Flavors in Low-Key Chicken Parmesan Meatballs, Meatball Bahn Mi (can you tell we love meatballs?), and Gochujang Chicken and Tortellini offer maximum appeal with minimal effort. And that’s just the beginning of what you’ll find.  
Need help deciding? Themed lists let you choose dinner based on your mood, the season, or what's on hand. There are even tips for scaling recipes for two. With 200 recipes plus ways to spin them, you’ve got more than a year of great ideas.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Nonfiction

432 pages, Hardcover

Published February 3, 2026

About the author

America's Test Kitchen, based in a brand new state-of-the-art 60,000 sq. ft. facility with over 15,000 sq. ft. of test kitchens and studio space, in Boston's Seaport District, is dedicated to finding the very best recipes for home cooks. Over 50 full-time (admittedly obsessive) test cooks spend their days testing recipes 30, 40, up to 100 times, tweaking every variable until they understand how and why recipes work. They also test cookware and supermarket ingredients so viewers can bypass marketing hype and buy the best quality products. As the home of Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country magazines, and publisher of more than one dozen cookbooks each year, America's Test Kitchen has earned the respect of the publishing industry, the culinary world, and millions of home cooks. America's Test Kitchen the television show launched in 2001, and the company added a second television program, Cook's Country, in 2008.

Discover, learn, and expand your cooking repertoire with Julia Collin Davison, Bridget Lancaster, Jack Bishop, Dan Souza, Lisa McManus, Tucker Shaw, Bryan Roof, and our fabulous team of test cooks!

Learn more at https://www.americastestkitchen.com/.

Reviews

[Leane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another winner from the consistently reliable America's Test Kitchen people. This one centers around making dinners with a variety of prep-times, yields, and ingredients with an array of cuisines highlighted. After a snappy Welcome and a Highly-Opinionated Guide to Weeknight Cooking, the recipes are each accompanied by color photography, clear lists of ingredients, relevant Notes, Kitchen Improv, and instructions. The meal-planning covers the spectrum from meat like chicken and beef, fish, veggies, beans, noodles, pasta, soups, stews, salads, and sandwiches. The authors also include interludes of Easy Side Dishes which I found even more valuable. The book concludes with an Index and Acknowledgements. There are also Nutritional Information and Conversion and Equivalency Charts. For all cooks—less to more experienced. So many wonderful meals to try. Readalikes may be Melissa Clark’s Dinner in One, Dan Buettner’s One Pot Meals, Ellie Krieger’s Whole in One, and Molly Gilbert's Sheet Pan Suppers, as well as the Test Kitchen’s previous cookbook, 2025’s The Sheet Pan.

[Danielle Booey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took several pictures of chicken, pasta, and soup recipes. I liked how the book was organized with a separate index for easy sheet pan dinners, skillet suppers, seasonal dishes, and when it’s too hot to cook.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Super excited for this one, these recipes look delicious!

[Melinda Keen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The noodles section in this is just oh so delicious!!!