Our recipe planner makes even a simple Tuesday night meal special.

“What’s for dinner?” Is there another question you hear or ask on a daily basis that creates as much anxiety? Whether it’s a meal that’s been around for generations in the family, a post-practice football team, or dinner for one or two, arriving at the answer takes some work. You should go through your fridge to figure out what leftovers might be hiding behind the mustard; search your cupboards for rice, pasta or grains to form the base of the meal; and learn how to put it all together to suit the tastes of everyone at the table. It’s a seemingly impossible task, but we do it every night.

But you deserve better than the combination of stressful and boring. At Food & Wine, we believe every meal deserves to be full of flavor and every cook deserves a break. This means relying on easy dinners that come together in minutes, no mess, and leaning on the jars and canned ingredients you have on hand. Use this collection of easy weeknight dinners as your guide, and even Tuesday night dinner can be something special.

We rely on the pantry to pull out pasta dishes to remember. Jars of capers and olives, cans of tomatoes and chickpeas, and cans of anchovies and sardines become flavor-packed powerhouses when mixed with noodles, a dollop of Parmesan cheese, and some pepper.

One of the rules of a successful weeknight dinner is to not create a sink full of dirty pots and pans to deal with later. This is when we need sheet pan dinners to cook everything at once, and curries, pastas, and skillet dishes simmering together in one pan.

Some nights the most important thing about dinner is that it needs to be on the table before you give up and eat cheese and crackers. This is the time when an easy meal ready to eat in 30 minutes is essential for our stomach and peace of mind after a day of long meetings and maddening travel.

Vegetarian options make it easy to skip a trip to the store when preparing hearty, filling meals that call for frozen and fresh veggies and pantry ingredients to do the heavy lifting.

Weeknight dinners don’t have to be fancy or pretentious. But with recipes like these, not only are they better than a quick sandwich or a buttery bowl of pasta, they also give you the chance to cook and sit down with the people you care about. You can take a moment to connect, share stories about your day, or talk about anything other than what happened before, and maybe even plan something fun for the weekend. In the hustle and bustle of daily life, those little moments are the most important.