You love your husband and you would like to surprise him with a manly, decent, and EASY dinner? You mastered low-calorie, vegan recipes, but suck at making meat? Do you run out of easy dinner ideas on what to make your husband for lunch? I am coming to rescue you!
Because let’s be honest, sometimes we want to cook something nice for our husbands, but we don’t know what to make. That’s the worst part about cooking. Coming up with what to cook. Especially when you just want to celebrate, make something special, or just surprise your husband.
So, no more talking, let’s go straight into cooking! Below you can find easy dinner ideas for manly dishes that any man will love.
1. Easy Dinner Ideas – a Classic, Ribs!
You can never go wrong with ribs. They seem like a gourmet dish that only Gordon Ramsay can prepare, but it is just an illusion. It is enough to spice the meat with salt, pepper, and paprika and to give it a twist, with some honey (you don’t even need to cut the meat into smaller pieces – your hubby is a big man, and he can handle it), put some oil, wrap it in aluminum foil and throw it into the oven. Make sure to buy the ribs from a good source – you can read more about why you should do this here.
You can serve it with BBQ sauce orrrr you basically with anything you want. If you want to know how to prepare a perfect homemade BBQ sauce for the ribs, check out this recipe.
The best part about ribs is that they basically make themselves. You just need to prepare them, throw them into the oven and you can chill out. I guess we can count this one not only into the pile of easy dinner ideas but also not effortless ones.
Serve it with classic mashed potatoes, and a Coleslaw salad, and there you go, a restaurant-worthy meal.
2. Lasagne… lazagne? Lasagnee?
You know what I mean haha Maybe traditional lasa-whatever is not the quickest to make, but you can use my modification – fry some ground meat, for example, turkey, with garlic and onion, some olive oil – you know, to give it at least some Italian authenticity. I make the sauce by just adding spices to tomato passata – I layer the pasta (you can buy the kind that does not need to be boiled beforehand), sauce, meat, and so on. If I have some extra time, I make a bechamel sauce on top, but that’s not needed. It’s easy, quick and satisfying.
We stopped drinking alcohol and associating glasses of wine with romantic dinners, that’s why we resigned from the perfect match; Italian dish + red wine, but I am not judging – if you like wine, making a simplified version of lasagna and serving it with good wine can elevate a casual dinner into a romantic meal.
I get that this no-brain version of such a classic dish can make Italians faint, but let’s be honest. We don’t have time and energy every day to cook for long hours and enjoy the process. Of course, once in a while it is healthy to celerte cooking and respect its tradition, but in daily busy life shortcuts and acceptable.
3. Easy Dinner Ideas – Simplified Omelet
No matter how much I love French ones, this American modification is way easier! French omelet is definitely a fancy dinner idea – and I know you’re here for easy dinner ideas! The omelette I usually make for my husband contains eggs, good-quality ham, mushrooms, and cheese but you can put on it anything you want! I do not care that this is a rather breakfast-type dish, whenever you are in a hurry omelets also work for dinner.
The good news is, that you can play around with it – add different spices, different toppings, etc. I am not near MasterChef level in the kitchen, so probably my technique of making it will make those of you who cook professionally faint, but hey, this article is about EASY dinner ideas, not PRO ideas, right? 😉 I simply whisk a few eggs, put them on the hot pan with oil, wait a little bit, and then comes the worst part – flipping! The comforting thing is, whenever flipping goes wrong you can always pretend that you were aiming at making scrambled eggs.
Believe me, your husband will be super content with a simplified omelet because it is a great source of protein. As all men love protein. So if you want to win his heart and make his muscles happy, start whisking these eggs! No better and quicker way to make a dinner that pleases a man than a simplified omelet.
4. Mexican soup
This recipe comes from my mum and it is so simple and easy! Fry ground meat with garlic and onion, pour tomatoes from a can, add pepper, red beans, and corn, and spice it however you want to. The proportion DOES NOT matter – I always add extra corn, because my husband loves corn, but you can add or remove basically anything. It is also a perfect dish when your husband is having boys coming over and you do not have one man to feed but 10!
Fun fact about this soup – it can also be a dip if you want it to. My husband just dips nachos in it, because why not? So it is two in one – one-filling soup and a satisfying snack.
And I just love that it is so simple – throwing everything into one pot and simply waiting. One can literally multitask cooking it and let’s say read a book at the same time. And who said that cooking is overwhelming? 😉
5. Super Easy Dinner Ideas – Baked Nuggets
You might roll your eyes, but they are not much different in flavor than the fried ones. You know what’s the secret? Cornflakes instead of breadcrumbs. It takes me 8 minutes to cut them, roll them in flour, whisk eggs with salt and pepper, and ground cornflakes, also with some salt and pepper. I just throw them into the oven and they are baking themselves. Super easy!
I mean, everybody loves nuggets! But not everybody loves standing for hours and paying attention so they do not get burned in the oil. Baking is not only a healthier option, but simply saves so much time that you can use to do better things like… I don’t know, reading my post on how to be a better wife? 😀 Or, watching Bridgerton on Netflix, is also a good idea.
As homemakers, we want to do everything to feed our family healthy way. But do not be mistaken – it does not have to take a bunch of time and money. Simple choices like this one – baking instead of frying – already make a big difference.
6. Easy dinner ideas that can be a snack – Nachos with cheese
One of my favorite easy dinner ideas is nachos. Nachos for dinner?! Uhm, yes? Just again, some meat (I usually add fried ground turkey), tomato sauce out of passata, cheese on top, and bake it a few mins till the cheese melts. That’s the best homemade fast food ever!
Funny enough, first time we ate it in a fancy American restaurant. My husband loved it and asked me if I could recreate this dish. Turned out to be SO simple, that I just want to laugh at the amount of money we spent on our date. But that’s the secret! You know it’s easy and simple, but your husband does not, so he thinks that you are a MasterChef whenever you make him this “gourmet” dinner.
Sometimes you can cheat a little bit and pretend the dish you’ve made was hard to prepare to impress him 😉 It’s just a small half-truth you know.
7. Pancakes
I know, there is a general tendency for men to prefer decent, salty dishes, and usually, the women are the ones with a sweet tooth. But honestly, I do not know a guy who would say no to protein pancakes! If a man hears “protein”, he’s all in. As my husband always says “Muscles don’t grow on trees!”. You simply need to add some of his gym protein powder to the flour or the pancakes mix (I live in Europe so we make pancakes like pagans, from 0, but I heard that in America people can just buy a ready mix, wow, this country is like another planet!).
Serve with jam or peanut butter (more protein!). Your sweet tooth will be satisfied, and his need to eat unimaginable amounts of protein will be too. Win-win, isn’t it?
So this is it, my go-to simple and quick dinner ideas when I want to cook something that will make my husband happy. It seems funny, but food can do so much. Sometimes a good meal can solve the worst argument 😉
Cooking meals for our big boys can be a challenge. Finding easy dinner ideas for them is even more challenging! But I do hope my 7 tested meals will be useful. Which one will you try first? 🙂
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