We’ve teamed up with HelloFresh to make your weeknights a little sweeter. Sign up for the meal kit service now through May and get free desserts for life (really!). Enter code FOOD52 at checkout. (Note: One free dessert per box while subscription is active.)
Most chefs know that the best way to guarantee home-cooked dinners is to plan a menu for the week in advance. In reality, however, I often go to the market with just a few ideas and consider a menu while staring at the meat counter or browsing through the fruit and vegetable cases. This is a risky business because it can result in my kids finding meals boring (fried chicken again?) and a few stray ingredients looking for a home (Oh hello eggplant! Remind me what I’m talking to you about had in mind?). As for dessert – it can’t be cooked even during the week unless it’s in the freezer section.
But sometimes I do Do I also want to pull out all the stops on a Monday evening. Maybe we have a birthday to celebrate, or I’ve invited friends over for dinner on a Friday and am at a loss for the perfect dessert to end the evening. The tyranny of choice is real—to make weeknight cooking more inspiring and thoughtful, I’ve put together a cheat sheet for five easy dinner and dessert pairings—including menu inspiration from a huge time saver, HelloFresh.
You can skip all the planning, shopping, prep, and even baking with meal kit service that delivers everything you need for a week of amazing food. Given their selection of over 45 rotating recipes to choose from each week, as well as their ready-to-serve desserts from HelloFresh Market that you can get for free for life (yes, you read that right – read on for the details!), I I offered a little help choosing the perfect treats.
The following menus are so flexible that you can replace them with your own favorite recipes or HelloFresh meals. Each of them gives you a formula to follow when you want a special weeknight meal at home that answers the all-important question: What’s for dessert?
Monday: One-Pot Chicken Sausage Kale Soup and Chocolate Pound Cake
The convenience of having everything you need for a week’s worth of farm-fresh, inventive meals delivered, along with HelloFresh Market’s ready-to-serve desserts, means more time for yourself and the loved ones you host. Their One-Pot Chicken Sausage & Green Soup, for example, is a hearty, heartwarming soup that comes together in 35 minutes. Pair it with their decadent Chocolate Pound Cake (like most of HelloFresh Market’s desserts here, you just need to let it come to room temperature – no baking necessary!).
You can also start the week with a soup as your main dish, which makes a few leftover lunches like this award-winning minestrone. It’s overflowing with hardy produce and staples like fresh kale, potatoes, carrots, and chickpeas, and can easily go vegetarian if you replace the bacon with a zest of Parmesan cheese. While it’s simmering on the stove, your tiger cake—a divine one-bowl marble cake—can finish baking and be ready in time for dessert, leaving extra pieces left over to snack on during the week.
Photo by Bobbi Lin
Tuesday: Crispy Kickin’ Cayenne Chicken & Chocolate Hazelnut Cheesecake
Skip the grocery shopping, baking, and refrigeration time with this easy dinner and dessert from HelloFresh. The Buffalo Wing-inspired Crispy Kickin’ Cayenne Chicken takes just 30 minutes from stove to table and the Chocolate Hazelnut Cheesecake is a creamy treat that will cool your taste buds.
A longer, yet easy way to make dinner, this sheet pan chicken with broccoli and chickpeas requires less than an hour of oven time. Make sure you bake these mini cheesecakes before putting them in the oven. (Anyone can top it with fresh fruit, caramel, or chocolate as they like, and there will be some left over to grab from the fridge the next night.)
Wednesday: Garlic steak bowls with tomato cuke salad and chokeberry blossoms
In my family there is no bigger crowd pleaser than steak, a true special occasion dinner in my opinion. These garlic steak bowls with tomato cuke salad are a tasty twist on steak night that take a total cooking time of 20 minutes. Serve with HelloFresh Market’s Apple Berry Blossoms, delicate puff pastry filled with baked apples and berries that you simply warm up and serve.
If you’re starting from scratch at home, toss a salad, sear, and then fry these New York strip steaks. Your oven is now ready for this apple chip to start bubbling. I love this one from Alice Medrich because of the surprising brightness that orange peel and apricots bring – and because you don’t even have to peel the apples.
Thursday: Chicken Sausage Rigatoni and White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake
It’s Thursday, your energy is flagging, so let’s not go crazy tonight. HelloFresh’s Chicken Sausage Rigatoni is smothered in a creamy, cheesy pink sauce and takes just a fraction of the time to make as any homemade sauce. For dessert, simply grab the White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake from the fridge for a spicy-sweet treat.
Another idea: Mix your favorite pasta with a popular four-ingredient red sauce – Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce with onions and butter. Afterwards there is an absolutely simple dessert: a pudding-like lemon puree. Simply bring the cream and sugar to the boil, add lemon juice, chill for two hours, et voilà.
Friday: Pan-seared scallops and peanut butter lava cake
Have you made it to Friday and haven’t ordered a single time? That calls for a celebration in itself. HelloFresh’s decadent pan-seared scallop lemon butter sauce couldn’t be easier to make (35 minutes from start to finish). End the evening with a retro dessert that everyone loves. Your rich peanut butter lava cake only takes 30 seconds to get gooey with melted peanut butter.
A similar combination you can quickly make at home: Miso Mustard Scallops with Sugar Snap Peas and Clementine Lava Cake. You can easily halve the recipe – or reward yourself with two extra on the weekend.
What are your favorite dinner and dessert combinations? Tell us in the comments below!
The Free Dessert for Life offer is only available to new customers with qualified auto-renewing subscription purchases. The “Get 16 Free Meals” offer is based on a total discount applied to a 2-person, 3-recipe subscription over 9 weeks. Discount varies for other meal plans and sizes. The Free Dessert for Life offer is based on a limit of one free dessert item added to each plan for as long as a customer remains active; If the subscription is canceled, this offer will no longer be valid and will not be reinstated upon reactivation. A flat shipping fee applies to all deliveries after the first box. Not valid on rewards, meal upgrades, surcharges, taxes or shipping charges. May not be combined with gift cards or other promotions. No monetary value. Void outside the United States and where prohibited. The offer cannot be sold or otherwise exchanged. HelloFresh has the right to terminate or change any offer at any time. Additional restrictions may apply. For more information, visit https://www.hellofresh.com/termsandconditions.