Some nights the cooking is not the problem. The pile of pans afterwards is the problem.
Every dinner here cooks in a single vessel: a sheet pan, one pot or skillet, the slow cooker, or the Instant Pot. Nothing gets browned separately, nothing needs a second dish, and a good half of them go in before you leave the house and are waiting when you get back. They run from 0 to 7 points, and three of them cost nothing at all.
The full run of Weight Watchers dinner recipes is sorted by points, if you would rather start from a number than a pan.
They are ordered by what you cook them in, sheet pan first, then one pot and skillet, then the slow cooker, then the Instant Pot.
Sheet Pan Dinners
Everything goes on one tray and into the oven. Nothing is browned first, and the vegetables cook in what the meat gives off.
1. Greek Sheet Pan Chicken
Thin chicken cutlets, half-moons of zucchini, cherry tomatoes and thick rounds of red onion, all on one tray with oregano over everything. The banana pepper rings are the part people do not expect and then keep going back for.
It is the sheet pan dinner readers here cook most, and using cutlets rather than whole breasts means the chicken is done in the time the vegetables need.
2. Ham and Pineapple Sheet Pan Dinner
Mini potatoes and green beans roast underneath while pineapple rings and ham go on top, and a spoonful of brown sugar with the juice from the pineapple can glazes the whole tray as it cooks.
If you have ham left over from a holiday and have run out of sandwich ideas, this is where it goes.
3. One Pan Honey Mustard Chicken and Vegetables
Chicken breasts with carrots, green beans, red onion and small potatoes, all turned through honey mustard with a little paprika before the tray goes in.
The dressing is the whole trick here. It roasts onto the vegetables and does the job a separate sauce would have done, in a separate pan.
One Pot and Skillet Dinners
One pot or one skillet on the stove, start to finish. Nothing gets drained and nothing gets browned in a separate pan.
4. One-Pot Chicken Taco Mac and Cheese
Taco night and mac and cheese, settled in one pot. Ground chicken and peppers cook down with taco seasoning and a can of rotel, then the macaroni goes in dry and cooks in the broth and milk around it.
Nothing to drain, and the starch coming off the pasta thickens the sauce for you.
5. One Pot Mexican Chicken and Rice
Ground chicken, peppers, onion and rotel, with a packet of ready-made Mexican-style rice doing work that would otherwise be twenty minutes and a second pot.
This is a shortcut recipe and makes no secret of it. Some weeknights that is exactly the recipe you want.
6. One Pot Turkey Rigatoni
Ground turkey, peppers and Italian seasoning with a big can of diced tomatoes, and the rigatoni cooks straight in the sauce rather than in its own pan of water.
Turkey keeps it lighter than the beef version without changing what it is.
7. One Pot Chicken Creole
Chicken breast with red onion, green bell pepper, celery and tomatoes, and green chilis if you want the heat, which you probably do.
One of the three dinners here that costs nothing, and it does not taste like a dish built to hit that number.
Slow Cooker Dinners
These go in before you leave and are ready when you get back. The only work is filling the pot.
8. Crockpot Chicken and Dumplings With Canned Biscuits
Cubed chicken breast with carrots, celery and onion in cream of chicken soup and broth, seasoned with thyme, oregano and a bay leaf. The canned biscuits are the shortcut that turns dumplings into a weeknight proposition.
It is the most-read recipe in this collection by a distance, and it earns that.
9. Slow Cooker Chicken Stew
Cubed chicken with mini potatoes, baby carrots and red onion. The cream of chicken soup does the thickening, so there is no roux and no last-minute slurry to worry about.
Everything goes in at once in the morning. That is the whole method.
10. Crockpot Buffalo Chicken Mac and Cheese
Chicken breast slow-cooked in Frank’s hot sauce and broth, then pulled through whole wheat macaroni with milk, plain yogurt and light cream cheese.
Buffalo chicken is a bit of an obsession around here. This is its slow cooker form, and the yogurt keeps it creamy without a heavy sauce.
11. Crock Pot Rotisserie Chicken
A whole chicken and a dry rub of cajun seasoning, paprika, rosemary, sage and parsley, and then you leave it alone.
Cheaper than the one from the store, and it becomes the base for two or three other dinners that week.
12. Slow Cooker Tuscan Chicken Meatballs with Gnocchi
Ground chicken meatballs with parmesan and oregano, cooked in broth with chopped sun-dried tomatoes, and the gnocchi added late so it stays pillowy instead of dissolving into the sauce.
13. Slow Cooker Brisket with Homemade BBQ Sauce
The most substantial dinner here. Lean brisket under a rub of brown sugar, mustard powder, cumin and cajun seasoning, with a barbecue sauce built from pantry staples rather than poured from a bottle.
It costs the most points on this list and it feeds a table, which is usually the trade you are making.
14. Slow Cooker Whole Chicken
A whole chicken with the skin off and the fat trimmed, sitting on onions and carrots with oregano, thyme, paprika and mustard and lime juice rubbed over it.
Zero points, and a house that smells like Sunday. Start it on a morning when the day already looks long.
15. Foolproof Slow Cooker Turkey Breast
Turkey breast with a halved head of garlic, an onion and fresh rosemary in the pot, finished with smoked paprika and lime.
Turkey outside of November, and it slices well enough that the leftovers turn into lunches without any extra effort.
16. Crockpot Ranch Chicken
Chicken breasts with light cream cheese, a packet of ranch seasoning, mozzarella and crumbled bacon through it.
It shreds, which means one batch becomes wraps, a baked potato topping and a salad, and rarely stays one meal.
Instant Pot Dinners
For the nights you did not plan ahead. Pressure cooking brings these in at a fraction of the time the same dish needs in the oven or the slow cooker.
17. Chicken Pibil
Chicken marinated in achiote paste with bitter orange and lime, then cooked down with onion, tomatoes and red pepper.
Traditionally this is wrapped and buried in a fire pit for the best part of a day. The Instant Pot is a reasonable substitute on a Tuesday.
18. Healthy Instant Pot Carnitas
Pork loin rather than the usual fattier cut, trimmed and cooked in fresh orange juice instead of soda, with paprika, thyme and a little vinegar.
Those two swaps are what bring carnitas back onto a weeknight.
19. Instant Pot Stuffed Peppers
Bell peppers filled with lean ground beef, brown rice, carrots and onion, bound with tomato paste and cumin.
Stuffed peppers usually mean an hour of baking. These hold their shape, which is the part that normally goes wrong when you try to rush them.
20. Instant Pot Vegan Chili
Kidney beans and black beans with tomatoes, sweet corn, carrots and green pepper. The only meatless dinner on the list, and it does not read as the compromise option.
It freezes flat and reheats well, so this is the one to double.
