Hi, and welcome to Five Weeknight Dishes, recipes for busy people who still want something good to eat. So Melissa Clark, one of our weeknight-cooking queens, has a new recipe in her column this week for lentil soup. And look, it sounds great. Her recipes are great! But I didn’t want to let this moment pass without paying tribute to an old friend: Melissa’s red lentil soup, which deserves a Lifetime Achievement Award for its tireless work converting people into lentil-soup lovers. I made it over the weekend and was reminded of how wonderful it is, especially if you let it sit in the fridge for a day.
More on this below. And, as always, send me your feedback, ideas and kitchen dilemmas at dearemily@nytimes.com.
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Here are five recipes for the week:
An easy weeknight dinner: chicken breast cooked with lemons and herbs. CreditDavid Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Prop Stylist: Paige Hicks.
1. Weeknight Lemon Chicken Breasts With Herbs
This recipe was made for us, our little weeknight tribe. It’s one of those delightfully easy deals where you could set up the chicken in the marinade in the morning, or do it as soon as you walk in the door in the evening, about an hour before it’s time to get serious about dinner. I’m not really a morning person, so you know what I’ll be doing. Serve with parsleyed noodles and stovetop-braised carrots (there’s a good method here) or some string beans.
2. Sausage and Peppers Pasta With Broccoli
A great idea, and one that works for kids (use sweet sausage), adults who have kid tastes (be proud! It’s all good!) or relative sophisticates (swap out the broccoli for broccoli rabe). I’d do mine with spicy sausage. There’s no pressing need for extra vegetables, but a green salad on the side would be a nice touch.
View this recipe in your weekly plan.
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4. Fried Eggs With Garlicky Green Rice
This recipe combines two of my favorite weeknight genres: eggs for dinner and the veg-heavy rice bowl. This is an easy way to have a riotously colorful dinner, with many different flavors and textures. You can also steal the green-rice method for other recipes — and yes, cauliflower rice could stand in for the real thing. Just be sure to let the greens wilt a bit and the garlic cook in the steam, or go ahead and cook them separately and stir it all together.
View this recipe in your weekly plan.
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Here is that superb soup. It’s enough for a light dinner if you serve it with a stack of delicious, thick toast and a substantial salad, something with cheese or avocado, maybe nuts. I always double the recipe. You will want more.
