Love means never having to spend hours cooking a special meal.
Whether you’re celebrating Valentine’s Day with your partner, with your friends or by yourself, these recipes will help make the day special without a full day spent in the kitchen. These dishes don’t require tons of ingredients, and most come together in under an hour.
View our full collection of Valentine’s Day recipes.
1. French Onion Grilled Cheese
Nothing says “I love you” like a grilled cheese sandwich stuffed with melty Gruyère and caramelized onions. This recipe from Ali Slagle has more than 2,000 five-star reviews, so it’s a guaranteed home run. (Tip: Have breath mints handy.)
Recipe: French Onion Grilled Cheese
2. Strawberry Spoon Cake
This easy no-mixer cake from Jerrelle Guy can be made with fresh or frozen strawberries (or any berry, really). Just be sure to defrost frozen berries in the microwave first. Serve it with whipped cream or the best vanilla ice cream you can get your hands on — or both.
Recipe: Strawberry Spoon Cake
3. Caramelized Cabbage and Walnut Pasta
The unassuming cabbage gets the star treatment in this hearty vegetarian pasta from Hetty McKinnon. Cabbage and leeks are cooked until jammy, sweet and silky, then tossed with crunchy toasted walnuts. Finish the dish with fresh chives or scallions for a contrasting brightness.
Recipe: Caramelized Cabbage and Walnut Pasta
4. Sheet-Pan Baked Feta With Broccolini, Tomatoes and Lemon
This vibrant vegetarian sheet-pan dinner from Yasmin Fahr is just as beautiful as a bouquet of flowers, but infinitely more satisfying. If you like, use broccoli instead of broccolini, and serve the whole mess over a pile of chewy farro.
Sarah DiGregorio’s Ritz-cracker-crusted cod is for those of us who long for the crunchy fish sticks of their youth. (We still like those, too, but for Valentine’s Day, we’re going to level up.) Pair it with a crunchy green salad dressed with a tangy vinaigrette.
Recipe: Baked Cod With Buttery Cracker Topping
6. Classic Cheese Fondue
Perfect for celebrating with your Galentines or your family, this velvety fondue from Melissa Clark is a welcome excuse to pull out that 1970s fondue set you inherited from your Aunt Charlene. It’s endlessly adaptable, too: Sub in Cheddar, raclette or Monterey Jack for the Gruyère and Emmenthaler.
Recipe: Classic Cheese Fondue
7. Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
Erin Jeanne McDowell’s gluten-free version of Jacques Torres’s famous chocolate chip cookie is made with almond flour instead of all-purpose. “Family declared this the best chocolate chip cookie ever,” one reader wrote. (There’s a vegan version, too.)
Recipes: Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies | Chocolate Chip Cookies | Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
8. Gochugaru Salmon With Crispy Rice
“Holy moly, this is literally one of the top 10 best things I have ever cooked!” wrote one reader about this 20-minute dish from Eric Kim. Pan-seared salmon is slicked with a garnet-colored glaze made with gochugaru, or Korean red-pepper powder, maple syrup, vinegar and butter, and served alongside crispy rice that’s made in the same pan. You get bonus points for the cucumber curls, but cucumbers sliced simply would be great, too.
Recipe: Gochugaru Salmon With Crispy Rice
9. Lemony Shrimp and Bean Stew
Readers adore Sue Li’s 30-minute lemony white bean and shrimp stew for its simplicity and adaptability. If you like, add another can of beans, serve it over pasta or use shallots in place of leeks to speed up the prep.
Recipe: Lemony Shrimp and Bean Stew
10. Honey-Glazed Chicken and Shallots
If you’re a romantic with a penchant for puns, you might get a kick out of making this honey-glazed chicken from Yewande Komolafe for your honey this Valentine’s Day. It is, all at once, sweet and slightly spicy. Serve it over grains or alongside a tangle of greens.
Recipe: Honey-Glazed Chicken and Shallots
11. Cast-Iron Steak
Forget everything you’ve learned about cooking steak. In this recipe, Julia Moskin calls for buying boneless, not-too-thick cuts, drying them well, and searing them in an “insanely hot” cast-iron pan. Then, you salt the pan, not the steak, and instead of leaving it alone as is traditionally suggested, you flip it often.
Recipe: Cast-Iron Steak
12. Chocolate-Bourbon Truffles
Skip the socially distanced shopping experience at the fancy chocolate store, and make your own box-worthy treats instead. David Tanis’s recipe is easy to follow and fun to customize.
Recipe: Chocolate Bourbon Truffles
13. Creamy Pan-Roasted Scallops With Fresh Tomatoes
This Melissa Clark recipe was inspired by a classic dish at Grand Central Oyster Bar in New York, an old-school place with spectacular tiled archways, excellent seafood and great martinis. Tender scallops are poached in a creamy tomato sauce that’s seasoned with Worcestershire and celery seed. Serve it over buttery rice or (and?) with good bread.
Recipe: Creamy Pan-Roasted Scallops With Fresh Tomatoes
14. Pork Chops With Jammy Mustard Glaze
Ali Slagle gives the weekday pork chop a makeover with a simple, though kind-of fancy sauce made with just two ingredients: good jam and Dijon mustard. Do as Ali says and serve it with potatoes and a green salad.
Recipe: Pork Chops With Jammy Mustard Glaze
15. Scotcheroos
Take your run-of-the-mill Rice Krispies treats, but add peanut butter, butterscotch chips and slather them with a glossy coating of bittersweet chocolate, and you have a wonderful little treat called scotcheroos — just the thing to fill the people you love with joy.
Recipe: Scotcheroos
16. Classic Champagne Cocktail
This sparkling cocktail has been around since at least 1862 when Jerry Thomas mentioned it in his book “How to Mix Drinks.” This is the gist: Drizzle some bitters on a sugar cube at the bottom of a Champagne glass, then top with sparkling wine and garnish with a lemon curl. Rebekah Peppler recommends experimenting with bitters: Try grapefruit, celery, orange or persimmon.
Recipe: Classic Champagne Cocktail
17. Vegan Cacio e Pepe
“BIG WIN” wrote one reader about Alexa Weibel’s vegan version of the classic Italian dish. Pasta cooking water, store-bought cashew butter, nutritional yeast, white miso paste and toasted crushed peppercorns come together to make a creamy, dairy-free sauce that doesn’t feel like a compromise.
Recipe: Vegan Cacio e Pepe
18. Dutch Baby
A Dutch baby, which is also known as a German oven pancake, is like a giant popover. This one, from Florence Fabricant, is wonderful served with maple syrup or confectioners’ sugar, or topped with fresh fruit.
Recipe: Dutch Baby
19. Blender Chocolate Mousse
Mousse has a reputation for being fussy, but this one is not. It originated in a 1980s Junior League cookbook and came to The Times through the cook Monica Stolbach, via the pastry chef Natasha Pickowicz. You don’t have to separate the egg yolks and whites; instead, you pour hot sugar syrup into a blender with chocolate and whole eggs. Blend for a bit, then fold the mixture into softly whipped cream.
Recipe: Blender Chocolate Mousse
20. Crispy Parmesan Eggs
Fried eggs are good. Melissa Clark’s fried eggs with frico edges are next level. Don’t use preground Parmesan here. Grate the cheese on the largest holes of your grater, and use a nonstick skillet or well-seasoned cast-iron pan to achieve crispy perfection. Serve the eggs over a pile of fresh arugula with well-buttered toast.
Recipe: Crispy Parmesan Eggs
