15 Quick and Easy Meat Recipes for No-Sweat Meals (2024)

Fast, easy, and meaty is the name of the game for this recipe roundup. With minimal effort, all of these tasty, satisfying dishes are table-ready in about half an hour. Craving crispy and fried? Try breaded pork chops or chicken katsu. Looking for something handheld and shrouded in cheese? A patty melt with quick-charred scallion mayo is where it's at. We've also included recipes for steak, ham, duck, lamb, and sausage — whatever protein is planned, we've got you covered with a quick, easy preparation.

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Steak au Poivre with Red Wine Pan Sauce

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A perfect interplay of acid from the wine and sumptuous fat, the pan sauce is an ideal accompaniment to a peppercorn-crusted rib eye steak. The well-marbled cut stays more tender than New York strip, and its rich, beefy flavor infuses the pan sauce.

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Florentine Butter Chicken

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This recipe is inspired by F&W editor in chief Hunter Lewis' trip to 150-year-old Trattoria Sostanza in Florence. Cultured butter has a slightly higher smoke point and, when combined with olive oil, provides enough cooking time to finish the chicken and the sauce simultaneously.

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Chicken Katsu

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Perfectly golden, crisp breaded and fried chicken cutlets are an incredibly comforting dish — and they come together with only a handful of ingredients. Serve the chicken katsu with tonkatsu sauce, Dijon mustard, and steamed sushi rice.

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Steak, Potato, and Chorizo Kebabs with Red Pepper Mayo

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"Almost nothing pairs better with potatoes than steak, so here I thread strips of skirt steak onto skewers with baby Dutch yellow potatoes," writes cookbook author Ann Taylor Pittman. "Slices of robust Spanish chorizo crisp up on the grill and offer bursts of intense flavor as you eat the kebabs. Coating everything with smoked paprika amplifies the effect of the grilling."

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Lamb Chops Sizzled with Garlic

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This easy lamb chop recipe comes together quickly. The sizzled garlic balances the richness of the lamb and pairs nicely with the lemon-parsley pan sauce. Serve the chops with roasted potatoes, salad, or bread to soak up the sauce.

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Patty Melts with Charred Scallion-Chipotle Mayo

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Classic versions of the patty melt often include caramelized onions, but those take time, so here cookbook author Molly Stevens leans on quick-charred scallions instead. Chipotle-spiked mayonnaise adds an extra dose of lushness and a punch of smoky heat. For the cheese, semi-soft cheeses like Oaxaca or Monterey Jack add a satisfying tang, but any good melting cheese works — Cheddar or Swiss are perfectly delicious stand-ins.

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Garlic-Butter Steak Bites

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A pan sauce made from roasted garlic, dry vermouth, butter, and Worcestershire envelops each cube of strip steak, ensuring every bite is as delicious as the last. Enjoy the steak bites over polenta or mashed potatoes for an easy, tasty meal.

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Panko-Breaded Pork Chops

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The large flakes of Japanese panko breadcrumbs give these pork chops a rough, crunchy texture. Here, Gale Gand mixes them with chopped sage and grated Parmesan for an extra flavorful breading.

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Spicy Sausage Pasta with Tomatoes and Squash

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For this recipe, you can use either fresh merguez or spicy Italian sausage with the casings removed. Added just minutes before serving, thinly sliced squash melts into the pasta without losing its shape and texture. Use a mandoline to achieve wafer-thin slices.

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Blackened Skillet Pork Chops with Beans and Spinach

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The wet blackening spice blend adds a punch of flavor with fresh ginger, garlic, and lime juice and is best rubbed on meat or fish, which is then pan-fried. Meherwan Irani, chef and founder of the spice retailer Spicewalla, suggests making your own spice blend from scratch for the best flavor.

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Ham Steaks in Madeira Sauce

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For this recipe, Julia Child was inspired by jambon à la morvandelle, the signature dish of Alexandre Dumaine, one of France's most famous chefs in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s. "Although supermarket ham will do, real country ham will give you a dish more like Dumaine's fabled creation," wrote Child. She called the dish — featuring ham steaks basted in a mushroom and Madeira sauce — one of her "fast entrées for fancy people."

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Peking Duck Stir-Fry

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Ken Hom is the authority on Chinese stir-frying — he's written four books on the subject. So when Hom replaced chicken with meatier, richer duck breasts in a stir-fry, we knew it would be a good idea: The duck has enough flavor to stand up to the mix of chiles, garlic, and peanuts here.

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Midnight Tortas

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This spectacular torta is Kogi chef Roy Choi's gift to Los Angeles' late-night partiers. The over-the-top combination of fried eggs, spinach, pork belly, and roasted jalapeños fuses Mexican and Asian flavors — a uniquely Choi hybrid.

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Chipotle-Spiced Rib Eyes with Lime Butter

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This intensely flavorful rib eye steak from chef Bernie Kantak is delicious whether you use a grill or a grill pan. The spice rub and the puckery lime butter melts into the juicy beef.

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Pappardelle with Red Wine and Meat Ragù

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This spectacular pasta dish combines pappardelle with a meaty ragù made from red wine, ground beef and turkey, and dried porcini mushrooms. It's table-ready in just 30 minutes.

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