20+ Recipes with 6 Ingredients or Less
Over 20 recipes that you can make with just 6 ingredients or less. These meals are easy to put together and your family will love them!
Dinner really does feel hard enough sometimes without adding a long list of ingredients you need to purchase just for one meal, doesn’t it? That’s why I’ve put together this post full of recipes with 6 ingredients. SIX! That’s it!
About these 6 Ingredient Recipes:
Before we dive in on these 6 ingredient recipes, I want to just start by saying that I’m not including pantry staples in the number of ingredients! And by staples, I mean items that you should probably have on hand at all times. Things like:
- Water
- Salt and pepper
- Olive oil
- Butter
- Granulated sugar
- Garlic (yes, I believe this to be an essential! However, if you don’t have it and the recipe calls for it, you can substitute powdered or dried garlic too.)
Now that we’ve got that technicality out of the way, let’s get started! I can’t wait to share my ideas for big taste recipes with a small ingredient list.
Sheet Pan Dinners with 6 Ingredients or Less
It is no secret that a favourite easy meal of mine is a sheet pan dinner. These are such a great way to serve dinner on busy weeknights or days that you just don’t feel like cooking. Everything cooked on one pan, and if the veggies you include are all from containers at the back of the fridge that need to be used up, all the better! I’ve collected a few of my favourite recipes with 6 ingredients for this quick dinner super star.
25 Minute Sausage Sheet Pan Dinner
Only have a few potatoes and a couple of lonely carrots and onions? Cut them up with some sausages and make a sausage sheet pan dinner that everyone will love. I use Italian sausages for this, but any kind will do! And you can feel free to swap out the suggested vegetables for whatever you have available too. Add some oil and salt & pepper and pop this pan in the oven for a delicious meal ready in 25 minutes!
Sheet Pan Chicken and Vegetables
Put all of your favourite roasting vegetables (carrots, parsnips, squash, onions, potatoes, and beets come to mind!) and chicken breasts onto a pan, season generously with herbs and salt, then put it in the oven and wait 30 minutes. Dinner is served! This Sheet Pan Chicken and Vegetables is simple, healthy and delicious. Oh and did I mention, you only use one dish?!
Simple Sheet Pan Chicken Dinner
Sheet pan dinners don’t always have to involve cutting everything into small pieces and mixing your ingredients together! In this recipe, I’m cooking chicken breasts, asparagus, and sliced potatoes in the same pan but keeping them separate. This fantastic weeknight dinner is as simple as lining up the ingredients on the pan, drizzling them with olive oil, and seasoning everything with the same spices, then putting it all into the oven to bake. With little preparation effort, dinner can be ready in less than one hour. This is one of those healthy meals that is quick and delicious too! Dinner doesn’t get better than that.
Fajita Chicken Sheet Pan Dinner
This is such a fun way to serve a cheat version fajita dinner without all of the work! Just line a pan with chicken, peppers, and onions and then season generously with taco seasoning, and you’ve got a Fajita Chicken Sheet Pan Dinner! So easy and delicious. Serve with all your favourite fajita toppings for a quick meal everyone will love.
Lemon and Maple Salmon Sheet Pan Dinner
This is one of those quick recipes that seems very elaborate but really isn’t! Sheet pan dinners don’t always require a lot of thought or planning. You can just throw whatever you have sitting around in the fridge/pantry/freezer onto a sheet! For this particular Lemon and Maple Salmon Sheet Pan Dinner I used salmon I already had in the freezer and smothered it with a maple BBQ sauce. Then I tossed on some broccolini, seasoned everything with lemon and salt & pepper, and baked it. Easy, easy, easy!
Family Classic Dinners with 6 Ingredients or Less
If you’re like me and have kids, you’ve probably spent more of your time than you’d care to admit trying to figure out what to feed them! Sometimes it’s so hard finding something healthy and easy enough to make with a bunch of people swarming you with questions about when dinner will be ready, AND that everyone will actually eat! The following recipes with 6 ingredients check all those boxes. None of them are complex recipes, just simple yummy food that your hungry kids will inhale without complaint.
Parmesan Garlic Roasted Chicken Thighs
When I set out to make this one-dish chicken dinner, my intent wasn’t to make a budget meal, but it just ended up that way. I bought a tray of 8 chicken thighs and had some potatoes in the pantry, and a delicious and budget friendly meal was created! This meal fed my family of 5 for less than $10! The ingredients are simple, and I always find the addition of cheese makes anything a hit with the younger crowd. I hope your crew loves this as much as mine does!
The Perfect Pot Roast
This recipe and roasting method is a classic in our family. My mom always made a pot roast with beef broth, and I won’t make it any other way. Roasting the beef slowly in beef broth with herbs, chopped carrots, celery, garlic and onions results in THE most flavourful and tender pot roast ever…like fork-tender beef. And as an added bonus to the roast, you also end up with a flavourful au jus to serve as-is or turn into gravy. This is an almost-formal dinner that requires almost no prep time at all, and you could even do it in the slow cooker if you really wanted to. My kids never turn up their nose at this meal, and that’s saying a lot!
30 Minute Korean Beef
This 30 Minute Korean Beef is the kind of recipe that is SO perfect for the busiest nights, and that’s why I’ve included it as a family classic. Just in case one of you is actually counting ingredients, you’re right. This one DOES have one extra ingredient: pepper flakes. Let’s just call it pepper and forget about it, ok? 😉 Sweet, spicy, and delicious served over steamed rice. A homemade meal with little effort. And it really is ready in half an hour!
One Hour, One Pot Roasted Chicken Dinner
When I put this one pot dinner together I thought it was maybe too simple to blog, but then I decided that NO, that is exactly why I should blog it! Aren’t we all in need of simple and healthy dinner ideas that take minutes to prepare and don’t require a trip to the grocery store? Dinner does not need to be complicated to be delicious! Chicken, seasonal roasted vegetables, salt and pepper and olive oil. Perfect. Done. And with minimal dishes to clean up, your family will think this is just the best dinner ever!
I love a good big breakfast, don’t you? Especially on a Saturday morning when there’s nowhere else to be. What I don’t love though, is working away half the morning making it! So I’ve collected some simple and easy recipes with 6 ingredients for breakfast that won’t kill your appetite making them!
Easy Egg Bites
If you’re looking for a delicious and easy breakfast idea, these Easy Egg Bites are it! You can have a batch of 12 ready and on your table in less than one hour. The basic ingredients are just eggs, cheese, and milk (that’s only THREE ingredients!), but the flavour combinations are actually endless! For example, in our household we have those who love mushrooms and those that don’t. Some kids only like ham and cheddar cheese, and others want everything. You can make many different flavour combinations, which will make everyone happy without much effort. Be creative with this one!
Croissant French Toast Bake
If you’re looking for a decadent yet easy breakfast recipe for a family brunch or just because, this Croissant French Toast Bake is it. Your family will LOVE it. Made with buttery croissants, creamy milk, eggs, vanilla, cinnamon and sugar, this dish is quick and easy to assemble. You can even make it ahead of time.
Blueberry Sour Cream Pancakes
These Blueberry Sour Cream Pancakes will be your new favourite. They’re fluffy, cake-y and delicious with loads of butter, maple syrup, and fresh blueberries! They are full of simple, easy ingredients, and I think the sour cream is the secret to this fantastic recipe. Happy breakfast indeed!
Easy Ham and Cheese Crustless Quiche
Crustless quiches, or frittatas, are really easy and delicious dishes, just right for Sundays or holiday brunches. Ham and green onion are a perfect flavour addition too! With a quick assembly and cooking time, this Easy Ham and Cheese Crustless Quiche can be on the table in less than one hour. You can switch up what cheese you use and what else you put in (I bet red peppers would be so good!) to customize this quiche for any preference.
5 Minute Banana Coconut Oatmeal
Do you love the banana-coconut combination? There’s something so delicious about bananas and coconut together…it feels tropical somehow, which is actually quite welcome this time of year. It may not be Hawaii, but it’ll have to do. This 5 Minute Banana Coconut Oatmeal is a delicious and easy breakfast idea! Quick, easy, and perfect for busy mornings.
Easy Pasta Dishes with 6 Ingredients or Less
Pasta is one of my favourite easy meals. Simple, hearty, delicious, and versatile! You can make pasta complicated if you want, but in keeping with the short ingredient list theme we’ve got going here, I’ve collected a bunch of my go-to pasta recipes with just 6 ingredients that are ready in a jiffy and have simple delicious flavours.
Creamy Lemon Pasta
If you’re looking for something for dinner that everyone will love, is easy to whip up and SO flavourful, add this Creamy Lemon Pasta recipe to your dinner rotation. You just can’t go wrong when you’re combining pasta, cream, fresh lemon and parmesan cheese. Seriously, these ingredients really are a match made in pasta dinner heaven.
Orzo with Parmesan and Basil
In a side dish rut of endless rice and potatoes? This Orzo with Parmesan and Basil is a flavourful side dish that pairs perfectly with chicken, beef, pork or fish! It’s easy to make, and ready in about 25 minutes. Your whole family will love it! It’s cheesy, buttery and so flavourful. You just can’t go wrong with pasta, parmesan, and fresh basil.
Simple Cherry Tomato Sauce
If you find yourself with more cherry tomatoes than you know what to do with, this easy and delicious 3-Ingredient Cherry Tomato Sauce is a great option! You can easily double the recipe and freeze a batch for dinners during the winter months. No sugar, no water, no fillers required for this lovely sauce. Just ripe cherry tomatoes, garlic and a little olive oil. I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do!
Bonus Appetizers + Sides with 6 Ingredients or Less
To finish off this quick and easy roundup of recipes with 6 ingredients or less, I’m including a bonus round of appetizers and tasty sides that my family loves. You can enjoy them on their own for a lunch or light dinner, or add an easy protein like grilled chicken breast, roasted chicken thighs, or shrimp to make them a little more filling for a proper dinner.
Air Fryer Buffalo Cauliflower Bites
If you are a fan of buffalo sauce AND your air fryer, have I got a recipe for you! These Buffalo Cauliflower Bites are a delicious alternative to chicken wings. The familiar flavour of buffalo wings in a healthy cauliflower bite! What else could you possibly want? Your family will be wowed by this yummy vegetarian option.
Crispy Air Fryer Salt and Pepper Chicken Wings
This recipe for Salt and Pepper Chicken Wings makes the most crispy and delicious chicken wings. Only 3 ingredients and ready in 15 minutes! Perfect for game day parties!
Hot Pizza Dip
If you’re looking for a quick and easy dip for your appetizer table, this Hot Pizza Dip is it! Made with layers of cream cheese, pizza sauce, cheese, and your favourite pizza toppings, everyone will love it! Create your own custom dip and serve it with crackers, chunks of bread, baguette slices, slices of warm naan bread or even tortilla chips or pita chips.
Mexican Rice
Mexican rice is the perfect side dish to any meal. It’s full of flavour and pairs nicely with BBQ’d meats, or with my Grilled Shrimp with Avocado Butter! And you can tailor this rice to your taste buds too. Add chopped jalapenos if you like more heat, or stir in a tsp or so of homemade taco spice for more flavour. It’s up to you…just enjoy!
Simple Scalloped Potatoes
These Simple Scalloped Potatoes are creamy, rich, and perfectly cheesy. A classic and delicious recipe perfect for any dinner occasion, these potatoes are easy enough to assemble to enjoy any day of the week, even weeknights. In fact, you only need about 15 minutes of prep time to put this dish together. A tried and true scalloped potato recipe that doesn’t disappoint!
There you have it! So many options for delicious, simple recipes with 6 ingredients! I hope you found some inspiration and manage to save yourself some time, money, and headaches during your next meal-planning session for the busy week ahead. If you try any of these recipes I’d love to hear about it in the comments or @aprettylife.
Have a delicious day!
