Dairy-Free & Lactose-Free Main Dish Recipes

Learn how to make tamales with this recipe for delicious chicken tinga tamales with tomatoes and chipotles in adobo. You can also swap in turkey for the chicken in the filling (feel free to use leftover cooked turkey if you'd like--dark meat works best). Mexican grocery stores sell everything you need to make tamales, including corn husks and freshly ground corn masa, but you can also find the ingredients at most well-stocked grocery stores. The secret to a good tamale is mixing the dough thoroughly, until it's as airy as possible. If you have leftovers of the spicy chicken filling, use it to make nachos, serve it with scrambled eggs and tortillas, stuff it into tacos or serve it on tostadas.

Agrodolce is a sweet-and-sour Italian sauce made by reducing vinegar and sugar. This easy vegetarian recipe gets its spicy kick from the serrano pepper, which makes a delicious complement to the honeynut squash. File under "fall recipe" with all the flavors.

Looking to add some interest to an easy dinner recipe? Five-spice may be your new best friend. What is five-spice powder? A mixture of these five spices: cinnamon, clove, fennel, star anise and Szechuan peppercorns. (There are regional recipes in China that include more spices, including white pepper, nutmeg and orange peel.) It adds a distinct warm flavor to these healthy salmon cakes.

White miso paste packs an umami punch to this healthy salmon recipe. But being the mildest and sweetest variety of the gluten-free fermented paste, it won't overpower this dish. Use any leftover salmon (within 3 days) to make our Lemon-Garlic Pasta with Salmon, Easy Scallion-Salmon Dip or Spicy Salmon Cakes (see Associated Recipes).

Wondering what to do with leftover salmon? This is a delicious and easy way to turn it into another weeknight-friendly, quick dinner. Don't forget to reserve some pasta water--its starch thickens the lemon-garlic pasta sauce and makes it silky-smooth.

In this healthy dinner recipe, chicken thighs, Brussels sprouts, cherry tomatoes and packaged gnocchi are all roasted on the same sheet pan for a complete meal that couldn't be easier to make. And though it's simple, this dish gets tons of flavor from Mediterranean seasonings, including garlic, oregano and red-wine vinegar. It all adds up to a dish that's ready to go into heavy weeknight rotation in your house.

The charred onion puree is both smoky and sweet, a nice foil for this simple baked salmon recipe. Serve this healthy salmon recipe with a glass of crisp, dry rosé for an easy dinner that's special enough for company. Environmental note: If you are deciding between farmed and wild salmon for this recipe, you should know that either one can be a sustainable choice: While farmed salmon historically has gotten a bad rap, many options now rate as Best Choice and Good Alternative by Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program. Use wild Pacific salmon if you prefer (most comes from well-managed fisheries), but check for doneness a few minutes early as it's typically leaner.

A strong vinegar, like malt or sherry, gives this baked chicken recipe a pucker factor reminiscent of salt-and-vinegar chips. Everything cooks on one pan, making this chicken sheet-pan dinner perfect for weeknights when you want big results for little effort (so, pretty much every weeknight!).

Piri piri is a popular Portuguese sauce made with African bird's eye chiles. Here we blend the hot peppers with sweet bell peppers, vinegar and spices to season baked chicken thighs. This easy, healthy chicken recipe is designed to make more than you need for one dinner. See Tips for ideas for using the leftovers to make healthy chicken tacos, grain bowls and salads.

This easy dinner takes just 20 minutes to prepare, meaning that seared steak can be a weeknight meal. Cooking herbs in the pan with the steak releases their aroma, infusing it into the meat while creating a crispy garnish. After the steaks and herbs are pan-seared, the escarole is cooked in the same skillet, so this healthy dinner requires minimal cleanup too.

This easy lemon-garlic chicken recipe calls for cutlets, which cook in less than 10 minutes! Can't find them? Make your own from chicken breasts. Place each breast on a cutting board and, with your knife parallel to the board, slice into the skinny side of the chicken breast in a single smooth motion. The side of green beans is cooked right in the same pan as the chicken, so this 20-minute easy, healthy dinner is not just a snap to prepare--the cleanup is a cinch too.

Inspired by a dish served in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India called "dharan ji kadhi," our rendition studs the tender chickpea-flour dumplings with chiles and greens. Serve with naan to sop up the sauce for a healthy vegetarian dinner with plenty of protein.

Sichuan peppercorns give this brothy slow-cooker chicken dish a distinctive lemony, mouth-numbing flavor. Unrelated to peppercorns, they're the dried berries of the prickly ash tree. Look for them in specialty markets and online. If you've never had them before, try one first and add more or less to taste. Serve with sesame baby bok choy (which takes just a few minutes to prep) and Chinese noodles for an easy, healthy dinner that'll get you out of your same-old-chicken-dish rut.

For the best flavor in this easy roasted pork tenderloin dish, start marinating the pork the night before or get it going before you head off to work in the morning. Then, when you get home, all that's left to do is roast the pork and vegetables and prepare the quinoa for this easy healthy dinner. This recipe makes extra quinoa--use the leftovers as a base for easy meal-prep lunches, salads, stir-fries later in the week.

Arrange the toppings individually on these protein-packed Buddha bowls so each bite has a contrasting taste and texture. Make big batches of the salad dressing, quinoa and roasted chicken thighs and you'll have healthy meal-prep lunches or dinners for days. Though the chicken thighs take just 15 minutes to prep, you can also make the salads with leftover chicken or store-bought cooked chicken to make prep even faster.

In the U.S., dry whole-wheat couscous has been partially cooked, making it a quick-cooking (5 minutes!) whole-grain weeknight dinner champ. And when you buy peeled shrimp, plus a bag of prechopped kale and bottled barbecue sauce, the savings in prep time helps to get this healthy dinner done in a jiff.

Using everything bagel spice is a quick way to season and add extra crunch to breadcrumbs for chicken tenders. If you can't find any premixed, make your own by combining equal parts dried minced onion and garlic, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, salt and ground pepper. This healthy chicken recipe tops a simple salad for an easy dinner that's ready in 25 minutes.

Whip up a chef-quality stir-fry recipe at home. This beef and broccoli stir-fry packs in more vegetables and nearly halves the calories of what you would find in a restaurant. And this healthy dinner takes just 30 minutes to prep, so it's about as quick as takeout too. Ginger, which adds a lively kick to this stir-fry, has long been touted for its power to settle stomachs. But that's not its only superpower: preliminary research suggests it may improve blood sugar and inflammation too.

These healthy fish tacos can be made with cod or any other firm white fish. A lively kiwi salsa and red cabbage brighten up the colors and flavors of the crispy tacos and complete this easy dinner recipe. The key to perfectly golden, crunchy fish is patience--let your oil get nice and hot before you add in the battered pieces. Dip an instant-read thermometer into the oil to make sure it's up to temp before you get cooking.

This healthy tuna recipe combines many of Turkey's most beloved foods and flavors--fresh fish, olive oil, lemon juice, fresh herbs and chickpeas. Cooking for two? Flake the two leftover tuna steaks and mix them into the remaining bulgur salad, then serve over lettuce for lunch the next day.