30 Restaurant Copycat Dinners That Can Help You Lose Weight

This healthy dinner recipe comes together in record time thanks to quick-cooking shrimp. Lemon juice brightens the sauce while yogurt adds creaminess. This recipe was adapted from our popular Creamy Lemon Pasta with Shrimp to serve two instead of four.

Created by chef Fabio Viviani of Siena Tavern in Chicago, this Amatriciana sauce is a classic of modern Roman cooking (though it most likely came from the town of Amatrice about 90 miles away). Typically, it's made with few ingredients: garlic, guanciale (cured pork jowl), cheese and tomato. This version doctors up jarred sauce to keep it quick and calls for easy-to-find pancetta in place of the guanciale. This tomato sauce is sometimes paired with bucatini; here, Fabio dresses up rigatoni with it.

This street-style falafel sandwich is herbaceous, tangy and rich. The falafel gets nice and crispy in the oven while the veggies inside keep it simple and fresh. Make the tahini sauce (see Associated Recipes) ahead of time for easy prep. Wrapping the sandwich in foil makes it a perfect bring-along lunch and helps hold it together for eating on the go.

These spicy shrimp tacos owe their kick to a smoky chipotle shrimp seasoning blend. Cooling avocado and tangy pico de gallo round out the flavor. This vibrant, easy dinner comes together in a flash, making it perfect for busy weeknights.

Meaty portobello mushrooms have just the right amount of earthy, savory flavor and the perfect texture to replace beef in these vegetarian French dip sandwiches.

At the Bayside Cafe in Morro Bay, California, this classic West Coast salad is made with Dungeness crab caught in the coastal waters. Lump crabmeat is a good substitute.

Just as its name suggests, you only need one pot to make this satisfying pasta dish featuring fresh spinach, red bell pepper and broccoli, along with a generous portion of shrimp. To make the light, creamy sauce, residual pasta water is cleverly combined with Parmesan cheese.

This scallop salad is inspired by the French salad frisée with lardons. Crispy, salty pancetta and fried capers complement the buttery sweet flavor of seared scallops. Softly wilted sturdy greens like frisée or escarole add texture and flavor to this healthy dinner salad.

Grilling gives these shrimp tostadas a boost of smoky flavor. Skewering the shrimp prevents them from falling through the grates while getting even char on each side. If you have a grill basket, you can throw them in that instead; just make sure to get them into a single layer so they don't steam.

Layering apple slices into grilled cheese sandwiches adds a little crunch to a favorite soup dipper. And creamy butternut squash soup with ginger, cumin and turmeric is a nice change of pace from grilled cheese's usual tomato soup partner. Serve the duo for a comforting and easy weeknight dinner for the family. The soup keeps well in the fridge, so save leftovers for lunch or dinner later in the week.

Maya Feller, M.S., RD, CDN, of Brooklyn-based Maya Feller Nutrition, upgrades this popular budget-friendly combo. "Adding veggies to a classic sandwich—in this case, broccoli, zucchini and red bell pepper—boosts the nutrient-density of the meal," she says. This recipe was part of a feature story, "The Real Cost of Healthy Food."

These blackened fish tacos pack a punch. The blackened fish gets plenty of flavor from herbs and spices, the salsa adds some zing and the cabbage provides a nice raw crunch.

This seasonal twist on a traditional Cobb salad swaps in kale for lettuce and spiced butternut squash for chicken but keeps the essential avocado, blue cheese, bacon and egg.

These chicken nachos have crunchy chips topped with hot spiced shredded chicken, beans and melted cheese with cooling chunks of avocado, red onion and cilantro. If you like the heat, add jalapeño slices at the end. These quick nachos work well with shredded chicken breast or rotisserie chicken if you have leftovers around.

These healthy Southwestern cauliflower rice bowls, topped with black beans, corn and smoky chipotle shrimp, get a cool-down from homemade avocado crema and take just 30 minutes to make.

This Bolognese sauce recipe is adapted from Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. We swap out the beef and pork for button mushrooms to keep this traditional comfort food vegan yet weighty with umami flavor. And while some recipes call for red wine, this recipe sticks with Hazan's white wine selection.

Lime juice and adobo sauce lend a tangy and smoky flavor to these grilled steak tacos.

This vegan sandwich has great barbecue flavor (without the meat!) thanks to earthy mushrooms that soak up the sweet and tangy barbecue sauce. Serve with coleslaw dressed with vegan mayonnaise to complete the meal.

This slow-cooker chicken Marsala recipe gets its full flavor from plenty of mushrooms and fragrant shallots. Whole-wheat pasta soaks up the rich sauce. Round it out with a simple green salad for a comforting healthy dinner.

These corncakes are a common style of flatbread in Colombia and Venezuela. Arepas are made with precooked cornmeal and served warmed with butter or cheese, or split open and filled, or topped, as we've done here. Our arepas filling is loaded with fragrant spices and vegetables to elevate the dish.

This delicious dump-and-go, Indian-inspired curry comes together in a snap. The rich tomato sauce nicely coats the vegetables and slow-cooker shrimp, and the garam masala (Indian curry seasoning) and paprika amp up the spice. Serve this one-dish meal with naan, crushed red pepper flakes and thinly slice the lemon wedges, if desired.

Don't be afraid to put octopus in the slow cooker! Expand your palate and enjoy this tender, light meat that tastes similar to chicken. This red wine sauce is very rich, briny and deeply flavored, so much so that you only need to serve half of it with the octopus.

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.

Loosely translated as "minced meat," the traditional texture of carne picada ranges from finely chopped to ground. Here we start with brisket, which becomes nice and tender in the slow cooker, then shred and chop the meat before serving. The seasoning is flavorful but not too spicy. Blistered jalapeños added at the end will satisfy the heat-lovers in the family. Pile the brisket into warmed corn tortillas, with lettuce, the jalapeños, cheese and avocado salsa for a healthy dinner that'll wake up your taco night routine.

Inspired by an option at the West Coast chain In-N-Out Burger, this turkey burger recipe keeps the carbs in check with a lettuce wrap instead of a bun. The side of sweet potato fries bakes while you prep the burgers, so this entire healthy dinner is ready in under 30 minutes.

The salsa that goes with these tostadas is powerfully sweet and tangy but won't drown out the delicate-flavored white fish. Try pairing the sauce with chicken or pork as well.

We've replaced chicken with shrimp in this delicious and easy spin on the classic Cobb salad. This satisfying salad takes just 20 minutes to make, so it's perfect for weeknight dinners, but it's elegant enough to serve to guests.

These shrimp, pesto and quinoa bowls are delicious, healthy, pretty and take less than 30 minutes to prep. In other words, they're basically the ultimate easy weeknight dinner. Feel free to add additional vegetables and swap the shrimp for chicken, steak, tofu or edamame.

These vegan sweet potato-black bean burgers spiced with curry powder are easy to make. Blending the mixture with your hands gives you a soft, uniform texture then the outside gets crispy by cooking in a cast-iron pan. To make this recipe gluten-free too, use gluten-free oats and serve the patty in a lettuce wrap, omitting the bun.

These flank steak fajitas make for a tasty, healthy dinner in a pinch. Preheated sheet pans sizzle the meat and vegetables just like in a skillet, but with a whole lot more hands-off time.