22 Dinners to Help You Lose Weight in 2022 (2024)

These fresh recipes run the gamut from cozy chilis to impressive pasta dinners, so you can find a delicious recipe to fit your routine and meet your nutrition goals. Each of these dinners is low in calories but high in fiber, so you can enjoy a light meal that will leave you feeling satisfied at the end of the day. Recipes like our Stuffed Pepper Soup and Chicken & Mushroom Ragu are healthy, tasty ways to bring new flavors into your kitchen.

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Turkey Pumpkin Chili

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Canned pumpkin adds mellow background flavor and works to thicken up this turkey pumpkin chili. Smoked paprika adds flavor with a hint of spice. This chili is on the thicker side—if you want it thinner, add a bit more water.

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Stuffed Pepper Soup

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Inspired by stuffed peppers, this soup is ready faster and with fewer dishes too! Have fun with the toppings—we top it with onion, Cheddar cheese and tortilla chips here, but salsa, sour cream and corn would also make stellar additions.

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Winter Vegetable Mulligatawny Soup

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Our meatless version of the Indian-inspired British colonial soup includes parsnip and squash to keep it hearty and satisfying.

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White Bean & Sun-Dried Tomato Gnocchi

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Sun-dried tomatoes are the star of this recipe—providing texture and umami. Combined with the spinach, they make this dish a great source of vitamins C and K.

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Chicken & Mushroom Ragu

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An electric pressure cooker makes quick work of this rich, savory sauce. Deglazing with wine and scraping up the browned bits from the bottom of the pot is the key to building flavor.

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Acorn Squash & Chorizo Tacos

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Cooking the spicy chorizo on top of the vegetables helps season them—as they cook, the squash and onion absorb the flavorful sausage drippings. Finish these squash and chorizo tacos with hot sauce for even more heat.

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Smoked Brisket Tacos

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Leftover brisket makes terrific tacos. Salty cotija cheese, also called queso añejo, provides a sharp counterpoint to the smoky brisket. Find it near other specialty cheeses or in Mexican grocery stores. To make this recipe kosher, omit the cheese and use vegan yogurt in Step 2. Read more about this recipe.

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White Bean Soup with Pasta

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We use mirepoix—a combination of onion, celery and carrots—to flavor this soup. Keep a store-bought bag of the mixture in your freezer to ensure you always have some on hand without worrying about it going bad.

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Cauliflower Fajita Skillet

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Thinly sliced cauliflower florets mimic the signature shape of fajita meat in this dish. We cook it in a cast-iron skillet for that tableside sizzle you'd get at a restaurant.

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Fajita-Inspired Chicken-Stuffed Peppers

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These chicken-stuffed peppers feature a delicious blend of savory ingredients that closely resemble the flavors of chicken fajitas. The chicken and bean filling fits neatly into a nice, sweet pepper with a cheesy topping. Packaged brown rice makes this dinner super easy, but leftover rice will work just as well!

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Chickpea & Beef Burgers with Whipped Feta

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Chickpeas add fiber to this blended burger, but the real joy here is the light and fluffy feta sauce that tops the whole shebang.

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Chicken Riggies

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Named after the pasta shape it's made with, chicken riggies hails from central New York. The tomato-based sauce is packed with both sweet bell and hot cherry peppers married with a bit of cream to tame its tanginess.

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Spaghetti with Rosemary & Lemon

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This recipe, adapted from Eat Better, Feel Better, proves that pasta doesn't have to be complicated to be luscious. This dish is very simple but flavorful, so even a smaller portion makes a nice, light meal when paired with a big green salad. You could also add bits of cooked asparagus, broccoli, zucchini—even shrimp if you're not going for a meatless main. Recipe courtesy of EAT BETTER, FEEL BETTER by Giada De Laurentiis. Copyright © 2021. Published by Rodale Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

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Spring Vegetable Minestra with Mint & Basil Pistou

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If you don't already stash Parmesan rinds in your freezer, look for them at a supermarket with a specialty cheese section—ask for them if they're not prepackaged. You'll need six to eight rinds.

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Cacio e Pepe

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When making this elemental Roman pasta, most people focus on the cheese (cacio), with purists arguing for youngish pecorino Romano. But the peppercorns (pepe) are also essential to this dish, so it's a great time to try a single-origin variety. Boiling down some reserved pasta-cooking water before mixing with the al dente spaghetti concentrates the starch for an even more luscious sauce. Look for a hard grating cheese made without rennet if you want to keep it truly vegetarian.

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Tofu & Watercress Salad with Mango & Avocado

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This tofu-topped watercress salad is a fresh, plant-based meal perfect for when you want something hearty but are looking to cut down on the meat. Salad ingredients like mango and avocado add tangy flavor and creamy texture to bring the dish together and level up your green salad or vegetable salad repertoire.

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Clean-Out-the-Fridge Vegetable Soup

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This recipe is purposefully flexible so you can incorporate just about any veggie into it. Top with a dollop of pesto and/or a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese.

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3-Ingredient Sweet Potato & Brussels Sprout Hash with Chicken Sausage

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Apple-flavored chicken sausage adds flavor and protein in this quick dinner hash that uses a bag of shaved Brussels sprouts as its hearty, high-fiber base. Steaming the cubed sweet potatoes in the microwave cuts way down on total cook time.

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Creamy Salmon Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomatoes

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In this creamy salmon pasta recipe, sun-dried tomatoes are used in two ways. The flavorful oil is used to sauté shallots, while the tomatoes get added to the cream sauce.

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One-Pot Lentil & Vegetable Soup with Parmesan

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This lentil-vegetable soup is packed with kale and tomatoes for a filling, flavorful main dish. If you have it, the Parmesan cheese rind adds nuttiness and gives the broth some body. If you avoid cheese made with rennet, look for vegetarian Parmesan cheese, which is made without it.

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30-Minute Mini Meatloaves with Whipped Cauliflower & Green Beans

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Comfort food but make it fast! This recipe incorporates a number of pantry ingredients and shortcuts like frozen cauliflower and steam-in-the-bag green beans to cut way down on prep time. Baking the meatloaf in a muffin tin reduces cook time by more than half and makes portion control easy.

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Blackened Fish Tacos

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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.