How many "dishes" do you make for dinner?

My parents always tended to prepare 2-3 dishes at dinner time, maybe a salad and an entree and a side. My mother-in-law does similar. But Cathy and I basically just make one dish. It can be a big salad or a bowl of soup or a stirfry or pizza or whatever, but it's usually cooked in one vessel and served as one entity. Is this an old-time vs. modern approach thing? Or are we weird? I don't really have any idea. So here I am asking!

When I was a bachelor, I was a fan of one dish meals. These days, most of the meals end up being around three separate dishes. Usually it is a main, a starch, and a veg. This might change depending on the main dish and what it contains. Something veggie heavy might not need a veg side.

I'm still sticking with the idea that we just make one dish usually, but sometimes we make a X-bar (like a taco bar or potato bar) with a million options -- some of which just come out of the fridge, but many often require real prep. I don't know how I'd really count that, but it's not what we do most typically in any case.

Oh yeah, Tim's response makes me wonder how much of this depends on your diet. Like, we don't eat meat, so the traditional roast beast + starch + vegetables doesn't fit into our lives the same way.

Ours are all over the place. I'd say a small majority of the time, just one, but often 2 or 3. Like most things, it depends on our mood, what we have a taste for, etc.

I have a hard time imagining just one all the time, or multiple all the time. A bowl of potato soup might be the entire meal in itself, but grilled chicken or pork chops needs a side and (if I have my way) some type of bread to go along with it. Biscuits or non-sweet white cornbread preferred.

We make 1 to 3 dishes, depending on the vibes and moods. So I voted 2 :)

Nina Surya wrote:We make 1 to 3 dishes, depending on the vibes and moods. So I voted 2 :)

I set the poll up so everyone could cast two votes (I think) to cover situations where someone had two options that are equally common, but I guess that doesn't cover three. :)

We're at 1-3 dishes also and a 4th for a rare dessert.
Our big meal is lunch though, no dinner/supper here, just a mid afternoon snack.

Some use the word dinner as either supper or lunch though? I think?

Oh also, I guess different people use words differently and "dinner" is one of those. I mean to be asking about the evening meal that is traditionally (among the folks I know best) the largest and most formal meal of the day -- thought I'm well aware that every person or family has their own eating plan.

Judith Browning wrote:We're at 1-3 dishes also and a 4th for a rare dessert.
Our big meal is lunch though, no dinner/supper here, just a mid afternoon snack.

Some use the word dinner as either supper or lunch though? I think?

In the south anyway, if your grandma says come over for Sunday Dinner, she means come eat at noon when church lets out. So growing up it was always dinner at mid day and then supper in the evening. I find myself using both dinner and supper for the evening meal now that I'm older.

Rusty Ford wrote:

Judith Browning wrote:We're at 1-3 dishes also and a 4th for a rare dessert.
Our big meal is lunch, no dinner/supper here, just a mid afternoon snack.

Some use the word dinner as either supper or lunch though? I think?

In the south anyway, if your grandma says come over for Sunday Dinner, she means come eat at noon when church lets out. So growing up it was always dinner at mid day and then supper in the evening. I find myself using both dinner and supper for the evening meal now that I'm older.

Rusty, that's what I grew up with...Illinois farm family and the noon meal was the big one called dinner.  It might all have to do with early morning farm chores and working in the fields.

We do both, single dish meals like soups or stews are great in winter, I think. A role or some corn bread is probably included too. In summer a lot of one dish salads with lots of different greens and other veggies but also probably some bacon bits, grilled chicken and probably some cheese.  Fried chicken probably needs mashed potatoes and green beans. Baked chicken needs stuffing and a baked sweet potato. Fried fish needs French fries or tater tots and another vegetable. Asparagus and wild rice go nicely with baked fish.   Roast beef goes with roasted veggies, but they can pretty much all be cooked together. When I'm by myself I often go with the one dish thing, but it has a of different things in it, and I usually make enough to have it for lunch the next day too.  

A good bowl of soup coinntains meat, broth, and several kinds of veggies. One pit to wash. What more do you need? OK, maybe a good slice of pie.

Somewhere between one and four.  We have been known to add or subtract while in the process of cooking….This is especially true if I start the meal …run out to take care of an animal…and my wife takes over.

Of course, there is sometimes the mystery can..missing a label…that changes the direction of the meal.

I am voting 1
A meal can have 3 or more courses- a starter, a main and a pudding for example.
For me, a plate/bowl of food is a dish. Sometimes it's curry and rice, chicken/steak/chop and salad/veg and sometimes it's a single pot dish like stew and dumplings or moussaka.
I can't really call veg or salads a "side", that implies you can just have the steak or curry. I mean, a meal wouldn't be complete without veg and carbs would it? I'm 70% vegan, does that mean I don't cook a main, just sides? :-) I probably use more pots n pans to cook vegan as I cook from scratch.
Food for thought.....

I usually eat a bowl of fruit with....nuts/seeds/coconut/cinnamon then meat or a veggie

I am lucky to be able to make one.

My meals count heavily on leftovers; I love when I can cook one thing and then eat it across days.  Like, last night, I had chicken, but baked enough so that I will have chicken for the next three nights.  I did the same with sweet potatoes, and then I grabbed some kimchi just for good measure.  Fruit is always my dessert in the evening.  Does that count?  An apple or orange? I prep it by slicing and coring or as with an orange, I peel it!  

There is always rollover, so that I have the benefit of many dishes without having to do all of the work every night. I will always settle for ease over boredom or repetition.  My cooking is very light contingent.  I hate to cook (or read, or sew...)when it's dark out, but it it's still light, I can enjoy putting more effort in.  Maybe that's why I always make a big pressure cooker pot of soup on Saturday mornings (at least, throughout the winter), which goes back to my teaching days; I'd make a big pot of soup on Sunday and then I had my lunches for the week. This past week, I cooked up pinto beans to make into future pinto burgers, turkey burgers, yogurt, kimchi, and a mushroom quiche in one morning session, and then I was set for most of the week. I have strawberries and blueberries in the freezer to mix in with the yogurt or cottage cheese for breakfast, I just bring out a package every few days to thaw in the fridge, and that makes an almost instant breakfast.  Often, I'll also make some sort of bean salad ahead of time, by just chopping up celery and onion or whatever is on hand and adding balsamic vinegar and olive oil. That makes a great lunch or side dish without having to do the work daily.

Most days my dinner is just one dish. Sometimes there's a dessert too, and sometimes a side-dish (a small salad f.e.). It depends on my appetite and what is available. In general I am on my own.
When I have guests, there might be three dishes: 'hors-d'oeuvre', main dish, dessert.

Sarah Joubert wrote:I am voting 1
A meal can have 3 or more courses- a starter, a main and a pudding for example.
For me, a plate/bowl of food is a dish. Sometimes it's curry and rice, chicken/steak/chop and salad/veg and sometimes it's a single pot dish like stew and dumplings or moussaka.
I can't really call veg or salads a "side", that implies you can just have the steak or curry. I mean, a meal wouldn't be complete without veg and carbs would it? I'm 70% vegan, does that mean I don't cook a main, just sides? :-) I probably use more pots n pans to cook vegan as I cook from scratch.
Food for thought.....

I agree. Maybe I did not understand exactly what was meant by 'dish', because in Dutch we have different words. I consider a 'dish' everything that's on my plate (dish) at the same time. That can be a one-pot-meal or a combination of different ingredients prepared in different pots or in the oven. When I eat them all together from one plate, I would call it 'a dish'. But maybe I am not right?

I don’t know if there’s such a thing as right, but when I think about what a dish is, it’s not everything on a single plate. I might have on a plate: a cob of corn, some mashed potatoes and gravy, roasted green beans, and cranberry conserve. I think of that as four dishes. Mashed potatoes and gravy is one dish, but not two.

But you guys are correctly pointing out that that’s all a little bit arbitrary.

Christopher Weeks wrote:I don’t know if there’s such a thing as right, but when I think about what a dish is, it’s not everything on a single plate. I might have on a plate: a cob of corn, some mashed potatoes and gravy, roasted green beans, and cranberry conserve. I think of that as four dishes. Mashed potatoes and gravy is one dish, but not two.

But you guys are correctly pointing out that that’s all a little bit arbitrary.

If that's the case I probably need to change my vote. Then most days I have more than 1 dish for dinner. If it's varying from 1 to 4 in average it's 2 (in fact somewhat more).

For me it depends on the meal.

I aim to have some meat (or dairy, or eggs), some carbs, and some vegetables for lunch (our main meal of the day), so sometimes everything is in one dish, other times it’s meat and vegetables in one dish with some rice or potatoes on the side, other times it’s meat cooked by itself, with rice, potatoes, or bread, and a vegetable side dish. Sometimes I make a tapas-style spread with several different dishes, but some of that is stuff I’ve already made such as bread, cheese, salami, and fermented veg.

We generally have a veg with protein, a carb (or veg/carb), a veg/salad, and maybe a soup or a pickle, depending on whether we're eating Chinese/Japanese/Korean or Turkish/Italian (basically the two ways we roll around here).

Last vote in apple poll was on March 10, 2025

2 or 3 depending on what said dishes are and involve, as well as how hungry we are.