Dinner Ideas for Two
Small-batch dinners that scale for two — pan-seared steaks, one-skillet pastas, and date-night plates the Pepper community keeps re-saving.
★ Dinner
DinnerIngredients
- 13 scallops 1 pack of Scallops
- Salt
- Pepper
- 1 tsp Butter
- 1 tbsp Olive Oil
Instructions
- 1Heat medium/large pan or skillet on medium-high coat the pan with olive oil and butter (thin layer, just covering the surface)
- 2Rinse scallops and pat dry.
- 3Add salt and pepper (to taste) to both sides of the scallops.
- 4Once the oil/butter smokes, add the scallops in the pan so they are not touching. Sear for 90 seconds.
- 5Sear for 90 seconds on the other side. Optional: tilt pan and pick up oil/butter with a spoon to baste the tops of the scallops.
- 6Transfer scallops to a plate and eat!
P.S. We update the recipes on this page every few days. If you want to cook this recipe over and over again, we'd love it if you downloaded Pepper 🤝.
More to try
Dinner
Dinner
Dinner
Dinner
Dinner
Dinner
Dinner
Lunch
Dinner
Find more recipes like this
Join 1M+ cooks discovering, organizing, and sharing their recipes on Pepper
Open in Pepper →Why Cooking for Two Deserves Its Own Playbook
Cooking for two isn't about halving a recipe — it's about pans small enough to build fond in and cuts that fit a single sheet.
Cooks on Pepper lean on scallops, filet, small-format pasta, and skillet dinners that plate cleanly with no leftovers to eat all week.
The best recipes here treat dinner for two as the point, not a compromise — restaurant plates at a home stove.
Quick Tips
- 1
Small pan, high heat
A 10-inch skillet cooks two portions with a real crust — a 12-inch just steams two lonely pieces of protein.
- 2
Cook the protein first
Rest it while you deglaze the pan into a sauce — five minutes turns into a plate.
- 3
Skip the meal-prep instinct
Cooking two portions means the leftover is one lunch, not four — plate it and eat it.
- 4
A splash of wine goes far
Half a cup of white wine deglazes any pan into a sauce — no cream required.
Never lose a recipe again
Save everything. Stay organized. Share with friends.
