50 Romantic Valentine's Day Meals For Two

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While going to a restaurant for Valentine's Day is often the standard, it can be even more romantic to share a Valentine's Day meal for two alone together at home. Light some candles and put on some mood music, and you don't have to worry about anything but each other.

While you could choose complicated dishes like lobster ravioli or chicken cordon bleu, you can still impress with simple cacio e pepe or even spaghetti and meatballs. The fact that you took the time and effort to make a meal for your Valentine is a message from the heart. We're including 50 romantic meal ideas that include charcuterie, French cuisine, breakfast for dinner, vegetarian options, meat and potato dishes, and everything in between. And the best news is that most of them are surprisingly simple, giving you plenty of time to focus on each other. So, pick out a great dish and a good accompanying bottle of wine to start making this Valentine's Day a memorable event.

A Valentine's Day charcuterie board contains not only your main-course foods like ham, salami, and cheese, but it has healthy fruit and fun dessert items. The crowning glory of this charcuterie board is the salami rose, which even the least artistic person can master. So, put on your favorite Valentine's Day movie, and take this board to the living room for eating and noshing. It certainly beats out popcorn. Plus, you can personalize it to contain your sweetie's faves.

Recipe: Valentine's Day Charcuterie Board

For more Chinese-inspired flavors, why not give ginger-baked salmon a try? It mixes sweet and savory for a mouth-watering dish that is sure to please. This restaurant-worthy recipe allows you to skip the crowds and enjoy each other's uninterrupted company. Soy sauce and sesame oil provide plenty of umami goodness, honey and mirin add sweetness, while ginger and Sriracha add extra flavor and heat. Serve it alongside rice and roasted green veggies like asparagus or broccoli for a lovely yet simple Valentine's Day dinner.

Recipe: Easy fresh ginger and salmon

If co-mingling during dinner sounds romantic, then you'll want to consider the idea of fondue. You can start with a cheese fondue for dinner and then progress to a chocolate fondue for dessert. While it's not entirely necessary to have a dedicated fondue set, it can make the experience that much more special. You can dip everything from French bread to vegetables, fruit, or meat in the cheese fondue. Then progress to dipping fruit, cookies, and marshmallows in the chocolate fondue for dessert.

Recipes: Copycat Melting Pot Cheddar Cheese Fondue Recipe and Classic Chocolate Fondue Recipe

Rich and creamy dishes are an indulgence worthy of Valentine's Day. This romantic dish is likely to be on repeat for many Valentine's Days to come. Mushroom chicken is a simple dish you can cook in a skillet that tastes far more expensive than it is to make. It gets its rich flavor from heavy cream, Dijon mustard, white wine, garlic, onion powder, and herbs. Serve it over egg noodles or rice and pair it with a nice white wine or even champagne.

Recipe: Skillet Mushroom Chicken

There's nothing wrong with making comfort food for Valentine's Day. It says you care and that you value familiarity. Creamy, meaty Salisbury steak combines meaty goodness with an onion and mushroom cream sauce that tastes like home. Forming the "steaks" into smaller meatballs makes it easier to eat without having to employ a knife. Serve it over a bed of egg noodles or fluffy mashed potatoes, and you have a dish that's going to leave both of you satisfied with your meal and each other.

Recipe: Bobby Flay's Salisbury Steak Recipe With a Twist

Don't make Marry Me Chicken unless you mean business. Once your partner tastes this dish, they'll want to make sure you continue to cook delectable dishes like this for them for life. The sauce for this chicken contains heavy cream, garlic, thyme, and red pepper flakes. But what really makes it special is the addition of sun-dried tomatoes. It's the "marriage" of the cream and sun-dried tomatoes that takes this dish into the stratosphere of flavor. Add fresh basil over the top and serve it over your favorite type of pasta, with an engagement ring on the side.

Recipe: Marry Me Chicken

Making homemade pasta with a pasta machine takes time and work and says to your Valentine that they're worth the effort. You'll likely spend several hours prepping and making your homemade pasta, but the end results are absolutely tasty. We like to suggest making fresh herb pasta instead of ordinary plain pasta for Valentine's Day as a special treat. Fresh rosemary, thyme, or other herbs can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. Because you will want the flavor of the pasta to shine, you'll want to choose simple toppings like freshly-grated cheese, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, or pistachios.

Recipe: Homemade Pasta

If you're cooking for a whiskey lover, making bourbon chicken will speak to their heart. It's a spicy, sweet, and sticky Chinese-inspired recipe that only takes about 10 minutes to prepare and 15 minutes to cook. Bourbon, soy sauce, brown sugar, ginger, honey, and rice wine vinegar blend perfectly for the sauce. Meanwhile, onion, garlic, smoked paprika, and cayenne give it more depth. Serve it over sticky rice, and consider a vegetable side like steamed broccoli for a complete meal.

Recipe: Sweet and Tangy Bourbon Chicken

Individual steaks and mushrooms inside a flakey crust can be nothing short of impressive for a Valentine's Day meal. The beauty of beef Wellington is that, if you use pre-made puff pastry dough, it's a lot simpler to make than it looks. You'll start off by making a mushroom sauce and searing the steaks. Then, all you have to do is top the steaks with the mushroom sauce, wrap them in puff pastry dough, and brush them with an egg wash before baking for 20 minutes. It really is that easy.

Recipe: Easy Individual Beef Wellingtons

The French dish coq au vin (cock with wine) is a richly-flavored chicken dish that is far less complicated than it sounds. It only takes ten minutes to prep, so the two of you can enjoy the rest of the wine while it cooks for an hour. This flavorful dish contains a sauce made with butter, wine, chicken stock, and herbs, along with vegetables like carrots and onions. Salt pork, bacon, or pancetta further enhances the dish's flavor. You'll want to serve it with something to soak up the wine sauce, like French bread, mashed potatoes, or egg noodles.

Recipe: Easy Coq Au Vin

If you've snagged yourself a pork chop man (or lady), smothered pork chops are sure to please for Valentine's Day. It's an easy dish to accomplish in the Instant Pot. You start by sautéeing onions, mushrooms, and herbs. Then, all that's left to do is add the pork chops, chicken broth, and soy sauce. When the pork chops or done, you'll simply need to thicken up the sauce with cornstarch and whipping cream. You can go full meat and potatoes with this dish with a side of mashed potatoes or add a veggie like green beans or steamed broccoli if you'd like.

Recipe: Instant Pot Smothered Pork Chops

Cutting into a chicken cordon bleu is always a pleasure and can be a tasty way to celebrate Valentine's Day with the one you love. While the flattening, stuffing, and frying process does take a little effort, the finished product is always worth it. Plus, flattening the meat with a hammer can be quite fun and cathartic. After serving fried chicken stuffed with Dijon mustard, melty Swiss cheese, and savory ham once, you're probably going to be asked for a repeat of this dish. So, feel free to trot it out on other special occasions.

Recipe: Chicken Cordon Bleu

Cacio e pepe is one of the most simple dishes you can make for Valentine's Day, but it's surprisingly full of flavor. All you need for cacio e pepe is spaghetti, butter, freshly ground black pepper, and a hard cheese or two like Pecorino Romano and Parmesan. That's it. Chances are that you have everything in your cupboard and refrigerator right now to pull off V-Day brilliance on the fly. Pair it with a salad and possibly some grilled veggies, and you're golden.

Recipe: Cacio e Pepe

At least two famous couples credit Ina Garten's roast chicken recipe for their engagement; Emily Blunt and John Krasinski and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (via TODAY). So, if you're willing to show your commitment to your relationship and to making this roast chicken for many years to come, go ahead and make engagement chicken for Valentine's Day. The recipe starts out with ordinary ingredients like rosemary (or thyme) and garlic, but the key to its success lies in mayonnaise (or butter), onion slices, and orange (or lemon). Be sure to have a ring picked out by the time the chicken is done.

Recipe: Ina Garten's Roast Chicken With a Twist

Making a stuffed, homemade dish for Valentine's Day showcases the extra effort you're willing to put into the relationship. With all the cheesy Italian goodness in cannelloni, you can't go wrong. This vegetarian Valentine's Day pasta is stuffed with spinach, garlic, basil, and four kinds of cheeses: ricotta, Parmesan, mozzarella, and a shredded cheese blend of your choice. It's covered with yummy pasta sauce and more cheese before being baked in the oven until bubbly and hot.

Recipe: Cheesy Spinach Cannelloni

Lamb is not a meat that you often see in the grocery store in the USA, so making spiced lamb chops as a Valentine's Day meal can be quite special. Likely, you'll have to go to a dedicated butcher to find your lamb chops. These bake in a rub of avocado oil, sumac, garlic powder, and thyme for less than 30 minutes. You can find tangy-tasting sumac in a Middle Eastern grocery store if you don't already have some in your cupboard. These go great with rice pilaf and fresh green beans.

Recipe: Simple Spiced Lamb Chops

You don't have to live near the ocean to create a delightful clam linguine to enjoy as a couple for Valentine's Day. A can of minced clams works just as well as fresh clams. It's a fairly simple dish with a non-cream sauce. Other than clams, all you need on hand to make it is linguine pasta, olive oil, garlic, white wine, lemon, and parsley. Clam linguine pairs nicely with roasted asparagus or Brussels sprouts and garlic bread.

Recipe: Easy White Clam Sauce Linguine

Mushroom risotto is a rich and satisfying vegetarian dish to serve as the main course or accompaniment to a Valentine's Day meal like broiled lobster tails. With risotto rice, onions, garlic, butter, vegetable stock, and Parmesan cheese, it can be quite filling. Risotto is a labor of love because it involves a lot of hands-on stirring time in the beginning. But the results are well worth all the exertion involved. A side of steamed broccoli or grilled asparagus goes well with the risotto.

Recipe: Creamy Mushroom Risotto

When we suggest that you serve ramen for your Valentine's Day meal, we don't suggest merely adding a few frozen veggies to the mix. Instead, you want a bowl of ramen that's bursting with toppings like boiled eggs, red onions, chili peppers, limes, Napa cabbage, cilantro, mint, green onions, bean sprouts, and roasted peanuts. And you'll want to throw away the seasoning packet that comes with your noodles in favor of a homemade broth made with flavoring components like fresh ginger, lemongrass, and star anise. Who needs to go to a ramen noodle shop when you can make delightfully fresh ramen for two at home?

Recipe: Ramen

Chicken Alfredo is a pretty impressive dish in itself, but you can make it even more special for Valentine's Day using smoked chicken. While you could smoke the chicken yourself, there are shortcuts available like picking some up from your local barbecue restaurant or cooking your chicken with smoked salt or liquid smoke. In addition to smoked chicken, you'll need fettuccine pasta, butter, heavy cream, garlic, and Parmesan cheese to accomplish this delightful dish. Serve it with a salad and garlic bread, and you'll have a restaurant-level meal at home.

Recipe: Smoked Chicken Alfredo

To spice things up this Valentine's Day, consider a spicy and creamy shrimp pasta dish that's fancy without being overly difficult to prepare. The Parmesan and cream cheese sauce get its smoky and spicy flavor from garlic, chipotle in adobo, cayenne pepper, and Cajun seasoning. Topped with cilantro and a squeeze of lime, this dish is set to impress. While it's excellent on its own, you might consider serving it alongside Mexican-inspired sides like grilled corn or a Mexican-inspired side salad.

Recipe: Creamy Shrimp Diablo

It is entirely within your reach to make lobster ravioli from scratch. Your Valentine will be wowed by the effort and taste of this delectable dish. There are three parts to this dish: the ravioli dough, the lobster ravioli filling, and the cream sauce. Lobster ravioli is made even more special by the inclusion of goat cheese in the filling. Surprisingly, there are only 20 minutes of prep time and 20 minutes of cooking time involved in making this fancy dish, so you don't have to work for hours to create something out of the ordinary for your sweetie.

Recipe: Homemade Lobster Ravioli

Nothing says you're comfortable with each other than eating messy food like ribs together. While you'd think that red wine braised short ribs wouldn't be easy to make at home, it only requires about 10 minutes of preparation. Rosemary, oregano, tomato paste, red wine, garlic, and beef stock provide plenty of flavor to this dish. It also contains onions, carrots, and celery, in addition to the short ribs. So, all you need is a starch like rice or mashed potatoes to make your meal complete.

Recipe: Red Wine Braised Short Ribs

Sometimes, the way to the heart is with fried foods. Chicken schnitzel is easy to make and only requires dredging the chicken in eggs, flour, and breadcrumbs before frying. As a traditional German dish, you may consider serving it with German sides like German potato salad, homemade spaetzle noodles, or German cucumber salad. Schnitzel is also tasty with homemade mushroom gravy slathered on top, especially if you're serving it alongside spaetzle or egg noodles.

Recipe: Easy Chicken Schnitzel

If you can get fresh snow crabs, making snow crab legs for Valentine's Day can be a romantic gesture. The snow crabs steam over a pot of butter, shallots, garlic, wine, and tarragon for five to seven minutes. Then, you serve it with melted butter and lemon juice. It's fairly easy but impressive. Just be sure you have crab crackers and tools on hand, so you don't have to embarrassingly raid your toolbox for dinner. Coleslaw, rice, and steamed veggies are excellent side dish choices for crab legs.

Recipe: Flavorful Steamed Crab Legs