What's for Dinner?
Recipes to make your dinners extra special.

• Dinner Time Menu Ideas

Recipe categories:

• A

  • Appetizer Recipes

• B

  • Beverage Recipes

  • Bread Recipe

• C

  • Candy Recipes

  • Chili Recipes

• D

  • Dessert Recipes

• F

  • Fish & Shellfish Recipes

• M

  • Meat Recipes

• P

  • Pasta, Egg & Cheese Dish Recipes

  • Poultry Recipes

• S

  • Salad & Dressing Recipes

  • Side Dish Recipes

  • Snack Recipes

  • Soup, Stew & Chowder Recipes

Dinner is the main meal of the day, eaten at noon or in the evening. The meal normally consists of a combination of cooked animal or vegetarian proteins (meat, fish or legumes), vegetables, and starch products like rice, noodles, or potatoes.

The word "dinner" comes from the French word dîner, the "chief repast of the day", ultimately from the Latin disiunare, which means to break fast (as in the English word "breakfast"). A dinner can also be a more sophisticated meal, such as a banquet.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, the word “dinner” referred to breakfast in Middle English. It derives from late Latin disiunare (to break fast) which has also provided both the French déjeuner (breakfast or lunch, depending on region) and dîner (supper or lunch, depending on region). The Spanish word desayuno, or "breakfast," also comes from this Latin root.

In well-off families in England during the mid-17th century, dinner was served at any time between 11 a.m. and noon and was a rich, heavy, alcoholic repast that lasted for anything up to 3 or 4 hours. After the repast proper, the men would stay at the table to smoke, chat, and drink, while the women would retire to a boudoir to talk, sew, and brew tea.

Then, during the 18th century, dinner was served at a gradually later and later hour until by the early 1800s, the normal time of this meal in upper-class households was between 7 and 8.30 p.m., an extra repast called luncheon having been created to fill the midday gap.

In Australia and most parts of the United States and Canada, dinner is the evening repast served around 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. In some regions, such as the southern or rural mid-western United States, the Atlantic provinces, parts of Saskatchewan, and Quebec, the evening repast is called supper (souper in Quebec), and dinner (dîner) refers to the noon repast, which itself would be called lunch in most parts of the United States and Canada.

In the Southern United States, the main repast of the day is called Dinner, whether taken at noon or in the evening. On farms it was traditionally taken at noon. If Dinner, the main repast of the day, is at noon, the evening repast is called Supper. If Dinner, the main repast of the day, is in the evening the noon repast is called Lunch.

Mainly in Australia, tea and dinner are synonyms.