12 Foil Packet Dinners You Need to Try Tonight

A+ Shrimp Boil

This whole new way to cook a shrimp boil has several advantages: ease of prep, ease of clean-up, ease of custom portions. Shrimp, corn, potatoes, a few slices of smoked sausage...all seasoned with Old Bay. It tastes just like summer, but you can pull it together any time of year.  

Baked Salmon

Get experimental using this basic technique, adding the herbs, spices, and vegetables you like to create the fish foil packet you crave. Keep it seasonal with asparagus spears and new potatoes in spring, corn and tomatoes, and green beans in summer, or peppers and okra in early fall. 

Baked Seafood Spaghetti

This Italian classic is a delicious and impressive option for dinner. Serve in one giant pile family-style for an impressive reveal of the packet's contents to the table, or create individual portions for everyone to open on their own. Feel free to experiment with the mix of shellfish depending on what looks good at the fish counter.

Halibut Packets

Bell pepper, onion, and oregano give these halibut fillets cooked in foil lots of flavor. Serve alongside rice for a truly perfect pairing, or add some slices of par-boiled potatoes to soak up the delicious aromatics alongside the fish.

If you have trouble finding halibut, use any other meaty white fish, such as sea bass.

Catfish with Lemon

A melange of vegetables turn simple catfish fillets packets into dinner. Add a few par-boiled potatoes to round things out, if you like, or serve with rice or chunks of crusty bread. 

Dill Potatoes

Turn these yummy dilled potatoes into a full dinner by adding some chicken or sausage to the mix. Or, prepare things alongside any fish dish you can imagine—something about these little potatoes and dill make them divine with fish and seafood.

Orange Salmon

This recipe may be written to be grilled, but the orange-and-yogurt coated salmon will be just as good if that foil packet is tossed in a hot oven. The packets can be prepared and the sauce added to the fish up to a few hours before cooking, if you like—prepare the packets, chill them in the fridge, and then pop them in a preheated oven when you're ready to eat.

Pot Roast

This onion-rubbed chuck roast gets wonderfully tender with the power of foil. Turn it into a complete meal by tucking potatoes or other root vegetables in the foil packet alongside the meat. If you're a stickler for including green vegetables, consider tossing broccoli or Brussels sprouts in there.

Red Snapper Veracruz

The red snapper used here gets topped with salsa, enclosed in foil, and baked until everything is just a flavorful as can be making individual fish dinners with fairly little effort. 

Steak Dinner

Chuck steak gets a nice long, slow time to tenderize wrapped up in foil with root vegetables for a meaty, yet cozy dinner. This dish is an excellent example of how foil packet cooking needs not limit itself to fish and seafood, ideal as it is for those delicate foods. Yet the wrapping of foil and containing moisture works for longer cooking of beef, too, breaking down any toughness and keeping everything deliciously juicy.

Thai Baked Fish

Coconut milk keeps this fish packet moist and flavorful. Serve with rice (consider coconut rice), and a stir-fry of vegetables or just a green tossed salad to round things out. 

Wrapped Chicken

Often called paper-wrapped chicken, foil works just as well to enclose this insanely tender rendition of chicken covered in a sweet, spicy, super sticky sauce.