chili.

it's one of the first complete meals I taught my husband how to cook;

it's basic in that you sautee veggies, then add tomato sauce-

it teaches simmering as well.

it's pretty similar to pasta sauce; just with different spicing and beans added to the sauce as well

Stirfry is a great start for sure. I've gotten my S.O. to try stirfry by just setting it up like those restaurants where you grab your own ingredients and have them cook it for you. Its a great way to let someone experiment with it and see the results before being too intimidated by preparing their own ingredients. Its easy if you keep frozen veggies and individual portions of meat in the freezer. Once they start getting delicious results they are much more likely to be up for the less fun chopping and preparing of fresh ingredients.

Another one that follows a similar idea is omlettes. You can do the same thing as a stirfry and let people make their own filling mixes to sautee and fill their egg with. Although the egg part can be tricky and sometimes better left to someone more experienced.

I think pasta and stir fry recipes are great and can be easily adapted to your tastes. They are great basic recipes and are super tasty. THis is my favorite marinara, it's so easy and quick to make but so full of flavor!

Homemade Marinara Sauce
http://good-life-eats.blogspot.com/2009/02/homemade-marinara-sauce.html

Mise en place. Not a recipe but a technique, if you will. Basically it's getting all your ingredients prepped / measured before you cook (and becoming familiar with the recipe, too). Sometimes I still have to learn that lesson the hard way! ;)

But for me, a good simple vegetable soup like a minestrone would be a good place to start...

The first thing I learned to cook from scratch was homemade mac & cheese in second grade. While I've since substituted the Kraft singles for farmhouse cheddar, Munchee, grueyere or a host of other cheeses, having learned how to make a simple roux and build a sauce has come in handy as I've learned to cook more. Plus, it's unbelievably satisfying and your don't need a cookbook!

My mom gave me a Betty Crocker cook book, and it has a lot of really good "technique tips" and pictures on how to make the dish... There's a lot of simple, but good recipes in there. I would suggest that book for a beginner!

Casseroles tend to be quite easy and forgiving; when I first started cooking, one of my favorite dishes was a chicken and mushroom casserole of sorts--the sauce was made with yoghurt and I can't remember what else. But it was easy! And I made it!
I also made fajitas/taco filling a lot when I was a newbie--so fast to put together, and the spices (cumin, chile powder, etc.) are pretty straightforward and easy for anyone to find.
Soups (February! Soup Month!) are really easy to make, and they allow for a lot of flexibility and creativity.

I would also encourage home cooks to explore basic cooking techniques and how they work. I could never figure out why the chicken that I browned for my casserole never. actually. browned. Now it's obvious that I was crowding the pan and creating steam, but at the time, it was a source of frustration for me.

Most of the time, the one new (and willing) cook I know tries stuff on her own and calls me in a tizzy halfway through for advice. I'm really amused by the calls but handing her recipes might be easier.

I'd give her minestrone, stuffed pasta shells (easy but impressive! and fun), advice on how to make a good red sauce since I never use a recipe for that (When asked, my mom said her recipe was 1/2 lb of ground beef, browned, tomato sauce and anything that smelled Italian. Thanks, Mom!) and a reminder that sometimes it'll bomb, and that's ok. You can always try again. Also, advice on how to freeze the above, since it makes a ton of food and your own frozen food is always better than storebought.

The first dish I learned was also a stir-fry. My mom and I cycled through a variety of vegetables and a variety of proteins for a couple of weeks, teaching me how to prep everything as well as developing my wok technique.

A whole roasted chicken.

first off, get a good basic cookbook like the classic, red-checked better home and gardens cookbook. it's full of basic information, contains tons of basic recipes, has pages about ingredients and technique, and even flags recipes as fast or easy.

then, ask your friends. they'll know what you like and will likely have a good idea of what your culinary capability is. I'm currently teaching one of my friends to cook via email. I make things for dinner, then write out the recipe and directions and send them to her. this works very well because I'm able to teach her tricks and cheats and how to work with kitchen basics (tools and food). so far she's had a lot of success and is starting to branch out on her own.

and really, the best way to learn is just to play around. experiment with mixing flavors and find out what you like. you won't learn if you have to strictly follow a recipe all the time, and you'll also have to take tons of trips to the grocery store.

I would start with a simple asian cookbook, it's one of the easiest cuisines to learn from, IMO.

A good first recipe would be DIY Miso soup.
Boil Water
Add raw shrimp or fish (my fav is salmon)
Bring to boil
Add miso paste and let it dissolve
Add tofu and you are done

Fairly simple

The best way to learn how to cook is to ask the most important cook of your life for their recipes (mom, dad, grandma, etc.).

When I went to college my mom emailed me all the recipes for the food that we begged her for growing up.

I made those recipes, figured out what I liked, and how I liked it done.

And the rest, she is history.