50+ Paleo Recipes for Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and Dessert

updated Jul 5, 2023
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Credit: Joe Lingeman

If you’re following a Paleo diet, especially if you’re just getting started, the best approach is not to get hung up on the restrictions and things you can’t eat. Sure, grains, gluten, dairy, and sweets (minus dark chocolate!) are out of the picture, but there’s still a huge variety of delicious options at every meal.

To prove it to you, we’ve rounded up more than 50 Paleo-friendly recipes to take you through breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert.

Paleo Breakfast Ideas

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Easy Paleo Breakfast Egg Muffins
These Paleo breakfast egg muffins are loaded with savory sausage, mushrooms, and spinach, and are easy to pull together in about 30 minutes.
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Frittata
As long as you have a few vegetables and some eggs on hand, you can have a frittata on the table in about 20 minutes.
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Acorn Squash Egg-in-a-Hole
A quick and easy, Paleo-friendly, gluten-free breakfast recipe for baked eggs in acorn squash.
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Coconut, Apple, Date & Almond Breakfast Mix
Coconut, apples, dates, and almonds combine for a fresh take on muesli.
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Hard-Boil Eggs
A perfect, foolproof way to make boiled eggs perfectly every single time, with timing and methods for both hard boiled and soft boiled eggs.
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Cook Eggs in an Electric Pressure Cooker

Unlike stovetop pressure cookers, which need a little more supervision, an electric model behaves like a slow cooker; you can set it and walk away.

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Vegetable Breakfast Hash
Made with red pepper, sweet potatoes, broccoli, and eggs, this breakfast hash is the secret to eating more vegetables for breakfast.
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Scrambled Eggs with Lazy Salsa

If you’re getting a little bored of plain old scrambled eggs every morning, here’s something to spice them up a bit.

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Paleo Lunch Ideas

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Slow Cooker Whole Chicken Soup

Naturally the slow cooker is chicken soup’s best friend, as it can cook all day without any supervision from you.

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Vegan Sweet Potato Chowder

This vegan sweet potato chowder delivers everything you want in a warm fall soup.

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Creamy Coconut Cauliflower Soup
Answer the call of creamy comfort food with this nourishing, Whole30- and Paleo-friendly soup.
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A Light & Fresh Ginger Broccoli Soup
This 5-ingredient broccoli soup is the polar opposite of broccoli and cheddar soup, but just as crave worthy.
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Soup from Any Vegetable

You don’t need a recipe to make soup — especially if you have a clutch of miscellaneous vegetables hanging out in your crisper. Nearly any vegetable can be turned into soup with a little time and effort.

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Grapefruit and Avocado Winter Salad
This salad has an invigorating mix of bright, fresh, tangy flavors that will bring a burst of sunny warmth every time you serve it.
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Crab & Avocado Temaki

These are fun for casual gatherings since everyone can jump in and help out, plus no special equipment like sushi mats are needed.

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Ottolenghi's Cauliflower, Pomegranate, and Pistachio Salad
This warm, herb-heavy salad treats you to cauliflower three different ways from the Ottolenghi SIMPLE cookbook.
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Paleo Dinner Ideas

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Easy Shredded Chicken in the Slow Cooker

Thanks to the slow cooker and a foolproof ratio, making a large quantity of shredded chicken at once is possible.

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Lemon Thyme Chicken Thighs
A quick and easy recipe for crispy, skillet-cooked chicken thighs seasoned simply with fresh lemon and thyme.
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Easy Crispy Chicken Carnitas
These tender, juicy chicken carnitas give pork carnitas a run for its money.
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Chicken Breast in the Instant Pot
This method is specifically for plain chicken breast that you can use as meal prep for building salads and grain bowls.
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Slow Cooker Pesto Chicken
Homemade pesto mixed with hearty chunks of chicken in the slow cooker, ready for a week's worth of salads, wraps, and grain bowls.
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Boneless, Skinless Chicken Thighs in the Oven

The easiest, quickest way to cook chicken thighs is in the oven.

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Kerala-Style Slow Cooker Chicken Curry
This slow cooker chicken curry is deeply spiced with fennel, cinnamon, and coriander and simmered coconut milk until tender.
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Grilled Chicken Thighs with Chimichurri

Grilled chicken is likely on rotation in your summer grilling routine. It’s quick, easy, and crowd-pleasing. But it can definitely get boring after a while if you’re tossing the meat in the same ol’ marinade week after week.

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Slow Cooker BBQ Shredded Chicken
Slow cooker BBQ shredded chicken is an easy weeknight dinner that can be made with chicken breasts, thighs, or a combo of the two.
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BBQ Chicken Casserole
This Paleo-friendly weeknight casserole is loaded with shredded chicken breast and riced cauliflower, laced together with a homemade BBQ sauce.
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Easiest Baked Chicken

No flipping, no fussing, no nothing — and you can pile everything on a serving tray without the bother of pulling out the carving board.

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Paleo Chili
This paleo chili fills your bowl with a double dose of beef, thick-cut root vegetables, and a rich broth tinged with warm spices and cocoa undertones.
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Roasted Pork Tenderloin
Here's our best method for making tender, juicy pork tenderloin that tastes so good it may just earn a spot in your weekly meal rotation.
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Slow Cooker Brisket and Onions
The classic flavors of brisket you crave with the ease of the slow cooker. This recipe produces the most crowd-pleasing, tender pot of brisket you've made.
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Slow Cooker Pork Carnitas
Spicy, savory, and tender pork shoulder.
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Egg Roll Skillet
A healthy take on the classic Chinese appetizer that you can actually eat as dinner.
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Pressure-Cooker Kalua Pig

Often the headlining dish at a lu’au, kalua pig is the epitome of slow-roasted porky goodness.

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Asian Cauliflower Fried Rice with Kalua Pork

Adopting a Paleo lifestyle doesn’t mean that fried rice is forever off the menu. You just have to get creative.

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Warm Fajita Steak Salad
This fajita salad features cumin-rubbed flank steak along with charred peppers and onions over a bed of crunchy, chopped romaine and red cabbage.
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Cauliflower Fried "Rice"

This finely chopped cauliflower is one of those cheater ingredients that actually tastes legit.

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Tender & Juicy Pork Chops in the Oven
The easiest recipe for tender, juicy pork chops that turn out perfectly every time. All you need? Cast iron skillet and your oven. No brining necessary!
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Perfect Steak in the Oven
Here is an absolutely foolproof, easy, and quick way to make a juicy steak with a crisp, peppery crust in the oven.
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Chile Verde Stew

Chile verde is more than a simple stew. Pork shoulder is rendered into supple, tender meat after a slow simmer in a sauce of roasted tomatillos, peppers, cilantro, and oregano.

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Pan-Seared Salmon
This foolproof technique delivers a perfect medium-cooked fillet that's tender and flaky with deliciously crispy pan-seared skin.
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Salmon in the Slow Cooker

Not only is the slow cooker fantastic for this kind of batch meal prep, but it’s also an extremely good way to ensure tender, succulent salmon every time, no matter how many fillets you’re cooking.

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Quickly Cook Shrimp on the Stovetop
The easiest stovetop method for simply preparing shrimp.
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Salsa-Simmered Fish
An easy recipe for white fish fillets simmered in tomato sauce on the stovetop and served over rice.
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Saucy Skillet Salmon

It’s cooked in a fresh tomato-based sauce that’s punched up with garlic, balsamic, and a hint of fresh thyme so it’s a little sweet and a little tangy.

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Foolproof Salmon Baked with Olive Oil & Herbs

This method of cooking salmon is the place to start for a cook intimidated by fish, because the process is truly foolproof; there’s almost no way to mess it up.

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Fish in Crazy Water

Crazy water, or acqua pazza as it translates to in Italian, is nothing but an easy tomato-based broth, enhanced with a few aromatics and herbs.

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Paleo Dessert Ideas

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Paleo Chocolate Chip Cookies
These cookies are soft and chewy, with just a touch of firmness around the edges, and have a very generous helping of melty chocolate bits.
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Paleo Brownies

The real boon of Paleo brownies is that they happen to be flourless and refined sugar-free.

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Toasted Coconut & Almond Chocolate Clusters
A recipe for dark chocolate-dipped coconut and almond clusters that are both vegan and paleo-friendly.
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The World's Easiest Cookies
You just need four ingredients and a little elbow grease to make macaron-flavored cookies that are crisp on the edges and chewy in the center.
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Bacon Date Paleo Bites

Dates and bacon are a powerhouse Paleo couple, but this sweet-and-savory duo deserves to live far beyond the appetizer plate.

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