My own brand of beans and pig trotters. I have to boil the beans and trotters separately for one hour before putting them together with condiments for another hour. Oh yeah, I have to soak the beans overnight.
Next-day lasagna is better, IMO, than fresh lasagna - I think the flavors have time to blend better or something.
For that reason, it’s my answer to the OP. Broccoli/cheese/rice/chicken casserole is second.
There are some short cuts I’ve figured out over the years but I’m never as satisfied with the finished product when I don’t do it the “correct” way. And you other cooks know that it does make a difference. So a few favorites I seldom make anymore unless one of the family requests it are:
Stuffed cabbage rolls and onion bread
Chicken cordon bleu
Yes, also lasagna. Daughter says use the noodles you don’t have to boil. But I won’t.
A friend’s rigatoni sauce with meatballs, pork and Italian sausages
Chiles rellenos
A number of Asian-style dishes I used to prepare and serve all at once. It was a real dazzler but I’m resting on my laurels on that one.
Runzas
Tyler Florence’s chicken enchiladas with roasted tomatillo chili salsa. So delicious, but there are many steps. I get around to it maybe twice a year.
The royal pain-in-the-ass is a delicious sausage and butternut squash lasagna recipe that my mother found. Even with both of us working full tilt it takes 90 minutes to put together. We make it, together, once a year.
Meatloaf.
You guys probably think it’s easy but I have to have meat, and it has to be thawed (or fresh) so that’s a huge hurdle right there. I also need the other ingredients which is not stuff I generally have on hand. And you have to have something to eat WITH it, like potatoes or fries or even just veggies.
And then I hate mixing it, not because it’s gross but because it’s so cold, and I get weird about having germy hands trying to turn on the water to warm them up and get it in the right pan and stuff.
It is one of the few dishes I can make and eat as leftovers for 4 days without fuss, but I’m not hip to all the beginning fuss. But mmmmm, meatloaf!
Chiles rellenos & eggplant parmigiana take forever to make properly and what a mess.
Chile verde enchiladas. I’ve stopped making the enchiladas and just do a casserole, but still.
Cottage pie
40 clove chicken
Bread
bolognese, includes Lasagna for me since I put a version of the same sauce in.
Stew
Pea Soup
Steak & Kidney Pie
I am sure there are a lot more but those are the ones that take from morning 'till eating time.
Edit for Chili…I have to set my alarm to wake up for a proper Chili.
[quote=“ZipperJJ, post:25, topic:669095”]
Meatloaf.
And then I hate mixing it, not because it’s gross but because it’s so cold, and I get weird about having germy hands trying to turn on the water to warm them up and get it in the right pan and stuff.
/quote]
Put 1 pound ground beast, 1 egg, 1/2 cup italian bread crumbs and 1/2 cup chopped onion with however much salt and pepper to taste in a 1 gallon zippy bag. Seal. Squdge around in your hands until it is all mixed. Blorp into loaf pan, bake.
Or get surgical gloves and squdge away in a bowl.
[or use whatever your recipe is and put it in a zippy bag]
Breakfast - the proper, full English kind. It’s such a palaver for just one.
IMO, manicotti is worse than lasagna. I have to make up the sauce, make up the cheese mix, parboil the tubes, and then stuff the tubes. And then arrange the tubes in a pan.
My husband was quite disgruntled the other day…he had ordered manicotti at a restaurant, and he received the standard recipe. I put ground beef, onions, bell pepper, and mushrooms in my manicotti sauce, and he wasn’t expecting just a plain seasoned tomato sauce.
This is probably why he hasn’t divorced me. I’m the only person who knows how to make tomato pasta sauce exactly the way he likes it. The way to that particular man’s heart is indeed through his stomach.
You can probably avoid his stomach if you go in with something sharp right under the xyphoid process at the bottom of the sternum, then go up and in.
Osso Bucco. Mostly due to the long drive to get the veal shanks.
Whole boned chicken stuffed with forcemeat, tied, and baked. I’ve used different stuffings, all chicken related. People seem to like being able to just cut slices or wedges out of a chicken. And since you’re using multiple chickens, you can add extra drumsticks and/or wings to the container bird.
You can do it without tying, if the forcemeat will hold the chicken shape. Some mixes will make a chicken shaped puddle if left untied.
My son has tried several Hot & Sour Soup recipes and has been disappointed with all of them. Is there a trick to it?
Bread, eggs, soup mix, and ground meat are not items commonly available to you?
Even if I don’t have everything on hand it takes me 5 minutes to run into the store and grab these 5 things (not including travel time which may be more significant for you). Another 5 minutes to mash it all together (get some disposable plastic gloves, they work great. and let the meat come to room temp for 10 mins or so if it’s that cold), form into a loaf and into the oven for an hour and a half. It’s one of the first and easiest things I learned to cook, I could probably make it in my sleep. It’s become my go to meal that I can make when I don’t feel like/don’t have time for cooking.
Crock pot chili. I looooove it, but I have to plan to make it either the day before or the morning it will be eaten. Sometimes I’ll make it on a weekend, but I definitely don’t make as many crock pot meals as I should. We freeze our beef so I have to thaw it, then brown it, then wait 3-5 hours while it cooks. I’m hungry now!
My recipe is here.
I won’t even MENTION the “M” word around my husand or he’d have me making THAT next. I am 47 years old - I don’t have that kind of time left. 
And I understand about the sauce - I make my sauce the same way (except I use sweet/mild Italian Sausage instead of ground beef) and he hates ordering pasta when we’re out because I’m the only one who knows how he likes his sauce.
The best dinners I’ve ever cooked were seafood risotto and paella… but they’re just too time-consuming and expensive to make more than every few years.
To be clear, are we including the effort involved with procuring the ingredients as well as the actual preparation and cooking, or are we just talking about the prep and cooking with the assumption that all the ingredients are on-hand?
I’d say that making sausage is probably the #1 thing I do infrequently because of the length of preparation. You have to cut up the meat into small enough chunks to fit into the grinder (no small task when 10 lbs of pork shoulder is involved), measure out the spices, spice the meat, mix it all up, grind it, potentially grind it again, mix it thoroughly, all the while keeping it cold.
Then, you transfer it from the mixer bowl to the sausage stuffer and you have to stuff the sausages and deal with casings.
And after all that, you have to clean all that stuff up!
The only thing I can think of similar in time and effort is home brewing. Stuff like cassoulet are quick and easy by comparison.
Ragu alla bolognese is stupid easy; as dishes go, it’s pretty easy, even if it does take a pretty long relatively unattended simmering time.
Lasagna is also stupid easy if you have the above ragu on hand; it’s just layering your noodles, your ragu and your cheeses and baking.