Variant ideas for overcoming rating differences

Over the board casual games often involve 2 players of vastly different ratings playing. It tends to be a less fun experience - the lower rated player gets stomped and the higher rated player gets bored since they will need to convert a resign-able position while waiting for the lower rated player to think.

One common solution is to start down a rook (or knight, queen, etc). Sometimes this just feels like you have a lost position and you just pray for a blunder.  Another solution is to play with 1 min - 5 minute time odds or something, which doesn't feel like waiting for a blunder but does lend a bit to the 'one player is bored' situation.

Maybe you don't agree, but regardless I think it's interesting to think about ways to make a chess variant that isn't lost (or at least doesn't feel lost) for either side but favors the lower rated player by having simpler/more tactics appear for them.

You could have a rule like 'the lower rated player must always have at least as many points of material as the higher rated player' though this is a bit too abusable since, for example, it's really hard to take the lower rated queen if they don't want to trade and it doesn't feel that much like chess.

One idea that I think is nice is letting the lower-rated players promote pawns on the 6th rank (or 5/7 depending on skill gap). 

Have you come up with any fun variants to help overcome the skill gap? Post here! 

Well, I usually don't record the game/have access to an engine in a OTB casual game! That would be one way to balance it though