35 Quick & Easy No-Cook Recipes For When It's Too Hot To Function

Imagine not having to unhinge your jaw like a snake to enjoy your favorite Italian deli hero. This chopped sandwich is here to turn that dream into a reality. Turns out, running a knife through your sandwich ingredients before piling them into a roll makes the whole ordeal of crushing a big hoagie a lot easier to manage. Not to mention—completely even dressing coverage.

Get the Chopped Sandwich recipe.

We love this salad served on top of greens as much as we love it between two slices of sourdough bread. If you can't find a good ripe mango, pineapple would be delicious as well!

Get the Avocado Chicken Salad recipe.

This particular wrap is loaded with bright flavors and satisfying ingredients, making it hearty enough to keep you full at lunch time or as an easy, chill dinner. Filled with a zingy arugula-dill salad, sliced turkey, roasted red peppers, and crunchy cucumbers, and sealed with a creamy goat cheese spread, it's exactly the kind of colorful lunch we crave to brighten up our weekdays.

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When late summer rolls around and the tomatoes turn juicy and sweet, we can't get enough of them. When we're not busy scarfing them down in Caprese salad form, we love them in this classic summer soup. Our version also uses red bell peppers and cucumbers to really up that summer cornucopia flavor too.

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This versatile chickpea salad is a great side dish (hello, potlucks!) but can easily be a full meal on its own! Adding a spoonful of Dijon mustard to your red wine vinaigrette makes it creamier in both taste and body—consider it your secret weapon in making a classic dressing just that much better.

Get the Antipasto Chickpea Salad recipe.

This recipe was semi-inspired by the Chinese Chicken Salad at The Cheesecake Factory, where they use wonton strips and crispy rice noodles. Instead, we sub in a block of dried ramen—broken up, the crunchy, wavy noodles act as croutons just as well. Feel free to sub the almonds for cashews or peanuts too!

Get the Chinese Chicken Salad recipe.

For this rather unorthodox ceviche, we borrowed techniques and ingredients from all over the world, from Japan to Mexico. Fun fact: Before Japanese immigration, Peruvians were marinating their ceviche for hours. The Japanese immigrants taught Peruvians to appreciate fish in a more "lightly cooked" form, via marination that takes minutes (if not seconds) to complete. This flavorful, magical marinade is all Peruvian, though there may be an ingredient that surprises you: ginger!

Get the Salmon Ceviche recipe.

Caprese salad is one of the best ways to show off those juicy in-season farmer's market tomatoes or your own backyard harvest. Hailing from the island of Capri and mirroring the colors of the Italian flag, this simple salad is the perfect way to start any late-summer meal.

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It wouldn’t be a Mediterranean menu without a Greek salad in some form or another—these cottage cheese bowls fit the bill. Packed with protein, nutrient-rich vegetables, and healthy fats (not to mention a whole lot of flavor), they’re the perfect breakfast, lunch, dinner, or satisfying snack. Just prep your hard-boiled eggs at the top of the week so this can be a no-cook dinner when you're ready.

Get the Greek Salad Cottage Cheese Bowl recipe.

Selfishly, we want to enjoy the flavors of antipasto in as many ways as possible, so we made a showstopping salad inspired by an antipasto platter that is fit for a special occasion. Shredded Brussels sprouts are a great hearty option as the greens in this salad. The mini cabbage-like veggie pairs well with the antipasto mix-ins, and they offer a crisp and crunchy texture.

Get the Italian Antipasto Brussels Sprouts Salad recipe.

This wrap is just as easy to customize as it is to make. Feel free to adjust the spices to add more or less heat, swap out the slaw for lettuce, the blue cheese sauce with ranch dressing, use cauliflower or tofu instead of meat, or try Greek yogurt in place of mayonnaise.

Get the Buffalo Chicken Wrap recipe.

If you thought mini crab cakes would make your brunch feel fancy, wait until your guests see these crab-stuffed avocados. Fresh jumbo lump crab gets tossed with tomato, jalapeño, mango, and cilantro, then dressed with a combo of lime and sour cream before being stuffed into a halved avocado and served with plantain chips. Paired with a leafy green salad, this makes the perfect easy no-c0ok lunch or dinner.

Get the Crab-Stuffed Avocado recipe.

If you’re looking for a surprisingly low-lift vegetable salad, then raw zucchini is the squash to turn to. Salted zucchini ribbons transform into tender noodles that get dressed with a minty creamy feta vinaigrette and tossed with toasted pignoli nuts. This salad is so good, you can honestly enjoy it as a main; otherwise, it’d behoove you to add it to your summer BBQ roster.

Get the Zucchini Salad recipe.

With origins in Lao cuisine and further popularized through Thai menus in America, Southeast Asian green papaya salad can vary in terms of ingredients as well as spice level. This recipe calls for optional balacan, a type of fermented shrimp paste. Together with acid (usually lime juice) and sweetness (usually palm sugar) and some raw garlic, this very simple dressing forms the foundation of flavor of this incredible, sweet-spicy papaya salad.

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An exuberant jumble of lettuce, chickpeas, chicken (just swap in rotisserie chicken for a true no-cook experience!), salami, tomatoes, and cheese, all tossed in a Italian mustard-herb vinaigrette, this is one salad that might actually tempt us to put down the pizza in favor of the greens.

Get the CPK Italian Chopped Salad recipe.

One of the most popular sandwiches to ever come out of New Orleans is the muffuletta. Depending on where you go, you can order a muffuletta hot or cold. It’s a bit of a controversial question, but we think both preparations have their own merits.

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We love relying on rotisserie chicken—our favorite supermarket shortcut—for quick and easy meals. This healthy lunch couldn't be more simple to make. Toss shredded chicken with a good amount of parsley (this is inspired by our favorite condiment, chimichurri sauce, after all), garlic, olive oil, and vinegar and serve with toasted bread.

Get the Chimichurri Chicken Salad recipe.

Creamy burrata on top of a tomato and basil gazpacho is the most refreshing no-cook summer meal we can imagine. Some gazpacho has bread in it for added texture, but for this version, we liked the idea of serving toasted bread alongside to dip into the soup and spread the burrata on.

Get the Gazpacho With Burrata recipe.

While it may seem fancy, ceviche is actually a fairly simple dish at its core. All it involves is tossing raw seafood in lime juice, then letting the acid in the citrus “cook” the fish. Often bulked up with other mix-ins like tomatoes or cucumber, the result is a light and refreshing dish that’s a perfect summertime dinner or pre-dinner app.

Get the Ceviche recipe.

Is there anything more summer-perfect than Caprese salad? We think not, so we decided that a Caprese sandwich should be the official sandwich of summer (or any time you get your hands on some perfect tomatoes).

Get the Caprese Sandwich recipe.