Side-Eyeing Your Stovetop? These Easy Dinners Are How I Stay Cool (Even If It's Hot As Hell Out)
Ovens are cancelled until further notice.
Our stove-tops (heck, any appliance that makes our kitchens any hotter) are canceled for the season. Why so harsh? Well, now that we've got these easy, refreshing, and satisfying cold dinner recipes in our back pocket, we're feeling, well, a little too cool to turn the oven on. Before you think it, no, these aren't all sandwich or salad recipes either. Far from it! In fact, these 30 no- or low-cook dinner recipes are equal parts weeknight-friendly and impressive, meaning you might not even need to turn your oven on 'til well into October. Turns out, dinner is a dish best served cold, after all!
If it's summer where you are (or just plain hot), there's a few classic cold dinners you should learn how to make: ceviche and gazpacho. Not only will they make you feel as if you're on a vacation to Peru or Italy, but they're also just plain good (and require no cooking at all.) Once you've tried our stand-by recipes for both, feel free to change things up a bit with our gazpacho with burrata, our salmon ceviche, or our watermelon gazpacho too.
Okay, you got us: some of these recipes do require a bit of cooking (like many of our sushi and bowl recipes), but we promise it's worth it. Our summer roll bowls, our sushi bowls, and our chicken pesto pasta just need a bit of just-warmed rice or noodles to help balance their toppings (though our avocado mango poke salad is 100% no-cook). The same is true of some of our salads (like our Chinese chicken salad and strawberry spinach salad), which we have a genius workaround for: leftover rotisserie chicken. Pro-tip: prepping and grabbing a few of those must-cook proteins (such as hard-boiled eggs for these Greek Salad cottage cheese bowls or stocking up on canned tuna for your Niçoise salad) at the beginning of the week will help you keep cool all week long.
What's cooler than being cool? Checking out our favorite cold lunch and cold breakfast ideas next.
Chicken Pesto Pasta
Summer is the season of light bright flavors and minimal cooking, and this chicken pesto pasta is bringing all that—and more—to your weeknight table. Featuring store-bought pesto along with just six other ingredients, this 30-minute, one-pan meal is truly the lazy cook’s dream.
Get the Chicken Pesto Pasta recipe.
Watermelon Gazpacho
If summer had a flavor, it might taste a lot like this soup. Though we love our classic tomato-based gazpacho, the addition of watermelon gives the classic soup a welcome subtle sweetness we can't get enough of. Full of bright fruits and veggies, this no-cook soup is equal parts satisfying and refreshing.
Get the Watermelon Gazpacho recipe.
Cowboy Caviar Couscous Salad
Also known as "Texas caviar", cowboy caviar combines fresh vegetables, beans, and corn to make a colorful meal that can be enjoyed with chips or as a standalone dish. But once you add some pearl couscous? It becomes the star of any picnic or summer potluck.
Get the Cowboy Caviar Couscous Salad recipe.
Cobb Salad
In our book, the Cobb salad just might be the perfect dinner salad. This classic recipe creates the perfect balance of textures and flavors, all tied together by the star of the show: our homemade dressing. While you can use store-bought, this homemade vinaigrette is not only easy to make, but truly takes this salad from basic to incredible.
Get the Cobb Salad recipe.
Chickpea "Tuna" Salad
When we say you won't miss the tuna, we mean it; this creamy, zingy, crunchy "tuna" salad will satisfy all your canned fish cravings. We like to keep a can of chickpeas in our pantry at all times, so this easy lunch sandwich is always only 5 minutes away.
Get the Chickpea "Tuna" Salad recipe.
Peanut Chickpea Protein Bowls
Chickpeas are our current obsession, so when we set out to create this vegetarian dinner (that's perfect for meal prep), we knew we had to combine them with our other obsession: peanut sauce. Put them together, and you've got paradise for dinner.
Get the Peanut Chickpea Protein Bowls recipe.
Antipasto Chickpea Salad
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.
Turkey Lavash Wraps
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.
Get the Turkey Lavash Wraps recipe.
Summer Roll Bowls
Love a Vietnamese summer roll but don’t want to fuss with the wrapper? Meet your new favorite summer dinner. Rice noodles, shrimp, avocado, thinly sliced veggies, and a plethora of greens are tossed together in a tangy nước chấm dressing for a refreshing dinner twist.
Get the Summer Roll Bowls recipe.
Spicy Tuna Roll
In restaurants, spicy tuna sushi rolls usually involve raw, sushi-grade fish. But if raw fish is out of reach, this recipe uses humble canned tuna. That’s not to say you can’t use the basic skeleton of this recipe for raw tuna if you can find it—just substitute in sushi-grade fish, finely chopped, and proceed onward!
Get the Spicy Tuna Roll recipe.
Chipotle Shrimp Taco Bowls
After an easy adobo and honey marinade, it only takes the shrimp a fast 4-ish minutes to cook. The rice can be done while the shrimp is marinating, then all that's left is prepping the toppings. It's the perfect quick, easy, and versatile meal that you'll have no problem enjoying all week long.
Get the Chipotle Shrimp Taco Bowls recipe.
Tuscan Tortellini Salad
This easy tortellini salad is ALWAYS a fave at picnics. Feel free to swap the sun-dried tomatoes here for fresh cherry tomatoes, use kale instead of spinach or bacon instead of salami, or replace the Parmesan with Pecorino or mozzarella. Anything goes!
Get the Tuscan Tortellini Salad recipe.
Greek Salad Cottage Cheese Bowl
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, or satisfying snack.
Get the Greek Salad Cottage Cheese Bowl recipe.
Avocado Chicken Salad
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.
Summer Couscous Salad
A summer salad should be simple with minimal effort, allowing the summer produce to really shine. This couscous salad does just that. The only cooking required is bringing a pot of water to a boil, which is arguably not cooking at all. The rest is chopping up some fresh veggies and calling it a day!
Get the Summer Couscous Salad recipe.
Ceviche
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.
Gazpacho With Burrata
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.
Niçoise Salad
A classic French dish, Niçoise salad is a composed salad—similar to the American Cobb—that we can’t help but reach for in the summer months. It’s got everything: briny flavors, hits of umami, jammy eggs, hearty potatoes, and fresh veggies.
Get the Niçoise Salad recipe.
Rainbow Roll
Rainbow rolls include a lot of elements of traditional Japanese sushi, but the composition is definitely Americanized. This inside-out roll (or uramaki) has rice on the outside, while the sheet of nori on the inside holds the avocado, cucumber, and crab in place.
Get the Rainbow Roll recipe.
CPK Italian Chopped Salad
An exuberant jumble of lettuce, chickpeas, chicken, 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.
