Giiiirrrl, it’s hot outside! The temperatures are starting to climb, you’re hungry, and you don’t feel like heating up the kitchen. What do you do? Order take out? Noooooooo! I’ve got you covered. Here are 30 of our best hot weather recipes that require little to no cooking and are guaranteed to keep you full and refreshed in that sweltering summer heat!
Most of these recipes are meant to be served cold, or at the very least just warm, and most contain a lot of vegetables because vegetables are cool, crisp, and refreshing in this oppressive heat! Browse our selection of meal salads, sandwiches and wraps, tacos and quesadillas, and breakfast recipes that are perfect for summer.
All recipes are rigorously tested in our Nashville Test Kitchen to ensure they are easy, affordable, and delicious.
Meal Salads
1. Ramen Noodle Salad
Ramen Noodle Salad
This cold and crunchy Ramen Noodle Salad is the perfect light but filling cold meal for summer. Grab a rotisserie chicken from the supermarket to make this salad fast, easy, and 100% no-cook!
3. Tortellini Salad
Tortellini Salad
Tortellini Salad is a great summertime meal to keep on hand in the fridge. It holds up for days and tortellini cooks in a matter of minutes, so you won’t have to cook long!
3. Panzanella
Panzanella
Take advantage of fresh summer produce and use up leftover stale bread in this classic summer salad. Panzanella is light, fresh, and fully customizable to what you have on hand!
4. Crunchy Kale and Chicken Salad
Crunchy Kale and Chicken Salad
Another great use for a rotisserie chicken, this super filling Crunchy Kale and Chicken Salad is the perfect summertime lunch or light dinner!
5. Antipasto Salad
Antipasto Salad
For all the meat and cheese lovers out there who need something cold when the temperatures are high, this simple Antipasto Salad will satisfy your cravings! Savory, hearty, and totally no-cook, this one is a winner.
6. Mediterranean Tuna Salad
Mediterranean Tuna Salad
Cold, refreshing, full of protein and fiber, and completely mayo-free, this Mediterranean Tuna Salad is not the tuna salad your mom used to make!
7. Turkey Taco Salad
Turkey Taco Salad
Quickly browning up some ground turkey is all the cooking you’ll need to make this delicious and light Turkey Taco Salad. It’s a great dinner option for hot summer nights!
8. Broccoli Cheddar Chicken Salad
Broccoli Cheddar Chicken Salad
Whip up a batch of this Broccoli Cheddar Chicken Salad and eat for days! Use rotisserie chicken to make it 100% no-cook, or quickly sear a chicken breast in a skillet for a low-cook option.
9. Lemony QUinoa and Artichoke Salad
Lemony Artichoke and Quinoa Salad
Perfect for meal prep, the only cooking you’ll need to do for this hearty and vegan Lemony Artichoke and Quinoa Salad is boiling up a batch of quinoa!
10. Tomato Mozzarella Pasta Salad
Tomato Mozzarella Pasta Salad
With hearty chunks of mozzarella, fresh tomatoes and spinach, tender bowtie pasta, and a homemade balsamic dressing, this Tomato Mozzarella Pasta Salad is everything you’ll want in a cold summertime meal!
Sandwiches and Wraps
11. Best Veggie Sandwich
The Best Veggie Sandwich
Take advantage of all that fresh summer produce by making the BEST veggie sandwich ever. We’ve got tons of ingredient suggestions and flavor combos for you to try!
12. Scallion Herb Chickpea Salad
Scallion Herb Chickpea Salad
Totally no-cook and full of bright, fresh flavors, this Scallion Herb Chickpea Salad is the ultimate answer to hot weather summertime meals.
13. Chicken Salad with Apples
Chicken Salad with Apples
Use a rotisserie chicken to make this cold, fresh, and sweet Chicken Salad with Apples 100% no-cook for summer!
14. Greek Chicken Wraps
Greek Chicken Wraps
Warm chicken, fresh tomatoes and cucumber, and a bright and cool yogurt sauce make these Greek Chicken Wraps an extra refreshing summertime lunch.
15. Sriracha Chickpea Salad Wraps
Sriracha Chickpea Salad Wraps
The perfect juxtaposition between cold and spicy, these Sriracha Chickpea Salad Wraps are an easy, flavorful, and refreshing no-cook summer lunch.
16. BBQ Tofu Sliders
BBQ Tofu Sliders
A quick sauté of chopped tofu is the only cooking you’ll need to do for these tasty vegetarian sliders. Bonus: you can eat these BBQ Tofu Sliders as a bowl meal with the homemade coleslaw, too!
17. Egg Salad Sandwich
Easy Egg Salad
Egg Salad Sandwiches are a classic for a reason! They’re super easy, cheap, delicious, and filling. Done and done!
18. Cucumber Sandwiches
Cucumber Sandwiches
When it’s hotter than Hades but you know you’ve got to eat, these simple Cucumber Sandwiches are fast, easy, super refreshing, and won’t make you feel overly full.
Tacos and QUesadillas
19. Fish Tacos with Cumin Lime Slaw
Easy Fish Tacos with Cumin Lime Slaw
Talke about FRESH! These Fish Tacos are topped with a bright and tangy cumin lime slaw that has summer written all over it!
20. Creamy Spinach and White Bean QUesadillas
Creamy White Bean and Spinach Quesadillas
Super fast and easy, these Spinach and White Bean Quesadillas are creamy and satisfying without a lot of time in the kitchen required!
21. Tajín Shrimp Tacos
Tajín Shrimp Tacos
A brief sauté of the shrimp in a skillet is all the cooking you’ll need to do for these super simple and fresh shrimp tacos!
22. Hearty Black Bean Quesadillas
Hearty Black Bean Quesadillas
This Budget Bytes Classic Recipe is great anytime of year, but it’s definitely a life saver during the hot summer months! A quick crisp-up in a hot skillet is all the cooking you’ll need to make these Hearty Black Bean Quesadillas!
23. Blackened Shrimp Tacos
Blackened Shrimp Tacos
Spicy, creamy, and fresh, these Blackened Shrimp Tacos are the BEST! You’ll want to make them all summer long!
Breakfast Recipes
24. Green Smoothie
Green Smoothie
Green smoothies are packed with fresh summer fruits and a little spinach for good measure! They’re ultra refreshing and filling for hot summer mornings.
25. Muesli
Muesli
Muesli is the O.G. overnight oats. With thick rolled oats, nuts, and dried fruit that you can eat with cold milk or yogurt, this simple breakfast will fill you up with no cooking required!
26. Chocolate Coffee Breakfast Smoothie
Chocolate Coffee Breakfast Smoothie
Skip the frappuccino and make your own cold coffee-filled breakfast treat! This Chocolate Coffee Breakfast Smoothie tastes like a Frostie, but is packed with breakfast goodies, even a little bit of vegetables!
27. Cottage Cheese Breakfast Bowls
Peanut Butter and Jelly Cottage Cheese Breakfast Bowl
We’ve got SIX different flavors of these protein-filled, meal prep ready, COLD Cottage Cheese Breakfast Bowls for you to try!
28. No-Sugar Added Blueberry Almond Overnight Oats
No Sugar Added Blueberry Almond Overnight Oats
The natural sweetness of applesauce is all the sugar you need to make these dessert-like, hearty and refreshing Blueberry Almond Overnight Oats!
29. Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie
Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie
This simple and classic Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie is my go-to for breakfast or anytime during the day when the weather is hot!
30. Double Chocolate Overnight Oats
Double Chocolate Overnight Oats
Because you deserve dessert for breakfast after surviving this heat. ;) These Double Chocolate Overnight Oats feel like you’re eating chocolate pudding, but are chock-full of breakfast goodness.
I’d love to hear your summer favorites, too! Share your favorites in the comments below.
We LOVE your Curry Chicken Salad recipe. But we also take advantage of our front porch and plug in our crock pot out there a few times each summer. Last weekend I made curried lentils and sweet potatoes for lunches for the week and it was perfect.
One thing we use constantly year round is our gas grill–I’ve been seen outside flipping burgers in the snow. But it’s particularly useful to keep heat out of the kitchen in summer. I also like to grill fish or shrimp outside in order to keep the smell out of the house. And grilled foods are our basis for lots of light summer meals–grilled chicken, pork chops, salmon, veggies–and by doing more than we need for a single meal, there’s plenty of leftover protein and veggies for salads, sandwiches, etc, over the next couple of days.
Veggies that hold up well on the grill include zucchini, yellow squash or Japanese eggplants halved lengthwise, Regular eggplants sliced between 1/2-3/4 in. thick, thick slices of onion, whole skinny carrots, large tomatoes halved or very thick slices, peppers of all kinds. I often toss them in a plastic bag or with a little olive oil and fresh herbs, and lots of black pepper–salting them later–but a little vinaigrette or salad dressing of your choice is fine. You only need a little so the veggies don’t stick. You can also brush the grill with a little oil, but any fat burns off the grill surface pretty quickly. One caution–I have been known to use cooking spray, but don’t recommend it as it is quite a serious fire risk.
Thanks, Beth, for a wonderful roundup. I also enjoyed many of the tips on this column
ha! somewhat ironically, it is cloudy with a supposed high of 81 today where i live, so i decided that was close enough to soup weather, & came to the site for your slow cooker black bean soup recipe :)
this will be a great resource for next week when it gets back up in the 90s, tho.
and I was eating the curried tofu salad all last week for lunch, that stuff is FANTASTIC.
Your cold cucumber soba noodle recipe (https://www.budgetbytes.com/cold-soba-cucumber-salad/) should totally be on this list too. I made it specifically because it really hot weather and I loved it. You really don’t notice that it’s room temp and I cooked the noodles simply by boiling a kettle and pouring hot water over them. So easy!
easy to cook recipes,thanks for this lovely post.
Thanks Beth. I live in Florida, and NOTHING sounds good except for salads and sandwiches right now. I’m super excited about having new recipes to add to my (perpetual) summertime line-up.
Awesome suggestions! I’ve been panicking, wondering what was going to happen to my meal planning and budgeting with the hot weather, and *boom* you have this post!
Thanks Beth!
(and yes, I changed my user name, and took the plunge into self hosting my blog…eeep!)
You’ll be glad you moved to a self hosted site! It’s better to that sooner than later. I waited WAY too long and then it ended up being a HUGE task with many problems. :P
I’ll take your word for it, LOL! My talent at tech is about the same level as paste.
Just a head’s up, mentioned you and your site in today’s post.
http://notastepfordlife.com/week-5-budgeting-meal-planning-homemaking/
Thank you so much for this post! I made the veggie pasta salad the other day and it was delicious. Also the leftovers made for a perfect dinner yesterday, when the heat index reached 107 degrees here in DC. I already had dinner in the fridge ready to go, no re-heating necessary! I also make your smoothies for breakfast all summer, using almond butter and yogurt instead of almond milk.
I’m so glad you posted this, because I’ve been eating your cumin lime chickpeas for days now. Such a great light thing to eat at the office when I don’t want cooked food!
I still have yet to try the falafel salad because I need to get some bulghur, but I cannot wait. Theres a can of tahini and some chickpeas in my fridge just waiting for me to get to the store. :)
It’s been 7 years since I first saw it, but Mark Bittman’s “summer express” recipes remain my go to for hot weather eating. So many good ideas with lots of room to improvise
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/dining/18mini.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
It’s not a meal, unless you eat enough, but it’s good
Vegetables for dipping. You’ll figure out what is best for you. I like Club Crackers or another rich cracker with this.
Vegetables:
Onions – I like Green and mostly the green part. Regular onions cut thick.
Carrots – pencil size
Mushrooms – halved
Celery – peeled and sized, like carrots
Radishes – sliced for bite size.
Cauliflower – break off a chunk and half or quarter it.
Broccoli – same as Cauliflower
Or any other vegetable you care to use to dip with.
1 – 16oz Sour Cream
1 – package of Hidden Valley Ranch Salad Dressing
Combine the Sour Cream and Dressing and refrigerate for a couple of hours or more. Overnight really makes it.
John, try using half sour cream, half plain yogurt (not greek) and a tad bit of mayo with the packet of ranch. We’ve been making our dip like this for years and for some reason, the yogurt lightens it up a bit. It’s funny because I can notice the dip when yogurt isn’t used.
This stays in my fridge almost all year with cut up vegetables, but especially in the summer when I don’t want to eat cooked food. My favorites to dip this in are red bell peppers, cucumbers, and carrots.
I am always offering to bring veggies and dip to parties or get togethers, and everyone LOVES this. They can never pin point how the ranch tastes SO good, and I think it might be the yogurt added because they are so surprised when I tell them!
We’ve had a lot of nice, cool rain lately where I live, but the heat is coming. I can’t wait to try your Falafel Salad. A smoothie sounds great, too. Thanks for this great list.
They all look wonderful, but the shrimp and rice salad is really sounding tasty right now!
After the ridiculous winter we just endured…it’s hard to complain about the heat (but dah-ng it is hot in the mitten!) Thanks for this great list Beth, you have NO idea how much my family appreciates YOU! ;-)
Awesome ideas! I’m always looking for quick easy recipes for 3 very picky teens :)