Here’s What to Cook Every Night This Week (July 10 – 16)

In case you haven’t noticed (or refuse to leave your air conditioner’s sweet, icy embrace), it’s hot outside. Since the last thing we want to do is stand over a blazing stove all night—or worse, turn on the oven—we’re focusing on cool, refreshing meals that require minimal cooking to come together. Read on for seven dinners that will help you beat the heat, from a cold noodle salad with summer fruit to make-ahead marinated beans. 

The only cooking you’ll need to do is boiling the buckwheat noodles and grilling the shishito peppers. If you rinse the soba with cold water and refrigerate the miso-chile dressing ahead, the strawberry-and-cucumber-topped dish will turn out extra refreshing.

Five minutes of cooking and one hour of marinating is all it takes to make this canned bean salad, which would taste divine on toasted baguette, steamed rice, pasta or greens. Once you infuse the olive oil with garlic, you’re more than halfway there.

Zucchini, yellow squash, fresh herbs and mixed greens unite for a citrusy, spicy main that looks more high maintenance than it is. The recipe calls for briefly broiling the steak to a luscious medium-rare, but you could easily grill it instead if you want to banish the heat outdoors.

Hard-boiling the eggs is the only cooking task; the rest happens in a bowl. Avocado offers both color and creaminess to this old-school picnic staple, while vinegar, Dijon mustard, lemon, Greek yogurt and capers add a delightful dose of zing to the dressing.

This Italian-inspired mélange can be served hot or cold, so feel free to prepare it ahead if you have the time. (It’ll keep for up to five days in an airtight container—the longer the salad chills in the fridge, the longer the pasta has to soak up the dressing and artichoke marinade.)

Picky eaters will be overjoyed to see this crowd-pleaser on the table. You’ll only need to bake the dough (the salad is simply assembled and placed on top of the crust), but you can grill it outdoors or substitute store-bought pizza crust or flatbread to minimize cooking time. If that’s your goal, use store-bought rotisserie chicken too.

The recipe calls for giving this behemoth the grilled cheese treatment, but you could totally skip browning the sandwich if you’d prefer a cold meal. If you are going to cook it, might we suggest using a grill pan so you can char the peaches as well?

_{Taryn Pire is PureWow’s associate food editor. A former bartender and barista, she’s been writing about all things delicious since 2016, developing recipes, reviewing restaurants and investigating food trends at Food52, New Jersey Family Magazine and Taste Talks. When she isn’t testing TikTok’s latest viral recipe, she’s having popcorn for dinner and posting about it on Instagram @cookingwithpire.}