When people think of comfort food, it usually involves a lot of casseroles, creamy sauces, and other heavy dishes. But there are plenty of comfort foods that are lighter, healthier, and make you feel great when you eat them. Those recipes tend to take full advantage of summer produce at its peak, and as a bonus: they often don’t require much cooking. When you need something comforting to eat and want to keep your kitchen as cool as possible, try these recipes.
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Pasta, Green Beans, and Potatoes
A huge bowl of carbohydrates is comfort food to a lot of people, and this classic Italian recipe includes two types: pasta and potatoes. They’re cooked together, along with fresh green beans, to minimize pots and cooking time, and then tossed with a quick, fresh pesto made with tons of basil. If you’re someone who has an abundance of basil in summer, this recipe is for you.
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Sesame Noodles
Sesame noodles are a Chinese-American takeout staple, and they’re simple to make yourself. Besides boiling the pasta, there’s no cooking required — just mix the sauce ingredients and toss with the cooked pasta. If you’d like to turn these simple noodles into a full meal, add some shredded chicken and whatever fresh vegetables you have on hand.
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Egg Roll in a Bowl
Egg rolls great, but they’re complicated to make at home, especially when that means deep frying in the middle of summer. Egg roll bowls solve that problem by creating the filling in a skillet, then eating it as is for a low carb meal or putting it on top of rice. Using a bag of coleslaw mix means one less prep step.
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Grilled Chicken Banh Mi
Sandwiches of all types are comforting favorites, and Vietnamese banh mi are a fresh variant full of tangy flavors. This recipe marinates chicken breast in fish sauce, lime and garlic before being grilled for a light char. Carrots and daikon are quick pickled for tartness, and cucumber, raw jalapeno and cilantro all add freshness to a complex sandwich.
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Buffalo Chicken Wraps
Buffalo wings are a bar staple, but they’re far from good for you. Buffalo chicken wraps are a great way to get that spicy buffalo fix in a healthier package. Use any kind of chicken you want in these, including rotisserie chicken from the store or leftover grilled chicken. Adding lots of veggies like romaine, tomatoes, and avocado keeps it salad-like and colorful.
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Stuffed Zucchini
If you have a garden — or know friends or neighbors who do — then you’ve probably had an abundance of zucchini to use up in summer. Stuffed zucchini is a great way to do it. This simple version takes a cue from pasta recipes with a stuffing of Italian sausage, garlic, and cheese. A jar of marinara sauce adds moisture and plenty of sauce to sop up with bread.
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Classic Ceviche
Ceviche is famous for using citrus juice to cook raw fish, meaning there’s no actual cooking required in this recipe — only chopping and tossing everything together. Besides white ocean fish, this version includes olives and avocados, making it filling enough for a light lunch or dinner with tostadas or tortilla chips.
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Halloumi and Summer Vegetable Kabobs
Grilling is a great way to keep the house cooler in summer. Instead of grabbing the usual steak or chicken, try these unusual vegetarian kabobs instead. They include cubes of halloumi, a type of salty Mediterranean cheese that holds its shape when heated, so it doesn’t melt into the grill. Lots of fresh basil and mint give the cheese and veggies a flavor boost.
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Crispy Spinach Pizza
This super easy pizza recipe piles heaps of fresh spinach leaves on top of pizza dough (store bought is fine). The spinach wilts and some of it gets nice and crispy in the oven, giving the sauceless pizza a unique and fun texture. A layer of rich and sharp cheeses — gruyere, pecorino and mozzarella — anchors the spinach to the crust.
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Spicy Thai Noodles With Peanut Sauce
Thai peanut noodles are similar to sesame noodles in that you can just whisk together the sauce ingredients in a bowl while the pasta is boiling, then toss them together and it’s done. The sauce is rich and balanced, and the dish can be served warm or cold. This recipe is vegetarian, but feel free to add chicken, shrimp or other meat.
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Cobb Salad
There’s no reason a salad can’t be considered comfort food, especially when it’s a classic like cobb salad. Chicken, bacon, avocado, hard boiled eggs, and blue cheese make this a filling, complete meal. The dressing is a simple honey mustard vinaigrette, but feel free to use your favorite bottled dressing to make this even easier to whip together.
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Easy Chicken Fajitas
Though fajitas are a big production with lots of sizzling in a restaurant, they’re actually really easy to make at home, and are a great way to enjoy fresh bell peppers. A simple spice mixture with chili powder and cumin flavors the chicken. Cooking the chicken separately from the veggies ensures the pan stays hot and you get some flavorful char on everything.
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Sheet Pan Salmon and Asparagus With Potatoes
Fish is a great summertime protein because it cooks quickly and doesn’t weigh your stomach down. This meal, with honey dijon salmon and roasted potatoes and asparagus cooks all on one sheet pan, and in just about 15 minutes. Preheating the sheet pan while the oven heats up ensures everything cooks quickly and evenly.
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Spicy Tuna Poke Bowls
A lot of people consider sushi a comfort food, but it can be expensive to order out and takes a lot of time to learn how to make well. Poke bowls are a great compromise because you get lots of fresh, delicious fish, plus rice, cucumber, avocado. and other elements of sushi that you love in a fast-to-put-together package.
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Spring Ramp and Asparagus Frittata
Egg-based meals are great for warm weather because they cook quickly and are easy on the stomach. A frittata is like a crustless quiche, so it only needs a few minutes on the stove followed by a quick run under the broiler to cook completely. Ramps, a wild onion that grows in spring, are delicious, but you can substitute other leafy vegetables if they’re not in season.
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Thai Red Curry
Recreating your favorite Thai takeout at home is really easy in the case of red curry. It’s just a mix of premade red curry paste, coconut milk, a few seasonings, and whatever vegetables or proteins you like. This version includes chicken and broccolini, but feel free to add anything. A couple splashes of fish sauce will make this even more like your favorite takeout.
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Crispy Bean Tostadas with Smashed Avocado and Jicama-Cilantro Slaw
Lots of people love Mexican food, but a lot of it is heavy and covered with cheese, especially at restaurants. These vegetarian bean tostadas are a great, light alternative to the typical Tex-Mex fare. A simple slaw with cabbage and juicy, crunchy jicama is coated in a lime-juice dressing and piled on top of crunchy bean tostadas with avocado and tomatoes.
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Chinese Dry-Fried Green Beans
Stir frying is a relatively quick and simple process, so the speed at which it happens helps keep your kitchen cool. Using a bounty of fresh green beans or Chinese long beans is easy with this vegetarian recipe where they take center stage. You cook them for a few minutes until they’re blistered and charred with just a tablespoon of oil, keeping the dish light.
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Zucchini Grilled Cheese
Everyone is familiar with putting a slice of tomato into a grilled cheese, but what about zucchini? It’s a surprising way to change up this comfort food classic. Grated zucchini is drained of extra moisture, then mixed with plenty of grated cheese. The resulting mixture is slapped between good bread, and melts down into a homogenous, gooey green filling.
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Chicken Burrito Bowls
Who needs Chipotle when you can just make your own burrito bowls at home with exactly what you want in them — and as spicy (or mild) as you like? It’s especially fun to set up all the components of these bowls — marinated chicken, rice, beans, pico de gallo, avocado, and more — and let everyone in the family create their own bowls with all the fresh ingredients they like.
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Extra Juicy Turkey Burgers
Turkey burgers have a bad reputation for good reason: they’re often dry and flavorless compared to beef. But these turkey burgers include mashed avocado and mayonnaise in the meat mixture, which adds fat and moisture while they cook. A simple sriracha mayo and lime-dressed red cabbage top the burgers.
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Pasta With No-Cook Tomato Sauce
Using up farmer’s market tomatoes in summer is a treat. Their sweet flavor and juiciness shines in this pasta dish because they’re not cooked at all, retaining their freshness. Letting the chopped tomatoes sit at room temperature with the other sauce ingredients brings all the flavors together and ready to be tossed with hot pasta.
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Roasted Shrimp and Orzo
This pasta salad made with tiny, rice-like orzo can be served at room temperature or straight from the fridge. It’s full of chopped fresh dill and parsley, plus cucumber, scallions, salty feta cheese, and simply roasted shrimp. With all those herby flavors, it’s dressed simply with fresh lemon juice and olive oil.
In 2011, the biggest thing in cookbooks (literally and figuratively) was Nathan Myhrvold’s “Modernist Cuisine.” The five-volume, 52-pound opus delved into the art and science of molecular gastronomy, with detailed instructions on how to suspend tomato water in spheres of basil oil and otherwise turn your condo kitchen into the […]
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