11 Light Recipes for Hot Summer Days

When the temperature starts climbing outside, you don’t want to eat hot soup or heavy casseroles. Keep your meals light—and your kitchen cool—with these 11 recipes for hot summer days.

1. Light & Easy Broccoli Salad: This modernized broccoli slaw is low on fat and high on flavor. Plus, the only cooking required is to boil 1/2 cup of water to reconstitute dried currants, so it’s perfect for summer.
2. Chicken Caesar Salad Sandwiches: Using a store-bought rotisserie chicken simplifies this summer lunch or dinner. You can even make the chicken salad mixture a day ahead to save time when assembling your sandwiches.
3. Tuna Salad Lettuce Wraps: Breathe new life into traditional tuna salad with these wraps, which include lemon, dill, and black pepper mayo.
4. Cold Sesame Noodles with Chicken and Cucumbers: Dig into this simple pasta dish loaded with chicken, cucumbers, and peanuts. Buying your chicken breast precooked avoids having to cook it on a hot summer day.
5. Cucumber Gazpacho: This chilled summer soup features refreshing yogurt, cilantro, coriander, and lime. Keep it vegetarian or serve it with shrimp—it’s your choice.
6. Veggie Sushi Bowls: If you crave sushi in the summer, you’ll love this recipe. It tastes just like a California roll with spicy mayo but in simplified bowl form.
7. Chicken Kabobs: Summer is the perfect time to grill outside. But skip the heavy burgers and opt instead for chicken kabobs loaded with your choice of veggies, including cherry tomatoes and zucchini, bell pepper and pineapple, or sweet potato and red onion.
8. Tomato and Feta White Bean Salad: This simple yet satisfying salad is perfect for a hot summer day. If you’ve got a can of white beans in your pantry and grape tomatoes in the fridge, you’re already halfway there!
9. Sriracha Egg Salad: Eggs are a great source of protein in the summer when you don’t want to cook meat in the oven. Just hard-boil a few eggs, mix them with mayo, sriracha, and few other ingredients, and you have the most flavorful egg salad you’ve ever tasted.
10. Creamy Taco Pasta Salad: Pasta salads are a summer favorite because they’re easy to make, full of fresh ingredients, and served cold. This recipe, in particular, is bound to become a family favorite.
11. Spinach, Hummus, and Bell Pepper Wraps: Fresh, flavorful, veggie-packed, and ready in 10 minutes—it doesn’t get any better than that!

NetCost Market makes shopping for your summer meals easier than ever. No matter what flavors you’re going for, we’re bound to have it in stock. After all, we provide shoppers with a world of food—from everyday groceries to culinary delights from around the globe. We also save our customers time and money by offering everything on your grocery list in one place. Shop with us by visiting one of our locations in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, or try online grocery shopping and home grocery delivery.