Genius Recipes

36 Lazy, Summery Genius Recipes Simple Enough to Memorize

August 17, 2016

We’re up to our short-shorts in the season of embracing cooking less, in every sense. Of keeping the oven off, of eating on the road and by the beach, of desserts that are just peaches and dinners that are just a tomato and a hunk of cheese.

In that spirit—because we need to, and because we can!—here are 36 summer-appropriate Genius Recipes so simple that, after you make them once, you may not need the recipe again. You can make them all in 5 ingredients flat (not counting salt, pepper, olive oil, water, or optional garnishes, you sticklers)—for every meal, and every humidity level.

For Breakfast (Mostly Eggs):

For Lunch:

For Dinners of All Stripes:

And for Dessert! (Mostly Ice Cream):

P.S. I unearthed most of these by searching “genius recipes” and using our handy recipe search filters, including “5 Ingredients or Fewer” and “Summer”—feel free to do the same and customize to your Vegan, Make-Ahead, One-Pot, Side Dish, Chocolate and/or Labor Day needs.

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I'm an ex-economist, lifelong-Californian who moved to New York to work in food media in 2007, before returning to the land of Dutch Crunch bread and tri-tip barbecues in 2020. Dodgy career choices aside, I can't help but apply the rational tendencies of my former life to things like: recipe tweaking, digging up obscure facts about pizza, and deciding how many pastries to put in my purse for "later."

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