Recipes! Grilled Shrimp With Gochujang and Honey, Poached Salmon With Zucchini Tzatziki, Three-Bean Salad Sandwiches

What to cook during the week ahead, from Post Food editors.

As I write this, I'm still recovering from a walk I took a few hours ago. It's hot and sunny, but with the humidity more than 90 percent, I could have been getting rained on and felt just about the same. You better believe that when I came in, all I could manage for breakfast was throwing some crisp, juicy watermelon on a plate along with a few sweet little treats to reward myself for making the effort. To drink: Iced tea.

Is it any wonder that most of us don't feel like cooking once summer heat arrives? A few years ago, I pulled together tips on how to keep yourself — and your kitchen — cool, including using smaller, contained appliances (such as an Instant Pot, slow cooker or air fryer); preparing batch and make-ahead meals so you reduce the duration and frequency of cooking; and turning on a fan to get air moving. This week's recipes contain a few more lessons that will carry you through the season.

First up: Aaron Hutcherson's gorgeous Grilled Shrimp With Gochujang and Honey. Coated in a sweet and spicy sauce, the shrimp cook in less than 10 minutes on a stovetop grill pan. Remember: The smaller the pieces, the quicker they'll be done. Of course, this can apply to bite-size chunks of chicken, steak or your preferred protein. The cook time here is pretty minimal, but if you prefer cooking outside where it's already hot, you can throw the skewered shrimp on a grill as well.

Poaching is another strategy for cooking without heating up the kitchen. Olga Massov recently shared her top tips for poaching versatile chicken breasts, and Ellie Krieger took advantage of the method in her Poached Salmon With Zucchini Tzatziki. Poaching is ideal for gently cooking delicate proteins without a lot of effort, time or heat. In this case, Ellie pairs the salmon — serve chilled for something extra refreshing — with a riff on Greek tzatziki that combines grated zucchini with yogurt, dill, mint and lemon juice.

Joe Yonan's Three-Bean Salad Sandwiches get around the cooking question by not cooking at all. Three-bean salad is a classic picnic dish that Joe's mom made when he was young. To make it even more appealing and portable, Joe kept the tangy cider vinegar and mustard dressing but switched up the bulk of the salad by using a simple canned three-bean combination, then piled it on multigrain sandwich bread along with Boursin cheese, sprouts and sliced onions. Stir together the salad, build the sandwich and you have a fun, filling and no-cook main.

And, yes, back to watermelon, my go-to "I'm too hot for anything else" food. Don't miss Aaron's roundup of drinks, alcoholic and zero-proof, that use the fruit. I'll certainly be looking at these recipes when I start buying huge melons at the farmers market any day now.

What are your favorite strategies and dishes for summer cooking? Aaron and I want to hear about them in our live weekly chat we host every Wednesday at noon Eastern. Submit your questions now (you may notice that we're debuting a revised chat format), and come back when we kick things off next week.

Stay cool, and happy cooking!