What to Cook When You Don't Feel Like Cooking: Make It Fast by Chambers, Caroline

A BON APPÉTIT BEST NEW COOKBOOK OF SUMMER 2026 - NAMED ONE OF FORBES 13 BEST COOKBOOKS OF SUMMER 2026 - A BARNES & NOBLE BEST BOOK OF AUGUST 2026

Following the breakout success of the New York Times bestselling What to Cook When You Don't Feel Like Cooking, Substack star Caroline Chambers returns with a new cookbook offering 100 more recipes for busy people who love good food--and these can be made even faster!

Caroline Chambers famously doesn't feel like cooking--and she's built a whole brand on that premise. Her superpowers are eliminating unnecessary steps; minimizing dirty dishes; and making dinnertime as simple, stress-free, and fun as possible. While plenty of obstacles stand between you and a delicious meal, being short on time is probably the biggest one.
This exciting follow-up cookbook is once again organized into three time-based chapters. You'll find recipes for 100 dinners, all of which are complete meals and can be made with no more than 30 minutes hands-on time in the kitchen--and yes, that includes chopping, marinating, and all other prep! Delicious meals include:

• Flank Steak with Elote Salsa
• Fish and Veggie Curry
• Rotisserie-ish Chicken with Schmaltzy Lemon Dressing
• Smoky Black Beans
• Fried Rice

Every quick and easy recipe features Caro's signature swaps, riffs, tips, and shortcuts to empower you to make these recipes work for you--not the other way around! You'll also find special treasures throughout the book, including anchor recipes you can spin into five different dishes so you can DIY your favorites.

Plus, helpful back-of-book indexes allow you to search by both ingredient--useful when, say, you've got ground meat in the freezer--and occasion or mood--like when you cannot be bothered to chop a single thing. Even on the nights when you think there's no way, no how, What to Cook When You Don't Feel Like Cooking: Make It Fast will help you get a full, flavorful meal on the table in basically no time.

Author: Caroline Chambers
Publisher: Union Square & Co.
Published: 08/11/2026
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 2.54lbs
Size: 10.28h x 8.28w x 0.95d
ISBN: 9781454963264

Review Citation(s):
Booklist 07/01/2026
Publishers Weekly 08/17/2026

About the Author
CAROLINE CHAMBERS grew up in the kitchen on her mom's hip, learning how to cook in their Winston-Salem, North Carolina, home. With experience as a chef, caterer, and freelance recipe developer for a host of publications and brands, she published her first cookbook in 2018, Just Married. In 2020--at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic--Caro began sharing her recipes and connecting with home cooks on Instagram (@carochambers), and launched her newsletter, What to Cook When You Don't Feel Like Cooking, which flew to the top of the Substack charts. Her next cookbook, bearing the same title, was published in 2024 and was an instant New York Times bestseller. Caro lives in Carmel Valley, California, with her husband, George, and their four sons, Mattis, Calum, Cashel, and Tavish--one of whom can almost always be found in the kitchen on her hip.