5 No-Fuss Cookbooks for the Lazy Chef

Japanese Cooking Made Simple: A Japanese Cookbook with Authentic Recipes for Ramen, Bento, Sushi & More,  by Salinas Press
Japanese food seems so uncluttered, so beautifully simple, so…completely impossible to correctly make at home. Well, no more. Say goodbye to the days of talking yourself out of cooking Japanese after one look at these recipes. This cookbook simplifies once-daunting techniques needed to excel at preparing this healthy and gorgeous fare. With the addition of a few staples to your pantry, you’ll be slicing sashimi and braising pork belly like it’s no big thing. Prepare to wow yourself and your dinner guests (pro tip: invite your laziest friends for max impressive factor).

Nigella Express: Good Food, Fast, by Nigella Lawson
I think we can all agree that Nigella Lawson is, in fact, the domestic goddess she purports to be. If you’ve never watched this woman cook on TV, get thee to YouTube immediately. She makes it look so effortless and graceful, you’ll be completely convinced you can handle cooking whatever she’s dishing out. Nigella Express ups the ease factor with its super-streamlined approach. Here, Nigella focuses on helping you cut corners by teaching you how to keep an ever-stocked pantry, which will infuse your cuisine with maximum flavor for minimum fuss. She also provides a great many recipes that are quick to prepare but slow to cook, giving you extra time to settle in with a glass of wine or a cup of tea and fantasize about the amazing dinner to come.

The I Hate to Cook Book: 50th Anniversary Edition, by Peg Bracken
If you have a tendency to beat yourself up because you’re hardly June Cleaver in the kitchen, fear not! Even 50-plus years ago, there were people like you. Hungry people—people who wanted to eat, but did not want to cook. Thankfully, these brave souls left a legacy for those of us who would rather be on the couch with a good book than in the kitchen whipping soufflé (or doing whatever it is one does to soufflé). Peg Bracken’s book is the original lazy chef’s opus on how to make high-quality meals with minimal effort. Go forth, ye kitchen-haters, and tread proudly in the footsteps of thy slothful, peckish forebears!

Substituting Ingredients, 4E: The A to Z Kitchen Reference, by Becky Sue Epstein
We all know the simplest recipe in the world is useless if you don’t have all the ingredients on hand, right? Wrong! With this trusty, must-have addition to your culinary library, that bane of home chef’s everywhere is a thing of the past. Becky Sue Epstein teaches us how to avoid time-consuming and unnecessary trips to the store (aka, the lazy chef’s kryptonite) by utilizing what we’ve already got in our pantries. Never again go aimlessly knocking on neighbors’ doors, begging for Ponzu sauce or confectioner’s sugar or some other godforsaken thing that none of them have, either. Bonus: this book also contains tons of info on how to address random kitchen crises like adding too much of an ingredient, which is great since it will be even easier than throwing the whole thing out and ordering a pizza.

The Absolute Best Dump Cake Cookbook: More Than 60 Tasty Dump Cakes, by Rockridge Press
Dump cakes are a lot more appetizing than they sound, and can be made with just about any cake-worthy ingredients you fancy. Dump cakes are so named because (hold on to your mixing bowl hats) all they require you to do is DUMP THE INGREDIENTS INTO A PAN AND BAKE. You heard me. In these delicious cakes, there’s no mixing, no beating, no whisking, no kidding. No longer will desserts be reserved for the non-lazy chef! Dump, bake, eat, gloat (that last step is optional).
What are your favorite no-fuss cookbooks?