It doesn’t take a degree in thermodynamics to know that firing up the oven or stove in the summer is bad news for your energy bill—let alone your desire to be in the kitchen. Taken together, a home’s appliances, which include everything from the dryer to the oven, contribute around 16% of the heat entering a domicile. All on its own, a cooker can warm up a room by as much as 10 degrees, according to one heat-gun-equipped Ph.D. Getting relief comes with a cost: Estimates vary, but common wisdom is that every degree you nudge the thermostat in either direction results in a 3% change in your home’s heating and cooling costs.
It’s enough to make you mainline fudge-cicles for the next three months, but that’s not exactly the stuff of a well-rounded “adult” diet. (Boooooo!) Housing whole watermelons or big bowls of salad won’t get the job done either. But, in this season of produce plenty, it is entirely possible to eat deliciously, sumptuously, and sustainably without heating up a single thing. These four recipes are among our favorites for no-cook season.
Fattoush-ish tomato salad with tofu ‘feta’
Even if you don’t jibe with this entire recipe, it’s worth a look for its simple DIY ‘feta’ all on its own. A quick brine transforms a block of firm tofu into a stand-in for the salty, cheesy mainstay that’s good enough to fool even some devoted tofu skeptics. (And it has.) The faux fromage is great right out of the jar, but even better as a topping in this marriage of a classic caprese and fattoush salad—a Middle Eastern dish of chopped veggies and herbs atop crunchy pita chips.
Curried chickpea salad sandwich
It can be tricky to get the right consistency (not too wet, not too dry) when piling a bean-based salad onto a sandwich. Garbanzos are the least creamy of the canned bean varieties, which means they stay nice and chunky when you mash ’em up to use as a swap for chicken in this curry-spiced and fruit-studded salad. The mix gets better as it sits, so if you’re among the meal-prepper set or have a picnic menu to plan, whip up a big batch and snack on it all week.
Carrot-beet salad with dates and pistachios
This recipe is built around one of our favorite underrated kitchen tools: the box grater. It’s cheap, easy to find, and pretty great (😉) at making salads more fun and filling. Grated roots and veggies, like beets and carrots, are hearty enough to be main ingredients, and they hold up really well in heat—very much unlike beds of leafy greens. Piling this quick salad on top of a plateful of hummus can even transform it into a proper warm-weather meal.
Key lime icebox cake
Icebox cakes are normally celebrations of whipped cream—but this citrus-spiked one is totally dairy-free. It’s based on a traditional Mexican dessert called a Carlota de limón, which translates to lime charlotte. To go plant-based, our version uses Biscoff biscuits (a secretly vegan favorite at the grocery store) and swaps the dairy for coconut-based counterparts. The cream comes together in the blender, and the whole thing chills in the fridge, where the layers of cookies take on a wonderfully cakelike texture.
Additional reporting by Corinne Iozzio.
