10 Ways to Make Cooking Less Miserable When It’s Sweltering Outside
The right gadgets and a little planning go a long way.
With hit after hit of heat waves this summer, it’s more important than ever to have a few tricks up your sleeve for staying cool while cooking. Sure, no-cook recipes are often touted as the best solution for beating the heat and satisfying your appetite at the same time, but let’s be honest: There are only so many cold wraps and makeshift salads that one can eat before craving something heartier—even something, dare we say, cooked.
And you’re in luck, because it is possible to enjoy a delicious, cooked meal on the hottest days of the year without making your whole house feel completely stifling, Cara Harbstreet, MS, RD, LD, of Street Smart Nutrition, tells SELF. And she should know, since she’s been prepping tasty, satisfying dinners in a home with limited AC and windows.
There are two general things to keep in mind when cooking in the heat: the kitchen appliances or gadgets you choose to use and the way in which you go about prepping and cooking. Choosing the right cooking tools can help prevent your kitchen from getting even hotter, and employing smart tricks can help you make the most of the time you do spend preparing your meals.
Here are 10 summer cooking tips that registered dietitians and chefs personally use to stay cool when cooking on hot days. From barbecuing on the regular to doubling up on recipes when they do turn on their ovens, there’s sure to be a tip in here that you can steal for yourself when the temperatures are sweltering.
1. Avoid turning on your oven with a few helpful gadgets.
Your oven throws off a lot of heat, so it’s no surprise that one of the most important things you can do to cool off your cooking is to avoid turning it on whenever possible.
Instead, there are a handful of appliances or tools that can cook food to perfection without increasing the temperature of your home, Rhyan Geiger, RDN, owner of Phoenix Vegan Dietitian, tells SELF.
“Use your air fryer, slow cooker, Instant Pot, or whatever you have that’s not the oven,” she says. Even her microwave is in frequent use during the summer months, whether she wants to simply steam frozen veggies or warm up a bowl of leftover rice. (For more inspiration, check out these recipes for air fryer, slow cooker, and Instant Pot meals.)
Harbstreet seconds the vote for the air fryer. In fact, she tells SELF that it’s the tool she uses most often on hot days, because it produces oven-fresh results without an actual oven.
Compared to other methods like stovetop cooking, “it’s quicker and more efficient,” she says. “We can quickly cook chicken, salmon, shrimp, or meatballs, as well as prepared options from the freezer like chicken tenders or dumplings.” Looking for more plant-based options? Geiger says that an air fryer works great for making crispy tofu cubes, perfect for adding more protein to your grain bowls.
Another often-overlooked gadget for cooking when the heat just won’t quit? An immersion circulator for sous vide cooking.
Herve Malivert, director of culinary affairs at the Institute of Culinary Education, swears by cooking meat sous vide. The method involves vacuum sealing ingredients in a bag, then placing them in a water bath with the immersion circulator, which keeps everything at a precise temperature until the food is perfectly cooked. Because sous vide cooking temperatures rarely rise above boiling (212 degrees), it doesn’t produce steam, doesn’t require a flame, and keeps your kitchen cool.
“You can make braised sous vide lamb or roast beef, which you can turn into sandwiches—you can cook anything sous vide,” Malivert tells SELF.
2. Choose the right time for meal prep.
Even during a heat wave, the temperature fluctuates from high to low throughout the day. That means you can save yourself a lot of sweat by planning accordingly and doing the bulk of your meal prep when it’s naturally a bit or a lot cooler, like in the morning or at night—even though they may not be traditional dinner prep times.
Set up shop on Sunday morning or evening (or whichever day suits your schedule), do any cooking that requires an oven or a stove all at once, and freeze or refrigerate your food to warm in the microwave whenever you’re hungry.
3. Try simple, easy recipes to avoid overheating.
Cooking can involve a lot of literal moving parts—going from the fridge to the sink to the chopping board to the oven, and then back again, in many different iterations throughout the duration. Couple all that legwork with a little stress (which, let’s face it, can arise when you’re trying recipes that use new techniques or have lots of steps), and you can heat right up.
The solution? Simplify it. Opting for recipes with only a few steps and ingredients will cut down on the amount of running around and physical labor that you have to do to get food on the table.
Save anything that requires extensive chopping, whisking, or grinding for a rainy day (literally!). Instead, opt for simple dishes that can be made with minimal effort and heat, like charcuterie boards, sushi rolls with rice fresh from the rice cooker, or even a quick chilled soup that can be made entirely in the blender.
4. Rely on protein sources that cook quickly.
Lenny Dimaria, executive chef of Patricia’s of Holmdel in New Jersey, tells SELF that making meals with quick-cooking protein sources is another great way to keep temps down without having to spend extra on tools.
“For those who don’t have access to gadgets, or just prefer to keep things simple, the best tip to keep in mind is to choose proteins that cook quickly,” Dimaria explains. He says that thin cuts of meat like chicken filets, skirt steaks, and fish and shellfish like shrimp or tilapia will all be ready after just a couple minutes on the stovetop—which isn’t enough time to profoundly increase the temperature of your environment.
You can speed up the cooking time even more by thinly slicing or cubing your protein source into smaller pieces. In general, the smaller or more delicate an ingredient is, the faster it will cook.
5. Take advantage of precooked proteins.
If the thought of turning on your stovetop for even the short amount of time needed to cook thinly sliced meat is already making you sweat, precooked proteins can be a lifesaver, says Harbstreet. These can include everything from certain frozen seafood products (most of which only need a few minutes in the microwave) to canned seafood or deli products.
Above all else, she says that rotisserie chickens offer the most in terms of value and flavor. “Enjoy fresh after bringing one home, or de-bone it and add it to salads, sandwiches, or other no-heat-needed meals later,” she says.
6. Turn to quick noodles.
A big pot of water boiling on the stove can throw off some steamy heat into your kitchen. But that doesn’t mean you have to avoid noodles altogether—you just may want to choose quick noodles instead.
In that case, you may not even need to turn on your stove at all. Many rice noodles and ramen noodles simply need to soak in hot boiling water, so you can just microwave the water to heat them in. You can also heat up the water in a kettle. While that does require you turning the stove on, the water will heat quicker that way. Either way, your noodles will be ready in minutes.
7. Make as much as possible when you do turn on your oven or stove.
If there’s a prolonged heat wave in your future, dealing with a little extra heat now can help keep you cooler later. Just make sure you make the most out of it.
“There’s efficiency in batch cooking when you do need to turn on the stove or oven,” Harbstreet explains.
For example, you can avoid boiling water every night by scaling up the amount of pasta, rice, or grains that you cook at a time. And if you decide to turn the oven on to cook a protein, you can have it play double-duty by throwing an extra sheet pan of proteins and veggies while it’s cooking.
Many of the ingredients featured in sheet pan meals (namely meat and firm veggies) are suitable for freezing and reheating in the microwave, so making twice as much can be a huge help in keeping your home cool later in later weeks. Harbstreet does note that, while it’s not necessarily easy for all households to purchase extra ingredients and store several days’ worth of leftovers, even a little bit of prep can go a long way.
8. Max out your weekend barbecue.
The benefits of batch cooking extend outside of your kitchen too—especially to your outdoor grill.
Use the warm, sunny weather as an excuse to cook outside. And when you do light up the grill, take the opportunity to make a bunch of food at once and save what you don’t eat right away for later on, says Harbstreet.
If you’ve already gone through all the work of setting up your barbecue, “it may be worth planning some additional time to cook off steaks, kebabs, or other grilled favorites in one batch,” she explains. You can then eat the leftovers as they are or doctor them up and enjoy them in other meals. For example, try shredding grilled chicken for salads and wraps (or these other shredded chicken recipes), or save steak for quick and satisfying burritos.
9. Stay hydrated.
The truth is, if the temperature is high enough, you’re likely to sweat in the kitchen even when following all these rules. Regularly replacing those lost fluids will ensure you sweat efficiently and don’t become overheated, SELF has previously reported. Plus, it can also make the time you spend in the kitchen feel a little more comfortable.
Fortunately, summertime is the best time to experiment with hydration in creative ways. Seasonal summer fruits like watermelon and cantaloupe are packed with fluids and a great way to hydrate yourself without it feeling like a chore. Popsicles, sorbets, and all sorts of cold beverages will deliver you a bit of relief from the heat while also making sure your body functions as it should.
10. Set up a fan (or two) and open your windows.
Though it may seem like one of the more obvious summer cooking tips, it can be easy to forget how much simply opening your windows and turning on a fan can lower the temperature of your home—or at least make the hot air less stagnant.
When the oven or stovetop is running, circulating air as much as possible will prevent heat from building up or, worse yet, lingering after you’ve finished.
From SELF