How to Cook Without Using a Stove or Oven
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We’re in the middle of an oppressive heat wave and It feels like it’s a thousand degrees right now with our usually cool mountain currently feeling like an oven. So the last thing we want to do is turn on the actual oven or the stove to make meals. We’ve been utilizing the methods below—which will also work heat wave aside if you have a small or limited kitchen arrangement—to cook meals without turning on the stove or oven. Hope you find some of them useful!
Use the Microwave
The microwave is useful for so much more than just reheating leftovers or canned and frozen foods. Give it a quick google but you can cook a wide variety of things from enchiladas to omelets in a microwave. One of the best things we ever purchased (it was my husband’s favorite garage sale find!) was a microwave pasta cooker. I highly recommend it as we can make a delicious pasta dinner in 25 minutes without heating up the whole house. Another super great and affordable item to purchase is a microwave rice cooker. In addition to rice, you can quickly and easily steam all kinds of vegetables and make quinoa.
Invest in Appliances
While I tend to be more of a minimalist when it comes to kitchen appliances, I will admit that they can definitely come in handy, especially when trying to reduce heat in the house. While summer is normally not the season I think of for using a slow cooker, this is the perfect time to use it (or an instant pot, which will make so many things so fast) for making great recipes without heating the kitchen. We have a small house that heats up quickly, so we take it a step farther and we place the slow cooker out on our front porch for the day while it works its magic. We also use our toaster oven to bake small things, which is quick and convenient. Other appliances to consider would be an electric steamer, which is great for steaming vegetables, or an air fryer, which can be used for anything from pork chops to chocolate chip cookies.
Look for No Cook Recipes
It’s hard to do for every meal, but there are lots of delicious no cook recipes. Just plug the term into google or Pinterest. It’s not just all sandwiches and salads—there are plenty of hearty and super savory options.
Cook at Night
We are lucky to live in an area where it cools down at night, even when it’s beastly hot during the day. Not everyone has this opportunity, but we take advantage of it to do any baking or stove cooking at night. You don’t need to cook a full meal (although by all means go ahead if you have the energy so that all you have to do is reheat in the microwave later), but I’ll prep certain parts of a recipe that require cooking and that I can incorporate into the rest of the no-cook part of the recipe the next day.
Move it Outside
If you have outdoor space, Utilize the grill or BBQ. And think outside the box with things that you can cook on the grill. Remember, all cooking and baking used to be done over open fire, so there’s a lot that can be done this way. My husband recently asked for an outdoor burner/wok set up for Father’s Day this year and not only is has he been making some great stir frys outside this summer without heating up the kitchen, but the portable outdoor burner can be used just like a gas range for cooking. Genius!
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