Modern Homemakers

4 One-Pot Summer Recipes to Beat the Heat

by Kevyn Gohu
April 25, 2023

Here are some one-pot summer recipes that lessen the washing and fill up hungry tummies.

No one likes washing the dishes during the summer. It’s hot, stuffy, and humid in the kitchen, which damages our hair and skin. But when the kids are hungry, we’ll need to whip up something. While most people would suggest fruit salad or coolers to beat the heat, here are some other one-pot summer recipes!

Summer recipes to beat the heat — Photo by Kaboompics

Pasta Salad

Pasta salad only needs one pot: the one used to boil the noodles or cook the meat in the salad. Because it’s so flexible, we can mix different goodies in it before refrigerating it. For the noodles, most people would recommend Fusili or Macaroni noodles because it doesn’t whip around and stain people’s clothes. Once cooked, we can add all sorts of things like canned tuna, fresh cherry tomatoes, black olives, capers, and even a bit of shredded cheese to add some flavor.

There’s honey mustard, honey-pesto-balsamic, and infused garlic-olive oil for recommended dressings. Add some dried chili flakes for that extra kick.

Chicken Tacos

Using one frying pan, toast the pita bread. While it’s toasting, massage some salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika into the chicken fillet. After the pita bread’s done toasting, start cooking the chicken. While the chicken is cooking, start processing tomatoes, onions, cilantro, garlic, cheese, lettuce and some avocados. Once the chicken is done, assemble the tacos and garnish with a bit of lime juice.

Tips:

You can make shredded chicken tacos by chopping up the fillet and then adding some BBQ sauce for an extra kick.
Most people would recommend chicken breast because it has more meat. But kids prefer chicken thigh fillet because it’s juicier.

Roasted Bell Peppers — Photo by once upon a chef

Roasted Stuffed Bell-Peppers

Roasted stuffed bell pepper is a fun recipe for the oven since it only needs one in and out. Start first by slicing off the top and coring out the bell peppers to remove the seeds. Next, fill the bell pepper 3/4’s full with uncooked rice. Add some butter and a bit of water to cook the rice then roast at 200 degrees Celsius for 40 minutes.

Tips:

As one of the more flexible recipes, there’s all sorts of things to put inside. Rice can be swapped out for lentils, tomatoes, mushrooms, malunggay, and even some meat.
For the stuffing, fill it with dried ingredients instead like dried mushrooms so that it’ll absorb the water and flavors while cooking in the oven.

Mango Graham Float

Every Filipino’s favorite summer treat. Start out by whipping the chilled cream until it doubles in volume. From there, slowly add condensed milk to the mixture. Once that’s done, slice up the mangoes and begin layering with graham crackers.

Tips:

If mangoes are not readily available, you can use strawberries as well but make sure to add a little more sweetener if the strawberries are tart.
For the tired moms who don’t want to think about presentation, chop up the mango and just fold it into the cream. Leave some mango bits to place on top.

One-pot summer recipes need less kitchen mess to clean up.

We love all these one-pot summer recipes because we hate cleaning the kitchen. But sometimes, it’s nice to make something for the summer because it’s a bonding activity between us and the kids. It teaches them basic applied chemistry, appreciation for the food they make, and how to be efficient in the kitchen. The best part is, it takes them away from the screen for an hour to rest their eyes.