7 Kitchen Tips to Keep Your Cool This Summer

They say, "if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." Indeed, the last thing you probably want to do during the summer heat in Sarasota, Florida, is to stand over a hot stove or let oven heat radiate through your kitchen. Read on to discover some ways to make delicious dishes while keeping the temperature in your kitchen comfortably cool.

Eat More Cold Dishes

Salads and other similar dishes are ideal for hot summer days. However, keeping the heat in the kitchen to a minimum doesn’t mean never firing up the burners. Sometimes it’s about making the most of the time that you have them on.

Cold dishes are a great way to go, but they often call for ingredients that you need to cook. In this case, try planning meals ahead of time, doubling the amount of certain ingredients. For example, make an extra portion of pasta to enjoy both hot when you make it as well as later in a cold pasta salad.

Cook Early in the Day

Early in the morning is the coolest time to get the bulk of cooking for the day done. Your home has had time to cool through the night and will also have time to cool off from the cooking process before midday. While you’re up making breakfast, consider prepping some ingredients or dishes for other meals to eat later in the day.

Cook With Induction Plates

If you want to avoid heating up the kitchen, it’s a good idea to keep the oven off and opt for dishes that you can prepare cold or cook on the stovetop. However, your stove burners can be quite a powerful heat source. To keep things even cooler, consider using induction plates rather than electric or gas burners.

Induction plates work through electromagnetism, creating heat within the pan itself rather than through an external heat source. This avoids heating up the air around the pan and evenly distributes the heat in the pan to cook food more quickly. Less cook time equals less heat.

Use Slow Cookers and Instant Pots

Slow cookers are incredibly versatile. You can use them for all sorts of dishes, not just heavy comfort food like pot roast and stews. Even better, they let off a fraction of the heat of traditional ovens.

Living up to their name, they’re slow at cooking. If time is of the essence, consider adding an instant pot to your kitchen. Instant pots are versatile multi-cookers that can sauté, cook rice, steam vegetables, make yogurt, and function as a slow cooker or electric pressure cooker, making dishes that would take longer on the stovetop or in the oven in a fraction of the time.

Fire Up the Grill

If you have access to a grill, you can take the cooking process out of your kitchen altogether. Cooking outdoors doesn’t mean you have to stay outside in the summer heat for extended periods. Set a timer as a reminder to turn items, and then finish up prepping indoors.

Store Leftovers Correctly

Your refrigerator will work extra hard to cool down uncovered or hot leftovers you place there, putting unneeded stress on your air conditioner. Covering your leftovers before putting them in the fridge will reduce humidity and let them cool down to near room temperature before you store them. This will prevent your fridge from working harder than it needs to, letting off heat in the process.

Ventilate Your Home Properly

Summers in the Sarasota area are swampy enough, and cooking releases even more moisture into the air in your kitchen. Running the exhaust fan above the stove will suck some of the cooking heat and moisture right out of the kitchen, giving your air conditioner a break.

Cooking is also one of the main sources of home air pollutants. But using the exhaust fan as you cook will help you rid the air of these pollutants.

Need extra help keeping your home cool this summer? Call the HVAC experts at All American Heating and Cooling by calling (941) 451-5228 for HVAC maintenance and indoor air quality solutions.

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