Planning a menu can be the pits, especially if you’re trying to dial down your reliance on beefy burgers ‘n’ dogs at your cookout. So, we’ve pulled together an offering of our favorite sustainable summertime dishes, all of which are easy to scale up enough to feed a crowd. Most can be prepped or made entirely in advance—and none of them will bogart your precious grill space.
The burger: Black bean smash burgers
The best burgers in life are smashed. These speedy, crispy black bean patties go from bowl to griddle in less than 20 minutes, with zero sacrifice in flavor or texture. How? We took inspiration from NYC’s Superiority Burger—home of one of the best veggie patties around—and deployed a few time-saving cheat codes to slash prep time by more than half.
The sandwich: Pulled ‘pork’ sandwiches
Pulled pork lovers will find a lot to love in these tangy-sweet, satisfying sammies. Canned jackfruit—which has a neutral flavor and shreddable texture—is an ingenious stand-in for meat, and we swathe it in an easy homemade BBQ sauce and top it with a crunchy, creamy slaw. These may just become the sandwiches of the summer.
The side: Dairy-free, eggless Caesar pasta salad
No salad revolves more around the dressing than a Caesar, and our plant-based pasta take taps a few go-to swaps to achieve maximum creaminess and cheesiness. Silken tofu delivers a satisfyingly smooth texture, capers bring the tang, and nutritional yeast hits with its cheesiness and umami. The dressing comes together in the blender in seconds before it’s ready to bathe a big bowl of greens and fusilli.
The sauce: Smoky tofu special sauce
The right sauce can turn any veggie into a meal or make a burger sing, and this 120-second number will be your new go-to for making anything at a BBQ disappear. It also taps two of our favorite low-waste cheat codes: A hit of dill pickle brine delivers herbaceousness and tang, and the sauce from a can of chipotles in adobo adds a quick shot of spice, sweetness, and smoke.
The snack: Miso-ranch snack mix
This snack mix marries two classics: a salty, herby mix with ranch seasoning, and a sweet-and-salty blend of Asian rice crackers, roasted edamame, and nuts flavored with brown sugar and miso. The pair combine to create an ultimate sweet-savory-herby-umami flavor explosion that’s perfect for grill-side munching and late-night snacking. Any extras will keep for a month in the pantry—if they make it that long.
The sweet treat: Any-fruit granita
Cold, crunchy, light, and fluffy, granitas are summer. This shaved ice needs only some blending and occasional scraping of the mixture with a fork as it freezes—key for the fluffy, icy texture that makes a granita so great. This recipe is more of a formula than a specific flavor: You can use any fruit and any liquid you want. Feeling frisky? Use wine, liquor, or even kombucha. Blackberry and gin are an amazing combo, but watermelons and tequila also scream sunshine.