3 No-Oven Summer Recipes for Brussels Heatwaves
By Thomas · 2026-06-09 · Recipes
Brussels has had multiple 35 °C days every summer since 2019, and a typical apartment without air-conditioning, especially the top-floor flats and converted attics common in Saint-Gilles and Ixelles, hits 30 °C indoors during a heatwave. Turning the oven on at 200 °C in those conditions adds roughly 4 to 6 °C to the kitchen, and it lingers well into the night. Most local cooks know this and quietly order more delivery in July and August. There's a better answer: three real cold or near-cold dinners that barely touch the stove. Each is a substantial main, each takes under 30 minutes, each holds for at least a day in the fridge. Build them around the best tomatoes you can find, which in July means a Brussels market, not a supermarket shelf.
Recipe 1: Gazpacho Andaluz, the five-minute cold soup
The Spanish cold tomato soup is the classic answer to summer heat for a reason: it blends in five minutes, has more nutrient density per spoonful than almost any other quick meal, and gets better after a night in the fridge. Use the ripest tomatoes you can find. In Brussels that means the Sunday Marché du Midi or a Saturday stall at Place Flagey, where end-of-July tomatoes are picked ripe rather than shipped green. If the supermarket tomatoes are sad, the gazpacho will be sad; this isn't a recipe that hides ingredient quality.
Gazpacho Andaluz
- 1 kg very ripe tomatoes
- 1 medium cucumber, peeled
- 1 red pepper, seeds removed
- 1 small garlic clove
- 50 g stale white bread
- 60 ml extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
- Salt to taste
- Roughly chop the tomatoes, cucumber, and pepper. Tear the bread into pieces.
- Blend everything except the olive oil with a generous pinch of salt until completely smooth. About 90 seconds in a powerful blender, 3 minutes in a stick blender.
- With the blender running, stream in the olive oil slowly. This emulsifies it into the soup and gives the silky texture.
- Add the sherry vinegar, taste, adjust salt. Pass through a fine sieve if you want a restaurant-smooth result. Chill at least 2 hours, ideally overnight. Serve very cold with a drizzle of olive oil on top.
Recipe 2: Cold soba with sesame and cucumber
Soba noodles are the only stove-top step in this entire post: four minutes of boiling water, then a cold rinse. Everything else is mixing in a bowl. The sesame sauce is the work, and work here means whisking five ingredients for 30 seconds. You'll find soba and tahini in any Asian grocer around the city, and several around Place Sainte-Catherine and Chaussée d'Ixelles. The result is a substantial dinner that eats well at any temperature and is still good for lunch the next day.
Cold Soba with Sesame and Cucumber
- 200 g dry soba noodles
- 1 small cucumber, julienned
- 3 spring onions, sliced thin
- 3 tablespoons tahini
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon honey or maple syrup
- Toasted sesame seeds to finish
- Boil a small pot of water. Cook the soba 4 minutes (or per package), drain, rinse immediately under cold water until completely cool. This stops the cooking and removes the starch that would otherwise make the noodles stick.
- Whisk the tahini, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and honey in a small bowl until smooth. If it's too thick, add a tablespoon of cold water at a time until it's the consistency of single cream.
- Toss the cooled soba with two-thirds of the sauce. Pile into bowls. Top with cucumber, spring onions, the rest of the sauce drizzled over, and a generous sprinkle of sesame seeds.
Recipe 3: Panzanella, the bread salad that's a real dinner
Tuscan bread salad is the most underrated summer dinner in Belgium. It's a substantial main course built on stale bread, tomatoes, and time. The principle is that the bread is rehydrated by the tomato juices and vinegar, becoming a structural part of the salad rather than a side. Done badly it's soggy; done well it has texture in every bite and is one of the most satisfying things to eat in 30 °C heat. The bread quality matters: a real boulangerie sourdough that's two days old is the right starting point, not a fresh baguette and not a supermarket loaf. Most Brussels neighbourhoods have a sourdough bakery worth the detour, and the slightly stale tail-end of a weekend loaf is exactly what this needs.
Panzanella
- 400 g day-old sourdough bread, torn into chunks
- 800 g ripe tomatoes (mixed colors and sizes), roughly cut
- 1 small red onion, sliced very thin
- 1 cucumber, cut into chunks
- Large handful of fresh basil leaves
- 1 small jar of capers, drained
- 80 ml extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- Salt and black pepper, generously
- Salt the tomato chunks in a large bowl. Leave them for 10 minutes; they'll release their juice. This juice is the soaking liquid for the bread, so don't drain it.
- Soak the sliced red onion in cold water with a splash of vinegar for the same 10 minutes. This takes the harsh edge off without losing the flavor.
- Add the bread chunks to the tomato bowl. Toss to coat in the tomato juice. Add the cucumber, drained red onion, capers, half the basil, the olive oil, and the red wine vinegar. Toss thoroughly. Season with more salt and a lot of black pepper.
- Let stand 15 minutes at room temperature before serving. The bread should be soaked through but still hold its shape. Tear the rest of the basil over the top to serve. Leftovers eat well for one more day; after that the bread breaks down.
All three recipes are improved by being made several hours before you eat them. Gazpacho is best after a full night. Soba and panzanella both improve over 2-3 hours as the flavours marry. This is the same morning-prep logic behind our 45-minute Sunday meal prep: do the work when a Brussels flat is still cool, eat in the evening when the kitchen is the last place you want to be. If you want more in this register, we have a whole set of cold soups for Brussels summer nights.
When even no-oven cooking is too much in August
Some August evenings nothing in the kitchen is appealing, including the recipes above. Brussels summers since 2020 have produced a few weeks per year where any cooking, however cool the result, feels excessive. That's also the stretch when our own kitchen closes for about three weeks, which is its own story: we explain why Timesty doesn't deliver in August. The rest of July and August, we rotate cold and near-cold dishes onto the menu for exactly this: cold soba bowls, gazpacho with grilled prawns, summer panzanella variations. Made in our kitchen, where we have the cooling equipment to do it safely, and delivered ready to eat. The heatwave answer for the days when even the recipes above feel like too much.
Why avoid the oven during a Brussels heatwave?
Most Brussels flats have no air-conditioning, and top-floor and attic apartments already hit 30 °C indoors during a heatwave. Running an oven at 200 °C adds roughly 4 to 6 °C to the kitchen and that heat lingers into the night, exactly when you're trying to sleep. Cold and near-cold dishes like gazpacho, cold soba and panzanella give you a real dinner without that penalty.
Where do I find the best tomatoes for gazpacho and panzanella in Brussels?
At a summer market rather than a supermarket. The Sunday-morning Marché du Midi at Gare du Midi and the Saturday-Sunday stalls at Place Flagey carry tomatoes picked ripe in July and August, which is the whole game for these recipes since they hide nothing. Go later in the morning for better prices on what's left. Both recipes depend more on tomato quality than on technique.
Can these no-oven recipes be made ahead?
Yes, and they're better for it. Gazpacho is at its best after a full night in the fridge; soba and panzanella improve over 2 to 3 hours as the flavours marry. The smart move in summer is to do the work in the morning when the flat is still cool and eat in the evening with zero further cooking. Gazpacho and soba keep for a day or two; panzanella is best eaten within one extra day before the bread breaks down.
Are these recipes a full dinner or just a starter?
All three are designed as substantial mains, not starters. The gazpacho carries bread and olive oil for body, the soba is a full noodle bowl with sesame protein and vegetables, and the panzanella is built so the bread is a structural part of the dish. Each serves the quantity listed (4, 2 and 4) as a main course. Add a boiled egg or some prawns if you want to push the protein higher on a training day.
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