No-Bake Vegan Dessert Ideas for the End of Summer

With temperatures still high as we head into the home stretch of summer, heating up the kitchen is just about the last thing you want to do. But family members have birthdays, cravings keep coming, and we all need a steady stream of treats to look forward to during a summer that’s been unlike all others thanks to the pandemic.

Luckily for vegans, the past few years have brought an ever-increasing number of plant-based ice creams and other frozen treats to the supermarket freezer case. But there are plenty of good reasons to make at least some of your desserts at home. For starters, you control the ingredients. That means you can splurge on sweets in a healthier, less processed way. You’ll also save money. Most things are much less expensive when you make them yourself, and that goes double for desserts.

To find the best options for no-bake desserts that will leave you (and your kitchen) feeling cool, we turned to two experts on vegan desserts: Fran Costigan, author of Vegan Chocolate: Unapologetically Luscious and Decadent Dairy-Free Desserts, and Hannah Kaminsky, creator of BitterSweetBlog.com.

Read on for their best dessert ideas and three recipes for DIY summer dessert options to cool off in hot weather.

Kaminsky and Costigan agree that the easiest idea for cool desserts is peak-season summer fruit. “This time of year, give me straight watermelon,” says Kaminsky. It’s easy to forget just how extraordinary sweet and juicy ripe summer fruit can be. Perfect peaches, a pile of blackberries, and fragrant melons need nothing extra to be a fantastic treat. If possible, visit a farmers’ market for the best-tasting varieties.

If a plate of unadorned fresh fruit doesn’t quite rise to the level of dessert for you, you can always add a simple sauce to take it up a notch. Even a drizzle of maple syrup or a few dollops of coconut cream right from the can make a difference, says Kaminsky. Costigan loves a dollop of her cashew and coconut-based vanilla cream over summer fruit. Whip it up in the blender, use what you want now, and freeze the rest for later. “Frozen, it tastes just like ice cream,” says Costigan.

“Put a great date in the freezer for a few hours and you will swear you’re eating caramel,” says Costigan. She prefers Medjool dates to other varieties. “They’re so satisfying. They’re chewy, they’re sweet, they’re big, and for me when you get a really delicious date it’s a dessert unto itself.” Want something a little more elaborate? Costigan suggests slicing a date in half, removing the pit, and filling it with a teaspoon of nut butter and a few mini chocolate chips or chopped chocolate for a no-heat, low-fuss dessert everyone will love.

There’s nothing more refreshing than an ice pop on a sweltering day, and Kaminsky’s recipe for coconut chai freezer pops are simple to make with a surprisingly grown-up flavor profile. Best of all: these treats have stealth health benefits. The secret ingredient is protein powder. “It tastes like dessert, but it’s legitimately a protein-packed snack,” she says. No popsicle molds? No problem. Use paper cups you can peel away or even small juice glasses. (Run them under hot water to slip the pop out before eating.)

You definitely don’t need an ice cream maker to enjoy homemade vegan ice cream. Kaminsky says any ice cream recipe can be poured into ice cube trays, frozen solid, and then whipped up in a food processor. “You’ll get a nice soft-serve texture,” she says. You can also make a soft-serve style dessert by simply blitzing frozen banana chunks in a blender or food processor, says Costigan.

So you want something more composed, or maybe even something to put a scoop of that ice cream on top of? That’s where the fruit slump comes in, according to Costigan. A slump is an old fashioned summer fruit dessert that’s similar to a cobbler or crisp. Just subtract the oven. “Fruit is cooked down in a skillet and then topped with a biscuit dough,” she says. You put a lid on it and the topping steams resulting in a jammy, comforting pie-adjacent dish that becomes more cake-like as it cools and the fruit soaks into the biscuit. “It’s like a second dessert a few hours later,” says Costigan.

Recipe adapted from Fran Costigan’s Essential Vegan Desserts Course at Rouxbe Culinary School.

Recipe adapted from Vegan Chocolate: Unapologetically Luscious and Decadent Dairy-Free Desserts, by Fran Costigan, Running Press. Spoon a tablespoon of this simply made, rich-tasting cream over fresh fruit, pudding, gelled desserts, or use it to turn a drop biscuit into a fruit shortcake. Simply made in a blender from a base of heart-healthy cashews, the cream freezes beautifully too.

Recipe by Hannah Kaminsky, BitterSweetBlog.com