A STOVELESS SUMMER

Leave the burning to the sun with these three recipes.

You’d think it would be easy to come up with a plan for a no-cook summer meal.

When I asked a friend, a culinary professional, what she might suggest for such an endeavor, the first thing she blurted out was: “Potato salad.”

Nice try. Except that it requires you to boil potatoes.

You see where this is going: It’s August, and if your kitchen is anything like mine, it’s really toasty, even when the oven is cold. So let me tell you how to put a meal on the table without breaking a sweat.

No grilling; just chilling. No scrimping; just room temping.

In addition to staying cool, you may end up learning a couple of clever techniques: How to make chilled soup like a smoothie. How to press a sandwich by sitting on it.

I will also show you how to turn a cantaloupe into an all-purpose dish that can function as a salad, or as a little something sweet at the end of the meal.

Let’s start with sandwiches. They can be as simple as tomato and mayo on bread. If you’ve got a BLT hankering, buy some precooked bacon. Or go all Dagwood style by adding avocado, cheese, sprouts, herbs, cucumbers or pickle. Tuna salad is another no-cook option.

In the end, I crammed it all into one by making a classic Provencal Pan Bagnat, which layers and compresses all kinds of good summer-y stuff into one neat little package.

Simply slice a rustic loaf or baguette in half. Douse it with olive oil. (Pan Bagnat means “bathed bread.”) Then stuff it with canned tuna, sliced tomatoes, marinated cucumbers, olives, basil leaves and so on. Native to Nice, the sandwich has many of the same ingredients as Salad Nicoise, so if you feel like adding crunchy haricots verts, go for it. (If you steam them a few minutes, I’ll never tell.)

After wrapping the finished Pan Bagnat in plastic, foil and a plastic bag for good measure, you need to flatten it. That way, the bread will absorb the juices, and all those chopped-up things won’t fall out when you slice the sandwich.

You can weigh the loaf down by using a cutting board. Press hard! It may take a few minutes. If so, enlist a heavy pot, a stack of bricks, or heavy books to secure the chopping block.

You can even place the sammy on a stool or chair, cover it with the cutting board — and sit on it. (That’s what I did, and it worked.)

While the Pan Bagnat is chilling, whip up a cold soup.

Gazpacho comes to mind, be it classic Andalusian tomato-based or white versions of pureed almonds and breadcrumbs, with cool green grapes and crunchy cucumber stirred in.

On a recent outing to the Red Barn Cafe at Tiger Mountain Vineyards in Rabun County, I tasted chef David Sweeney’s heavenly chilled soup of Georgia peaches, buttermilk, ginger and sesame-seed garnish. (The Atlanta chef is making a pop-up-style appearance at the North Georgia winery through October.)

When I asked him for a cold soup recipe, he gladly obliged with Chilled Summer Corn and Buttermilk Soup, which has a slight South-of-the-border accent, thanks to a hint of cumin and garnish of avocado, jalapeno and cilantro.

But here’s the clincher: “To make this soup nice and frothy and cool off your guests,” Sweeney says, “I recommend cutting the corn off the cob the night before and putting it in the freezer. Much like making a smoothie, you add the frozen corn to the wet ingredients just before blending and serving.”

A corn smoothie. Why that’s brilliant.

To finish off this coolicious meal, I considered ices, granitas, trifles layered with cookies, berries and cream. Or a cheese plate with honey and jam or fruit.

Flipping through Sabrina Ghayour’s “Sirocco: Fabulous Flavors From the Middle East” (Clarkson Potter, $3o), I spotted Cantaloupe, Feta, Greek Basil & Pumpkin Seed Salad. Just beautiful.

I opted for honey instead of olive oil and black pepper in place of Aleppo. I omitted the pumpkin seeds but think they would be lovely. So would toasted walnuts.

I wouldn’t try to pass this off as dessert, but it is just treacly enough to satisfy a sweet craving. It also reminds me of my childhood on a Georgia farm: We salted watermelon and peppered cantaloupe.

And now a confession: With apologies to my potato-salad friend, I did turn on the stove to make this meal.

But just once. And only for nine minutes. I boiled two eggs for the Pan Bagnat. (I told you this was hard!)

But hey, if you can’t boil an egg or you don’t want to light a burner, not to worry. The sandwich is perfectly good without, so juicy and so cold, like taking a swim on an August day.

STYLING BY WENDELL BROCK, PHOTO BY CHRIS HUNT/SPECIAL Chef David Sweeney, who is cooking at Red Barn Cafe at Tiger Mountain Vineyards in North Georgia, has a real talent for cold soups made with raw fruits and veggies. He suggests making his Summer Corn and Buttermilk Soup (bottom left) in a blender like...