While waffles themselves aren’t generally good when they’re cold, they can go very well with cold toppings. Here are a few easy suggestions for making your vegan waffles a cool and refreshing dairy-free summer treat.

• When making waffles in the summer, make them in larger batches and freeze them. Next time you’re craving a waffle, you don’t have to spend much time in the kitchen near the hot iron. Just pop them into the toaster. If your iron makes round waffles, just don’t forget to break them into quarters before freezing so they fit into the toaster.
• If you’re craving a waffle with fruit, don’t bake the fruit into the waffle or cook it into the syrup. Keep it cool and fresh. Make a big bowl of fruit salad, and chill it to make a delicious waffle topping. This is particularly great to do this time of year, when fresh fruit is in abundance in many more locations–and local usually means fresher and tastier. The fresh blueberries from our local CSA farm share have been excellent this year!
• Use soy ice cream or sorbet, if you want it to be a little healthier, cold soy yogurt on top of the waffles. What I really enjoy is a “waffle ice cream sandwich”–two waffle quarters with some vegan ice cream in between. This is particularly good with some of the dessert waffles on this site.
• If you like chilled avocado, guacamole, or hummus, those can also add a cool twist to a waffle.
• The other day I even had the crazy idea of making waffle-shaped ice cubes or frozen orange juice-sicles! Yeah, I know I think about waffles a bit too much sometimes. However, none of our waffle makers have removable grids, and we don’t have one of those old-fashioned waffle makers that you use over a gas flame or campfire. The latter probably wouldn’t fit into our freezer with the long handle anyway. Oh, well… If you’re feeling adventurous and give this a try, let me know!