RECIPE: A tasty way to graze through lazy summer days

On Memorial Day, this home cook will shut down the oven and embrace summer sustenance. For the next three-ish months, our dinners will be grilled or chilled, and that’s if I make any effort at all. Are you curious what is the absolute minimum amount of cooking that will feed a family, or – hint, hint – a Memorial Day crowd? It’s a grazing board.

No doubt you’ve heard of charcuterie trays, which are gorgeous platters of meats and cheeses. Unfortunately, those little cubes of deliciousness get as sweaty as we do in the hot summer sun. A better choice is a beautiful buffet of meat-free, dairy-free treats that can be enjoyed all day long. While it’s tempting to shake your produce drawers onto the table and call it a day, a nutritionally balanced board full of color and flavor will satisfy the heartiest appetites.

Assemble your grazing board with the same nutritional components of a sit-down dinner. Nuts of all varieties put protein at your fingertips. A savory white bean dip, like the recipe below, does double duty as a cracker sandwich spread, and offers 6 grams of protein with every serving. This dip gets its dairy-free creaminess from skillet-roasted garlic and onions; if you can’t stand the heat, skip the frying pan and substitute a little garlic and onion powder instead.