The Recipes You Should Be Cooking in August

Crisp vegetables, a spicy sweet dressing, and soba noodles combine to make a perfect, picnic-ready side dish.

You can use any melon that’s at peak ripeness, but the salad is prettier and tastier if you use multiple varieties.

Ashes & Diamonds chefs Ethan Speizer and Madison Gabor describe this dish as “A casual caviar setup giving sour-cream-and-onion vibes, utilizing tangy labneh in harmony with high-quality crème fraîche and charred spring onions. There’s truly nothing better than chips and dip with a little dollop of roe or caviar. It’s an indulgent poolside snack.”

Sweet summer squash needs little more than butter and basil.

Grilling watermelon adds a smoky note to the fruit and gives it a slightly meaty texture that matches well with shrimp. Cooking takes only a couple of minutes, so have both sets of skewers ready before you start. You’ll need 12 flat metal skewers (12 in. long) or 18 skewers (8 in. long)—or use bamboo skewers of the same size, soaked in water for 30 minutes.

This marinated heirloom tomato salad is a delicious and colorful summertime side dish.

Grilled corn sprinkled with crunchy, spicy Salsa Seca is going to be your new favorite summer party food. 

Raw broccoli chopped into tiny pieces is combined with aromatic vegetables and edamame, then generously dressed with an aioli spiked with Fly By Jing’s now legendary chili crisp.

These chicken kebabs are marinated in crowd-pleasing Kung Pao flavors (don’t skip the fermented bean paste doubanjiang for the full effect). A garnish of basil and puffed rice provides a vivid finish and pleasing textural contrast.

A metal cooling rack set in a rimmed baking sheet makes bi-level cooking possible—squash below, chicken above—so the meat’s glaze stays nicely charred, while the juices drip into and moisten the squash.

Umami-packed Zhong sauce is the sweet and spicy secret to this luxurious grilled eggplant dish that gets just the right amount of char from a hot grill.

Is there anything more Baja than a breaded and fried fish taco? Said to have originated in Ensenada in the northern part of Baja in the 1950s, the batter may have actually been inspired by Japanese immigrants in the area who fried the fish in tempura. Make chipotle crema by mixing sauce from canned chipotles in adobo into sour cream until it’s just spicy enough!

Los Angeles restaurant Yangban Society’s sweet and spicy and oh-so-sticky pork ribs benefit from a sauce spiked with gochujang, the deeply flavored fermented Korean chili paste. For maximum deliciousness, make sure you give yourself 3 to 12 hours to cure the pork ribs in the dry rub.

This party-worthy main course is one of the best uses of peak-season tomato and corn we’ve ever tried. It’s a bit cheffy to make corn broth with leftover corn cobs, but it adds a layer of flavor you can’t get otherwise. If that’s one step too many, feel free to skip! You can make the curry the morning of your party or a day ahead.

Saucing an Italian dish with the flavors of Mexican street corn is exactly the sort of madcap riff chef Donald Hawk, of Phoenix’s Valentine, specializes in. They make their pasta in-house with ‘00’ white Sonoran wheat and local egg yolk, but you can make this dish with store-bought spaghetti. And while they source their goat cotíja from Crow’s Dairy, normal cotíja works too.

Sweet-salty white miso makes beef taste wonderfully beefier. Marinate the steak the night before so it’s quick to cook the next day. Serve with hot rice if you like.

At the Surfrider Hotel, chef Jacob Wetherington wraps local rock cod with olive leaves and foraged bay laurel, and garnishes it with fresh fennel flowers. We substitute more readily available fennel stalks.

These luscious spiced trifles are just about the most indulgent summer dessert.

When you’re in the mood for an all-blueberry dessert, you can’t beat this combination with citrus, spice, and vanilla bean to heighten and add depth to the fruit’s gentle flavor.

American ice box cake meets Filipino crema de fruta (a layered cake often made with canned fruit cocktail) in Isa Fabro’s fresh, creamy dessert. “It’s American and Filipino at the same time—like me!” says the chef. You’ll need a 9-in. springform pan, and a small offset spatula is helpful for spreading. Mangoes may need a few days to ripen in a paper bag.

Juicy, ripe peaches at the height of stone-fruit season shine in this great summer dessert. “The brandy sauce makes it special, but it’s also good for breakfast without the sauce,” says reader Sarah Epstein, of Palo Alto, California. “During the rest of the year, I use the basic recipe and substitute other fruits. One of our favorites is sour cherries with dark chocolate chunks.”

Although as silky as the Italian classic, this version is lighter and more refreshing, with yogurt standing in for half of the cream—and diced fruit adding bursts of sweetness.