The Summer Recipes You Should Be Making This June

Here’s one for your summer-party recipe stash. Wine and black pepper make the compote sophisticated, and you can put the whole thing together in minutes—for guests to serve themselves.

Serve this salad with sourdough bread.

It’s all about the dressing in this super-quick salad: If you like your food spicy, use it generously. You may want to taste the dressing as you make it and adjust the quantity of harissa accordingly, though, since the heat varies by brand.

This is loosely based on a recipe from Hawaiian chef Alan Wong. Serve it with daikon sticks, radishes, or taro chips.

This little boats make the perfect fresh, crispy bite. Plus, it’s an easy appetizer to prep.

Cooks some of the vegetables for this dish right in the fire—it infuses the salad with smokiness. Serve it with fried eggs or any type of grilled meat or fish.

Kale takes the place of lettuce in this twist on traditional Caesar, and wilting the greens on the grill adds a subtle smoky flavor.

If you’re looking for a guest-worthy main-dish salad, stop right here. This one delivers a blend of firm and tender textures and sweet-spicy flavors, plus make-ahead options and a time-saving method for browning shallots in the microwave.

Tip: The leftover shallot oil can be used for a second salad.

Some of corn’s best partners—medium-hot chiles, chorizo, and basil—join up in this simple dish. It’s substantial enough to call a chowder, but light enough for summer.

At the farmers’ market, look for aged sheep’s-milk cheese; bunches of mint; and small, tender yellow and green zucchini.

This flavorful dish comes to together in 20 minutes, making it a great weeknight option.

Fresh veggies and flavorful feta cheese make this Mediterranean-inspired pasta dish big on flavor and short on prep time.

A briny, flavorful marinade tenderizes and moistens the chicken and also serves as a dressing for the olive-tomato topping. Serve with sliced grilled potatoes if you like.

In Mexico and Cuba, cooks marinate chicken in a mixture of cumin, oregano, garlic, and citrus to make it juicy and flavorful. Adding achiote paste, as cooks do in Mexico, adds depth and sweetness, but the chicken is good without it too.

Sink your teeth into a delicious restaurant-style, hamburger recipe made from lean beef. Skip the prepackaged patties and take the extra time to craft up your own, and that little extra effort will be worth it.

To make cheeseburgers, about 1 minute before burgers are done, top with sliced cheese; continue cooking until cheese begins to melt.

This recipe works equally well on both gas and charcoal grills. 

An easier, less time-intensive introduction to slow and low. Fatty pork ribs get tender and take on smoke flavor much more quickly than brisket. This recipe is for a single rack of ribs, but can easily be scaled up to fill up your smoker or grill and feed a crowd.

This bright dish comes together fast. Serve with steamed rice if you like.

A crisp, ingeniously light version of pizza. Grilling the vegetables if they’re super ripe and juicy so the crust doesn’t become soggy.

Robust, briny, and herbaceous, Italian-style salsa verde usually gets spooned over vegetables and meats at the table, but it works beautifully as a marinade too.

This salsa is good with any hearty meat, but especially lamb. Because the mint is so potent, we’ve added parsley to mellow it a little.

Mexican chocolate, usually described on the package as “Mexican chocolate drink mix,” is a spiced chocolate bar that’s commonly melted for hot chocolate. It gives the ice cream a pudding-like texture.

No need to haul out the ice cream maker or pie plate for this ode to summer pies. Store-bought vanilla ice cream swirled with sweet-tart rhubarb compote, plus shortbread “crust” crumbles, gives new meaning to pie à la mode. Use other berries if you like.

This tart—topped with a kirsch pastry cream and glazed strawberries—is the perfect summer dessert to bring to a potluck or barbecue.

Juicy, ripe peaches at the height of stone-fruit season shine in this great summer dessert.

Show off summertime blueberrries and peaches in this colorful tart featuring a pecan-whole wheat crust and a sweet cream cheese filling.