Our Summer Cooking List: 24 Fresh Recipes to Seize the Season

These must-make recipes for the most relaxed time of year are sure to feel like a vacation.

No one asks for perpetual winter. Few yearn for infinite fall or eternal spring. But how many songs, movies, books are dedicated to the idea of endless summer? (Answer: A lot.) It’s only human to anticipate those long, languid days, when it’s OK to be a bit idle, to channel your innermost desire to be a lizard sunning itself on a rock.

While summer technically lasts a little more than a quarter of the year, the time to grill outside, indulge in perfect peaches and dreamy heirloom tomatoes, or just eat a hot dog, sand in your hair, feels fleeting. You want to make every bite count. You can think of the recipes inside, assembled by New York Times Cooking editors, as 24 ways to capture the season. We consider them our summer bucket list, our must-makes, full of bright produce and opportunities to be outside. Make as many you can, at your own leisurely pace, before the sun sets on the season.

Senegalese sauce rof is often used on fish, but Yewande Komolafe uses it on grilled steak in two ways: as a marinade, then spooned over top as a dressing. Its bright ingredients (onion, serrano chile, garlic, lemon zest, scallions and parsley) counter the steak’s earthy quality.

Recipe: Grilled Steak With Sauce Rof

What if I told you that you could have a potato salad that’s actually light and fresh, rather than heavy? You can! Melissa Clark’s version, calling for just four ingredients, lifts a normally earthy classic with lemon, scallions and mint. It’s also secretly vegan, so it can sit out longer than those mayo-based recipes.

Recipe: Lemon Potato Salad With Mint

This is the kind of recipe you wait all year for, the perfect way to put heirloom tomatoes and ripe in-season peaches to use. Here, Alexa Weibel tames their sweetness with whipped goat cheese. A little bit of grilled bread, smoky and crisp, would turn the whole thing into the dreamiest of al fresco meals.

Recipe: Tomato and Peach Salad With Whipped Goat Cheese

Cucumbers are the ultimate summer cooler, so crisp and fresh. When paired with ginger and lime, both sharp in their own ways, they’re transcendent. Ashley Lonsdale, this recipe’s author, salts them until their excess liquid drains concentrates their flavor, and that’s the bulk of the work. The rest is as chill as the dish itself.

Recipe: Ginger Lime Cucumber Salad

Pasta salad can be, well, just pasta salad. But Dan Pelosi makes the mayo-based dressing work for him, tossing it with Parmesan and anchovies and brightening it with lemon. The kale here is a perfect addition. It becomes increasingly tender as it sits, a mellow counter to the crunchy panko topping.

Recipe: Kale Caesar Pasta Salad

You may not think of fish tacos as something to pack for the beach or the park, but let this recipe from Rick A. Martínez prove you wrong. Fillets get rested in a garlicky-citrus marinade before they’re blasted with high heat and paired with a homemade pico de gallo. After all that, they’re yours for the taking, ready to be refrigerated and carted to wherever you like.

Recipe: Salpicón de Pescado (Spicy Citrus-Marinated Fish)

In-season tomatoes are powerful enough to cut through rich pimento cheese, a blend of Cheddar, cream cheese, mayo, the requisite pimentos and spices. Kia Damon has you throw together a batch of the dip, then tuck it into soft white bread for a simple summery lunch with just the right amount of creaminess and acidity.

Recipe: Pimento Cheese and Tomato Sandwiches

You don’t need a grill to yield the charred flavor of this Mexican favorite. Here, the kernels are blackened on the stovetop before they’re paired with mayo, crema, cilantro and lime — the bright flavors it shares with its cobbed sister, elotes. Do as the recipe’s author, Kay Chun, suggests, and toss any leftovers with pasta for an easy, breezy summer meal.

Recipe: Esquites

It can be argued that no summer is complete without a burger, and Kenji López-Alt has opinions on what makes a great smashed one. They should have “lacy and crisp” edges and be “so thin that they shatter when you bite into them.” For best results, he uses beef with 20 percent fat and cooks the patties quickly over high heat. How they’re topped is up to you.

Recipe: Smash Burgers

Icy grapes are a gift on a hot day, a kind of alternative to Popsicles. Zaynab Issa draws on South Asian and Mexican culinary tradition (and channeling the grocery store favorite Fruit Riot), adds lemon zest, sugar and chile flakes to deepen grapes’ sweetness. Keep them in the freezer, where they’ll last for up to six weeks, ready for you all season.

Recipe: Sweet and Salty Frozen Grapes

Zainab Shah shortcuts traditional versions of this dish by quickly pan-frying eggplant rounds, instead of salting and simmering them, before laying them onto a tart, cooling bed of yogurt. But nicest of all, it can be eaten cold, so you can prep it, chill it and take it where you need to go.

Recipe: Borani Banjan (Afghan-Style Eggplant in Yogurt)

On a warm day, there’s little more as welcoming than a cooling dinner. This vegetarian main from Hetty Lui McKinnon puts peanuts first and foremost: employing peanut butter in the rich sauce and roasted and salted nuts as a topping. Use whatever crunchy raw vegetables you have on hand here; they’ll be especially nice against the tender noodles.

Recipe: Cold Noodle Salad With Spicy Peanut Sauce

Christian Reynoso lightly dredges chicken breasts in flour to cook them on the stovetop and pair them with fresh, summery tomato and basil. Capers and red wine add a welcome briny tartness to the sauce, which is ready to be paired with crusty bread or rice.

Recipe: Tomato Basil Chicken Breasts

In-season zucchini and corn maintain their seductive fresh bite in Dan Pelosi’s hearty pasta, full of quick-cooking ingredients. Prep all the add-ins as the pasta boils, then merge them in the pot before showering them with basil and mint for a full-flavored 30-minute dinner.

Recipe: Linguine With Zucchini, Corn and Shrimp

Two steps and six ingredients, that’s all this no-cook recipe from Eric Kim requires. A spicy gochujang sauce contrasts the cooling tofu, while sliced scallions give it the right amount of crunch. Do as Eric recommends and double the sauce. It’s a great topping for green vegetables, especially those with a little bite: broiled broccoli, fresh lettuce or chopped cucumber.

Recipe: Chilled Tofu With Gochujang Sauce

“A celebration of summer” is how Vallery Lomas describes this Cajun-style side, full of fresh corn, tomatoes and butter (a.k.a. lima) beans. The andouille sausage and shrimp add heft, but if you’re leaning vegetarian, feel free to leave them out. It’s memorable enough without.

Recipe: Succotash With Sausage and Shrimp

Yewande Komolafe has you make your own suya spice, a blend of peanuts, ginger, paprika and onion and garlic powders, then whisk it with more fresh garlic and ginger. Rubbed into bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, left to sit (up to overnight), it infuses the meat, which is grilled and paired alongside sweet nectarines and fresh scallions for a dish that’s sweet and smoky all at once.

Recipe: Suya Spiced Grilled Chicken Thighs With Nectarines

Grilling fish in a foil packet has a few upsides: It lets you prep ahead, prevents a mess and cooks the fillets gently in their own steam, taking on the flavor of whatever they’re packaged with. Here, Yewande Komolafe pairs salmon with a coconut cream-infused sauce. A packet of green beans cooks alongside, to be tossed with a summery mix of raw corn and tomatoes for an unforgettable — and unforgettably easy — party main.

Recipe: Coconut-Dill Salmon With Green Beans and Corn

Salty feta tempers sweet watermelon in Eric Kim’s simple salad, which takes inspiration from the Mediterranean. A hearty splash of balsamic accentuates those flavors, as does a little basil. With just four ingredients, it’s a testament to doing more with less.

Recipe: Watermelon and Feta Sala

Fresh summer blueberries anchor Clare de Boer’s clever cake, which channels the best parts of a cobbler (the tender batter and jammy fruit) and a muffin (the crunchy top). A blend of yellow cornmeal and almond flour not only adds flavor and texture to the batter, but it also makes this cake gluten-free.

Recipe: Blueberry Spoon Cake

Vaughn Vreeland describes these bars as Key lime pie’s boozier, saltier cousin, and boozier they are, with a hearty pour of tequila and a couple of tablespoons of orange liqueur. A crust built on saltine crackers keeps them — as the name promises — delightfully salty. Could a margarita alongside enhance the experience? Only one way to find out.

Recipe: Salted Margarita Bars

Be the star of your park picnics and potlucks with these not-too-sweet bars from Genevieve Ko. Salted butter and flaky sea salt balance the marshmallows for a slightly more sophisticated take on the grade-school classic.

Recipe: Rice Krispies Treats With Chocolate and Pretzels

Without all the excess water of their bigger grocery-store counterparts, tiny summer strawberries pack an abundance of flavor. (It doesn’t hurt either that their diminutive size makes them especially cute.) Here, Samantha Seneviratne boils them down to further concentrate their flavor, then uses that mixture to coat fresh berries. That mixture fills a shortbread crust and gets topped with billowing whipped cream.

Recipe: Fresh Strawberry Pie

Whether you call it a mangonada or a chamango, use fresh or frozen mango, or serve it with or without alcohol, this staple of Mexican summer is ready to cool you down on a hot summer day (which will be here sooner than you think). Best of all, you can keep Daniela Galarza’s thirst-quenching take in the refrigerator, ready to top with chamoy and Tajín whenever a craving strikes.

Recipe: Mangonada