Spring is so close I can taste it — or at least I’m trying to taste it, as I load up my grocery list with green things like arugula, scallions and leafy herbs. We’re still weeks away from peak spring produce, but you can hustle winter out the door if you lean heavily on ingredients that are available in March but are giving May.
That’s especially true of herbs. To me, dill is the springiest herb, as spring as windy sunshine, a Little League game or the pink blossoms on a magnolia tree. I love its fragrance and its feathery ways, so much so that all five of the dinner recipes below feature it. Also try heaping it on salads, folding it into tuna salad for sandwiches or stirring it into a basic yogurt sauce to serve with meat, fish, grains or vegetables. Dill is essential to Iranian cuisine, and Nowruz — which marks the beginning of spring and the start of a new year in Iran, Afghanistan and beyond — is quickly approaching, which means it’s an excellent time to make sabzi polo (herbed rice with tahdig).
Not a dill lover? You can omit it, or swap in other herbs, in all but the salmon and stew recipes below. Tell me what you think and share your herb power rankings by emailing me at dearemily@nytimes.com. And I’m sending warmest wishes for Ramadan to everyone who celebrates.
1. Skillet Chicken With Orzo, Dill and Feta
You know what I love almost as much as dill? Feta cheese. (And orzo. So underrated.) Feta and dill are a classic pairing in Greek cooking, and they bring special zing to this one-pan chicken dinner from Sarah Copeland. We’re here to honor dill today, but if you’d prefer to use mint or parsley (or a combination), that’d work nicely, too.
2. Ginger-Dill Salmon
This Ali Slagle recipe is a New York Times Cooking staff favorite, and once you make it you’ll see why. You spread a mixture of dill and ginger over the salmon, and while that bakes you make a breezy citrus salad with avocado and more of the gingery dill. Make this now while citrus is at its best.
4. Baked Artichoke Pasta With Creamy Goat Cheese
There are three different creamy cheeses in this molten masterwork from Melissa Clark — cream cheese, mozzarella and goat — and they bake and bubble with pasta, canned artichoke hearts, scallions and dill for an early-spring dinner. This recipe edges up to the boundaries of weeknight cooking (it takes just shy of an hour to make, start to finish), but it’s so great and easy that I have to share it.
5. Baghali Ghatogh (Fava Bean Stew)
Naz Deravian, our poet laureate of dill, developed this version of a beloved Iranian stew. Fresh fava beans would be transcendent here, but peeling them is laborious. Instead, feel free to use frozen fava or lima beans, or canned limas, butter beans or cannellini beans.
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