Spring might just be our favorite cooking season. After months of tough winter greens and root vegetables, the tender, young produce that spring brings is a welcome change. From juicy strawberries and tangy rhubarb to sweet green peas and baby carrots, we can’t get enough of this rainbow of fruits and vegetables. To kick off the season right, here’s a bounty of vibrant recipes to get you cooking this spring.
Spring Salmon with Minty Veg
Say hello to spring with this warm-weather dish incorporating fresh salmon atop a mound of tender veggies. This BBC Good Food entrée is incredibly easy to make and impossible not to enjoy! Although mint is the featured herb here to elevate the basic ingredients with its aromatic qualities, you can always use fresh dill or basil for an equally flavorful alternative.
Spring Peas Toasts with Lemony Ricotta
Take advantage of all the spring produce coming to market with this fabulous recipe for ricotta-topped toasts, featuring pea shoots, English peas, lemon, and spring onion. This dish pairs beautifully with a pre-dinner cocktail or stands all on its own.
Spring Niçoise Salad
A classic French Niçoise salad is one of our favorite fresh, low-fuss meals. Enter our Goodtaste original recipe: the spring Niçoise. This crunchy, colorful, and (almost) too-pretty-to-eat salad makes use of what is popping up in farmers markets right now. Serve it as a light spring dinner for two or a showstopping starter for your Easter brunch.
Rhubarb–Brown Butter Bars
These are great for a picnic or a spring nature expedition. Think of your favorite granola packed full of nuts and surrounding a layer of sweet-tart rhubarb jam, and you’ve got these bars from Bon Appétit. As rhubarb begins to show its face at the market, let’s make these luscious bars this weekend!
Crispy Chicken Thighs with Smashed Peas
This recipe from What’s Gaby Cooking gives “spring chicken” a new meaning! Chicken thighs get seared to perfection in the pan so their skin crisps up and the fat renders down into the skillet. Once they’re done cooking, you add some lemony, cheesy peas into the mix and let that hang out with the schmaltz in the bottom of the pan. Boom: spring in a pan!
Pasta Primavera
This classic pasta dish from Two Peas & Their Pod is a wonderful mixture of colorful vegetables and a simple lemon Parmesan cream sauce. It is the perfect pasta recipe for spring and summer!
Chicken Meatball Zoodle Soup
This chicken noodle soup from Damn Delicious uses zucchini noodles for a healthy twist on the classic. Tender meatballs instead of a shredded chicken pack in the protein for this light yet hearty dish, perfect for any season.
Pistachio Pavlova with Rhubarb Cream
Make this gorgeous pavlova from Food & Wine for your next brunch or dinner party. The chewy meringue gets a bit of crunch from toasted pistachios, and the mascarpone whipped cream is streaked with a quick rhubarb jam. Bonus: The cooled meringue can be made a day in advance, making this dessert easy to pull off when you have guests over.
One-Skillet Steak with Spring Veg and Spicy Mustard
This Bon Appétit recipe is perfect for your next date night! After the steak is seared in the skillet, the peas and asparagus are added, soaking up all of the flavorful fat and meaty bits left over from the beef.
Cacio e Pepe with Peas and Favas
This easy pasta from Melissa Clark for New York Times Cooking is the perfect use for the spring peas and fava beans you pick up at the farmers market. While favas do require a little tedious peeling and blanching, this dish still comes together in 35 minutes because the pasta is just that simple.
Carrot Cake with Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting
How pretty is this carrot cake from Molly Yeh for Food Network? She adds a Middle Eastern spin to this spring classic by mixing toasted sesame seeds and hawaij, a cardamom-scented spice blend, into the batter. For garnish, she uses a vegetable peeler to get long strips from colorful spring carrots. The bright peelings are then twisted up and laid on the cake like flowers.
Leave a Reply