25 Fresh Summer Meals You’ll Want to Make All June

Chef Alex Seidel of Denver’s Mercantile Dining & Provision simmers potatoes in a bath of melted butter and oil, a twist on a technique best known for duck.

Slightly spicy, deeply flavored, and extremely refreshing, this super simple cucumber salad is one of those welcome summer dishes that’s greater than the sum of its parts.

This chilled corn soup from Jennifer Milsap of Sacramento-based Shef Madres is the essence of late summer cooking. It’s all about taking the greatest care with the sweetest peak-season corn.

Sweet grapes and a nutty, toasted Egyptian spice blend called dukkah–easy to make at home–take chicken salad in a whole new direction. Make dukkah up to one month ahead, sealed in an airtight container. Dukkah is an Egyptian seasoning mix of nuts and warm spices that pairs beautifully with this green chicken salad. If you have leftovers, spread it on a piece of toast or between two slices of bread for a hearty lunchtime meal.

For this salad, chef Alex Seidel uses a mix of tomato varieties–whichever are ripest at the moment in his greenhouse. The eggplant “croutons” are small cubes, breaded in seasoned panko and briskly fried.

Serve these refreshing rolls for dinner, or cut them into thirds and spear each with a toothpick to turn them into hors d’oeuvres.

Dousing super-fresh produce in fish-sauce-infused scallion oil will make an appetizer that is crunchy, sweet, and salty all at the same time. You can use these techniques to blister pretty much any vegetable in your garden.

Chef Brandon Jew cold-smokes his tofu for 30 minutes, but we arrived at a similar result using smoked olive oil.

This ultra-creamy, Middle Eastern–style appetizer dip created by cookbook author Janet Fletcher is also excellent with raw cucumbers. If you make your own yogurt cheese, you’ll need to start it 24 hours ahead of making this dish.

The cool, sweet juice of the fruit really hits the spot on a hot day.

This Mediterranean-inspired dish brings branzino to life with a vibrant preserved lemon sauce and a fresh herb garnish. It’s a restaurant-quality meal that’s surprisingly simple to re-create at home.

These are only quarter-pounders, but they look heftier because the meat is mixed with ground dried cherries (a powerful antioxidant) and a little bulgur. The seasonings and cheese take the cherries in a savory direction, keeping the burgers from being too sweet.

Layers of eggplant, melted cheese, and grilled tomatoes stack up for a satisfying meal on meatless Monday (or any night of the week). Serve with crusty grilled bread and a crisp green salad.

Cooked cucumber? Trust us. A little heat makes it slightly creamy and helps it soak up the gently seasoned pickling mixture. Thin-skinned cucumber is a must here for its tender texture and bright color.

Many of us associate souvlaki with roast lamb, but in the back alleys and on the roadsides of Greece, pork and chicken are actually more common. Charles Bililies, founder of Souvla restaurants in San Francisco, gave us this recipe for the quintessential Greek street food. It’s very much worth making at home, especially for a party. Most of it can be done ahead, the meat and pita cook in minutes, and it’s easy to serve. All you have to do is pile the hot skewers and the warm pita on platters, set out the toppings, and let everyone assemble their own sandwiches (or you can wrap them if you like, as directed below). Just make sure there are lots of napkins–souvlaki are deliciously drippy.

“Just the right amount of salt and sweet and bright and savory flavors,” says chef Nico de Leon. “Plan ahead to let the chicken marinate fully overnight to absorb the flavors. Brushing the chicken with the aromatic butter baste gives the chicken even more flavor and the most beautiful color.”

Michelle Tam, creator of the blog Nom Nom Paleo and author of two cookbooks (Nom Nom Paleo: Food for Humans and Ready or Not!) makes this recipe whenever she’s on vacation with her family in Hawaii. The tacos are made with butter lettuce leaves instead of tortillas, so they’re very light and refreshing.

No need to be alarmed about all the garlic—the orange juice and soy sauce mellow it out.

One year, chef and cookbook author Joanne Weir led a culinary tour to the Cinque Terre in Italy. “We went out on the Mediterranean, where we drank prosecco and ate seafood cooked on a tiny grill…. I relished the fresh grilled calamari and halibut skewers as I baked in the sunshine and gazed at the crystal blue waters from which the seafood had just come. A few people decided to go for a swim. I won’t mention whether bathing suits were involved. What happens in the Mediterranean after 18 bottles of prosecco stays in the Mediterranean.” This is her ode to the skewers from that day.

Serve these noodle bowls warm, at room temperature, or even chilled. Harissa, a North African spice paste, is available at well-stocked grocery stores, but if you can’t find it, use hot sauce.

This simple dessert cooks in the oven, but you could make it on the grill—cook the pineapple until grill marks appear and lightly toast the angel food cake. Whichever way you go with this dessert, the cinnamon whipped cream is delicious, and a scoop of ice cream wouldn’t be a bad idea either.

Feel free to experiment with other seasonal fruits.

Store-bought ice cream works fine here, or you can make your own.

This dessert gets its exotic touch from star anise, a licorice-y seasoning that’s used in Vietnamese cooking. Find it in your supermarket’s spice aisle.

Although basil is more commonly used in savory dishes, its sweet, aromatic flavors work beautifully with caramelized pineapple as a topping for frozen yogurt.