25 Bright, Citrus-Forward Recipes to Make All Winter

By Food & Wine
Updated January 15, 2020
F&W's best citrus recipes include pillowy lemon pudding cakes and a refreshing grapefruit granité with mangoes and white rum.
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Grilled Shrimp with Oregano and Lemon

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The sauce for this shrimp is a simple version of Italy's salmoriglio, typically made with lemon and herbs in a mortar.

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2 of 25

Blood Orange-Pine Nut Agrodolce Sauce

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Chef Jennifer Jasinski combines sweet-tart blood-orange juice with pine nuts and garlic for a quick and delicious sauce that’s great on seared scallops as well as chicken thighs and roast pork.

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Roasted Lamb with Orange and Lemon

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Antonio Ciminelli infuses roast lamb with orange and lemon zest; the citrusy pan juices make a silky, lightly tart sauce.

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Citrus Salad with Candied Ginger

Credit: PHOTO © DAVE LAURIDSEN
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The key to making this simple fruit salad with candied ginger: Use a sharp knife to cut the citrus. "The better your knife, the better this dish will look," says chef Jason Travi.

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Spicy Grilled Shrimp with Yuzu Kosho Pesto

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Yuzu kosho is a hot, spicy and aromatic Japanese condiment made from hot chiles and ultra-citrusy yuzu zest. It's the key to this supersimple and utterly delicious recipe from chef Ricardo Zarate of Mo-Chica in Los Angeles.

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Chilled English Pea Soup with Crab and Meyer Lemon

Credit: Eric Wolfinger
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This refreshing, verdant English pea and watercress soup is the perfect base for a zesty crab salad.

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Avocado, Orange and Jicama Salad

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Feta is a fun, briny addition to this salad's Mexican mix of jicama, avocado and cilantro.

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Fennel and Arugula Salad with Meyer Lemon Vinaigrette

Credit: Eric Wolfinger
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Meyer lemon has a tartness that’s more tamed than lemon, which is why we love it with peppery arugula and crisp shaved fennel in this simple salad.

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Scallops with Grapefruit-Onion Salad

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Jarred pickled onions are usually relegated to cocktails, but Melissa Rubel Jacobson's simple recipe combines them with scallops and ruby red grapefruit to create a deceptively complex-tasting dish.

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Beet Salad with Tangerines

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This clever recipe uses sweet-tart tangerines two ways: Sections of fruit are tossed into the salad, and tangerine juice flavors the vinaigrette.

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Winter Citrus with Frozen Yogurt and Pistachios

Credit: Victor Protasio
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Suzanne Goin, the chef at the famed Lucques in Los Angeles, marked 20 years of business in 2018 with a dinner that celebrated her now-classic blend of French cuisine and California produce. This light winter dessert celebrates citrus and dresses it up with browned butter, frozen yogurt, and sbrisolona.

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Honey Cake with Citrus Frosting


Credit: John Kernick
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This tender, light honey cake, laced with hints of coffee and orange juice, is perfect with a cup of tea.

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13 of 25

Flaky Blood Orange Tart

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This stunning yet simple crostata, which uses juicy blood oranges at their peak, is nothing but sweet-tart oranges and a bit of sugar on a flaky, buttery crust.

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Meyer Lemon Gnocchi

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For supertender gnocchi, Steve Corry is careful not to overwork the dough. After draining the gnocchi, he sautés them until they're slightly crispy, then tosses them with the lemony sauce. Instead of sprinkling the gnocchi with Parmesan cheese, Corry likes to shave bottarga—dried and salted gray mullet roe—over the top, but they're also delicious without it.

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Grapefruit Granité with Mangoes and White Rum Mojito

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Unlike traditional granita, which is stirred frequently as it freezes so that light ice flakes form, Jacques Pépin freezes his granité in a block until it is completely firm, then softens it in the fridge until it's slightly slushy before scooping it into bowls. The sauce for his light, tropical dessert is a riff on the mojito, the minty cocktail.

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Sweet and Tart Lime Bars

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Ludovic Augendre, executive pastry chef of the specialty food shop Fauchon in New York City, makes his Key lime tart with two layers: The bottom is an almond-based cream and the top is a puckery lime curd. Instead of using a tart pan, make the dessert in a baking dish, leaving out the almond layer, and slice it into bars.

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Lemon Pudding Cakes

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These pillowy, vitamin C-packed cakelets are adapted from The Greyston Bakery Cookbook. "When you overwhelm dry ingredients with wet ones, an amazing texture separation happens," Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan says. "These cakes are rich without being too heavy."

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Meyer Lemon Marmalade

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Emily Kaiser devised this simple, fail-safe recipe while living in Oakland, California, with two excessively productive Meyer lemon trees. Likely a cross between an orange and a lemon, the Meyer lemon give this sweet-tart marmalade a bright citrus flavor.

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Crab Balls with Grapefruit Salad

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The crab and grapefruit in this dish first appeared at the restaurant Spice Market tossed with cold glass noodles. Jean Georges Vongerichten decided it was a "messy pile," but liked the flavors, so he reconfigured them into crab balls rolled in panko (Japanese bread crumbs) and sesame seeds. The side salad is a fabulous mix of tart (grapefruit), spicy (Thai chile) and sweet (ginger syrup).

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Tangy Lemon-Egg Soup with Tiny Meatballs

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With its blend of chicken stock and vitamin-C-rich lemon, this restorative soup (inspired by the classic Greek lemon-egg soup avgolemono) is a good way to fight colds or the flu.

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Sea Bass Carpaccio with Coriander and Grapefruit

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Like all raw fish dishes, this one is about the quality of the sea bass. Good olive oil is also key: Lokanta Maya’s chef, Didem Senol, uses oil her father presses himself in the south of Turkey (her family picks the olives, too).

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Four-Citrus Salsa

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Juicy bits of orange, grapefruit, lemon and lime form the base of this vibrant salsa; green-olive tapenade and sliced red onion add extra zestiness, which makes this salsa so good on everything from fish to avocado.

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Grilled Skirt Steak with Fregola-Orange Salad

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"I love thinking of alternatives to classic steak and potatoes," says Michael Schwartz. His Mediterranean-inspired skirt-steak salad is a wonderful mix of just-seared slices of beef, cool and crisp fennel, chewy fregola (the Sardinian dot-shaped pasta) and juicy oranges, finished with a drizzle of briny black olive tapenade.

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Lemon Curd Tart

Credit: Victor Protasio
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To make a simple topping for this elegant dessert, add 2 tablespoons granulated sugar to the leftover egg whites and whip to stiff peaks to make a meringue. Garnishing the tart with mixed citrus segments adds a natural sweetness to balance the rich, tart lemon curd filling.

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25 of 25

Chilled Grapefruit-Caramel Meringue Pie

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Most pastry chefs love lemon and orange. Deborah Snyder of Manhattan's Lever House, however, champions the also-ran of the citrus world: grapefruit. In one cold, creamy dessert, she layers pink grapefruit curd in a crunchy graham-cracker crust with caramel sauce and a delicate topping of fluffy meringue.

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