Summer Sides

These hulking avocado toasts with strawberries and creamy burrata are a great early summer lunch or, cut into thick slices, a crowd-pleasing appetizer. Be sure to use a quality balsamic vinegar here.

When baking these bacon-and-scallion-flecked corn muffins—a great accompaniment to all kinds of barbecue—Nick Fauchald prefers the grill to a conventional oven for two reasons: The muffins absorb some of the grill’s great smoky flavors, and he can spend that much more time outside.

For a zippy version of a New England classic, Laurence Jossel bakes buttery Rancho Gordo Yellow Eye beans in a tangy-hot mixture of apple cider vinegar, molasses, brown sugar and crushed red pepper. Regular Italian cannellini or Great Northern beans can replace the Yellow Eyes.

Bobby Flay likes to cook corn on the cob with the husk tied back into a kind of handle. He soaks the bundle in cold water before it goes on the grill for two reasons: It steams the kernels a little, making them tender, and it prevents the husks from burning.

The secret to this salad is using big, juicy sweet onions like the Vidalias that Linton Hopkins favors, which get nicely charred on the grill.

This Asian-inspired recipe is rich in cancer-fighting antioxidants.

Chef Nate Appleman swears by coating vegetables with a mayonnaise-based marinade; it creates a beautifully blistered crust when grilled. Here he offers a marinade for asparagus that is also fabulous on broccoli and fennel.

"If it were up to me, I would throw everything on the grill," says Tim Love. Case in point: He cooks tomatoes and scallions over a hot fire for a simple salad flavored with a little lime juice and crumbled cheese.

A terrific salsa verde makes this velvety potato salad extraordinary. Here the salsa is made with parsley and chives; try making it with other summer herbs, like tarragon or basil, as well.

Fresh bread crumbs are an underrated way of adding fabulous crunch to recipes. Here Francis Mallmann uses bread crumbs tossed with fresh basil and lots of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese to create a great topping for tender grilled vegetables.

In this salad, tender haricots verts get tossed with crunchy strips of carrot, red pepper and parsnip. Feel free to add bacon too, though it’s just as delicious without.

Birmingham, Alabama, chef Chris Hastings uses fresh field peas, like black-eyed peas, in his succotash, but green peas are nicely sweet.

This heart-healthy, nutty-flavored grain holds up beautifully in salads, like this slightly spicy one full of vegetables and herbs.

It’s impossible to grill tiny favas, but the sweet-starchy beans get a similar smoky flavor when they’re charred quickly in a hot skillet. Jean-Georges Vongerichten tosses the charred beans with garlic, jalapeño, tarragon and cubes of cheese for a warm salad.

The mayonnaise dressing for this potato salad gets pungency from mustard oil (store-bought spicy mustard works fine, too) and a hit of smoky-sweet flavor from bacon and bottled barbecue sauce.

A French take on strata, or savory bread pudding, this simple summer dish contains zucchini, onion and tomatoes layered with slices of baguette, then baked with chicken stock and a little cream.

Fresh cucumbers are excellent when gently braised in butter and served warm. This dish is best with thin-skinned cucumbers, like English, Japanese and Persian varieties.

Marco Canora says you can swap in any starch—like bread or pasta—for the farro (a nutty Italian grain) in this recipe.

This colorful salad of green and yellow beans and waxy potatoes reminds Jonathan Benno of his brief stint in the kitchen at Al Di Là, a wildly popular Italian restaurant in Brooklyn, New York. His friend Anna Klinger, the chef and co-owner, taught him how to make this deliciously tangy dressing, a mix of anchovies, poached garlic and olive oil.

This sweet, salty corn salad is the perfect picnic side. Bonus: You can make the aioli the night before and fold in right before serving.