Escarole

Chris Kronner created this salad with ingredients fresh from the garden. It offers an amazing array of flavors: sweet roasted broccoli, bitter escarole, salty anchovies, sharp cheese.

This terrific warm salad from F&W’s Kay Chun is both rich and refreshing, combining spicy sausage with the bright flavors of tarragon, anchovies, lemon and capers.

Crisp bacon complements escarole so well that you may be tempted to sauté the greens in the bacon fat, but don't do it; the bacon will then overwhelm the greens completely. Use olive oil instead, which will bring all the flavors together.

This one-skillet dish has more flavor than its short ingredient list suggests, especially if made with fresh-caught fish.

Escarole and white beans make a classic pairing. This soup gets a savory garnish with a drizzle of garlic-infused oil.

This savory main-course salad is as satisfying as it is restorative.

Jose Garces slowly simmers white beans in a rich pork stock, then combines them with cooked pork butt.

"I don't know if I invented this combo, but since I don't remember stealing it from anyone, I'll take the credit," says Michael Schwartz of his ingenious pizza topping of shrimp, escarole, tangy Manchego and spicy chorizo.

Grace Parisi makes brilliant use of Brie here. After removing the rind from the cheese, she combines it with the pasta cooking water to make a rich, silky sauce for the fettuccine.

Andrew Carmellini prepares this dish with homemade bread crumbs and hard-to-find Sicilian oregano. To make it easier, top spicy greens with crispy panko (packaged Japanese bread crumbs) and a touch of supermarket oregano.

Although often served cooked, escarole is mild and refreshing when eaten raw.

Soup preserves almost all of the water-soluble vitamins in beans like folic acid and niacin.

"I cribbed this salad from my grandmother Nonna," Maria Helm Sinskey says. "She'd toss leftover beans with greens and lemon juice." This version has toasted croutons; the lemon juice is mixed into a refreshing dressing.

Sweet carrots offset the smokiness on this warming soup.

The key to enjoying greens like radicchio and escarole in their raw state is to temper their bracingly bitter edge with the rich, the citrusy, and the sweet. The creamy golden yolks of soft-boiled eggs and a zesty vinaigrette bring everything together here. For crunch, batons of toasted sourdough (think chic croutons) are ideal for dipping in the egg.