31 Summer Vegetable Recipes to Try This Season

By Food & Wine
Updated June 16, 2020
Photo by Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Chelsea Zimmer / Prop Styling by Claire Spollen
With farmers’ markets in full swing, we're eating all the fresh summer vegetables we possibly can—think summer squash, cucumbers, eggplant, corn, and tomatoes (yes, we know they're technically a fruit, but we don't care). Take advantage of seasonal produce to whip up tasty dishes like masala grilled vegetables with spicy mint chutney, summer squash carpaccio, and a grilled flatbread that’s a “vegetarian masterpiece.” Keep reading for the recipes.
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Pasta with Tomato and Black Olive Sauce

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Barbara Lynch’s rustic pasta is very adaptable to whatever summer vegetables are at their peak. Here she uses tomatoes, zucchini, summer squash and eggplant.

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Potato Salad with Green Beans and Salsa Verde

© Coral Von Zumwalt
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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.

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Grilled Carrot Salad with Brown Butter Vinaigrette

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Grilling concentrates the sweet flavor of fresh baby carrots. Bryce Gilmore marinates them, then tosses them with a wonderful and unusual dressing he makes by cooking butter until brown, then pureeing it with marcona almonds and sherry vinegar.

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Tangy Green Zebra Gazpacho

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Green Zebras are heirloom tomatoes with a striped pattern; they are sweet like red tomatoes but give this gazpacho a lovely jade hue. To make the chilled soup extra tangy, use tomatillos or unripe red tomatoes instead of Green Zebras.

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Warm Corn Chowder Salad with Bacon and Cider Vinegar

Fredrika Stjärne
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In this riff on corn chowder, the Beekman boys toss corn, potatoes and bacon with cider vinegar. They grow at least five varieties of sweet corn each summer, and they’re always coming up with new ways to use it. Because the corn for this salad is barely cooked, it’s best to use the juiciest kernels available.

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Celery, Grilled Grape and Mushroom Salad

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“Celery is a vegetable people either love or hate, and we try to get people to love all their vegetables,” says chef Amanda Cohen. She sets off celery’s bitterness and crunch with meaty oyster mushrooms and grapes that have been grilled until almost bursting.

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Braised Cucumbers with Dill

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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.

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Green Tomatoes with Pistachio Relish

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Relishes typically contain cooked and pickled vegetables; the one here is mouth-tinglingly tangy. James Syhabout makes it by pickling shallots, capers, pistachios and pink peppercorns overnight in Champagne vinegar and olive oil. It’s awesome on tomatoes, but he also likes using it on fish.

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Summer Farro Salad

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Chef Marco Canora simmers farro in water with sautéed onion, carrots and celery. The aromatic vegetables add delicate flavor to the cooked grains.

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Chilled Persian Yogurt Soup

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This yogurt-cucumber soup, filled with herbs, nuts, and raisins, is delicious with grilled bread.

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Grilled Eggplant Salad with Walnuts

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Terrific as a salad or a spread for flatbread, adzhapsandali is like a Georgian version of ratatouille. Grilling the eggplant gives the dish a luscious, smoky flavor.

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Mushroom Kufteh with Green Harissa and Asparagus Pesto

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Hoss Zaré’s mushroom kufteh recipe calls for assorted wild mushrooms (such as oyster and stemmed shiitake), panko, fresh basil and parsley, and more.

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Spinach Fettuccine with Tangy Grilled Summer Squash

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At her restaurant, Amanda Cohen tosses herb fettuccine with pickled squash blossoms and grilled zucchini. This simplified recipe features squash that’s pickled and then grilled, plus freshly sautéed squash.

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Summer-Vegetable Casserole

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The restaurant at Abruzzo's Sextantio hotel serves centuries-old recipes like this simple dish of layered summer vegetables.

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Beet Salad with Shiso

© Evan Sung
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Try Chef Greg Baxtrom's beet and snow pea salad from the Olmstead in Brooklyn.

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Grilled Vegetable Flatbread with Smoked Almond Muhammara

Photo by Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Chelsea Zimmer / Prop Styling by Claire Spollen
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This vegetarian masterpiece is packed with make-ahead options and smart shortcuts. Make the smoked almond muhammara up to 3 days in advance and stash it in the fridge. You can also skip a step and substitute 2 cups jarred roasted peppers for the grilled bell peppers, plus about 1/4 cup liquid from the jar.

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Masala Grilled Vegetables with Spicy Mint Chutney

Greg DuPree
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Grilled summer produce meets a chile-spiked herb dressing in this bright dish.

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Grilled Okra, Corn, and Tomato Salad

Victor Protasio
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This next-level summer salad turns heads with its punchy charred jalapeño-and-herb-spiked dressing and a palate-perking topping of toasted crunchy coriander and cumin seeds.

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Grilled Summer Squash Casserole

Victor Protasio
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Traditionally called malaiwala, “the one with cream,” this casserole is the perfect summer side. Make it a main dish by adding cubed paneer.

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Summer Squash Carpaccio

Jen Causey
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When summer squash is freshly picked, Marcela Valladolid says, all it needs is a little olive oil, salt, pepper, and maybe a hit of lemon juice. Here, she’s taken it to next-level magic by adding sweet dates, fresh mint, and toasted pepitas spiced with Tajín seasoning to the thinly sliced summer squash.

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Grilled Eggplant, Apricot and Tomato Salad

CON POULOS
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This simple summer salad from chef Joshua McFadden perfectly showcases summer produce at its peak. When corn season is in full swing, cut the sweet, raw kernels off the cob and toss them into this dish.

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Cucumber-Avocado Salad with Gooseberry Piri Piri Soup

Greg DuPree
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Kwame Onwuachi’s bright, summery salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, gooseberries, avocado, and mint might seem simple at first, but stand back. With its Trinidadian Green Seasoning (which delivers a sinus-clearing wallop of fresh ginger and fruity aromatics from the Scotch bonnet chiles) and an addictive, tangy, gazpacho-like Gooseberry Piri Piri, this 30-minute recipe is one of the best things we’ve eaten this year.

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Grilled Pepper Salad with Cucumbers

Abby Hocking / Food & Wine
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F&W Best New Chefs 2017 Sara Kramer and Sarah Hymanson, of Kismet in Los Angeles, grill all kinds of peppers before tossing them in this delicious and compelling salad that includes grapes, cucumbers, purslane and a lemon and Urfa pepper dressing.

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Potato Salad with Fresh Corn And Basil

Photo by Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Margaret Dickey / Prop Styling by Claire Spollen
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Red baby potatoes are ideal for potato salad because of their tender skins and creamy interiors that hold together, even when cooked. Quickly soaking the onions in vinegar mellows their bite and allows the summery fresh herbs to shine in the dressing.

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Roasted Curry Tomato Pie

Greg DuPree
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Turmeric gives the rustic crust of this tomato pie a glorious golden glow, but the real star (other than the ripe summer tomatoes) are the sweet and tangy tamarind onions, which complement the spiced, cheesy filling beautifully.

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Heirloom Tomato and Pepper Toasts with Whipped Ricotta

Con Poulos
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Velvety smooth, lightly seasoned ricotta serves as the perfect base for juicy ripe tomatoes and charred peppers on grilled levain bread. Fennel pollen adds a light licorice flavor, while fresh basil, chives, and a hint of lemon juice add brightness to the smoky flavor from the grill.

https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/heirloom-tomato-and-pepper-toasts-whipped-ricotta

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Caramelized Coconut Green Beans

Jennifer Causey
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Instead of dried flaked or shredded coconut, chef Biju Thomas uses meaty fresh coconut in this vegetable dish.

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Grilled Corn on the Cob with Calamansi Mayo

Victor Protasio
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Chef Sheldon Simeon’s recipe for a Hawaiian twist on Mexican elote features grilled corn slathered in a creamy, cheesy calamansi mayonnaise, which gets its acidic twang from a sour citrus fruit native to the South Pacific (you can substitute Key limes in a pinch).

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Corn-and-Zucchini Orzo Salad with Goat Cheese

Con Poulos
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Kay Chun takes pasta salad to a new level with sweet grilled corn, zucchini, and a creamy lime dressing spiked with chile powder. She uses fresh cilantro to add brightness and then tops the whole salad with tangy slivers of fresh goat cheese.

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Grilled Eggplant and Zucchini Salad with Salsa Verde

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Avoid the temptation to whiz the salsa verde ingredients in a blender—the rough texture that comes from hand chopping and pounding in a mortar and pestle is what you're looking for.

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Tomato, Basil, and Cucumber Panzanella with Grated Tomato Balsamic Vinaigrette

Victor Protasio

This summer blockbuster panzanella from Samin Nosrat, author of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, pairs oven-roasted sourdough croutons with juicy ripe tomatoes, raw red onion, and crisp cucumbers.

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