Photo: Sonja and Alex Overhiser

A Warming Dish for Chilly Spring Nights

This hearty springtime dish is a play in contrasts: bright, in-season snow peas, asparagus and artichokes mix with dark and earthy kale and lentils. The recipe, from Sonja and Alex Overhiser's new book Pretty Simple Cooking, has you serve the quick-cooking stew in shallow bowls and then top it with generous spoonfuls of an Italian salsa verde, which combines lemon, garlic, parsley and capers.

Get the recipe: Artichoke Lentil Stew with Salsa Verde

Photo: Joseph De Leo

The Sweetest Way to Eat All the Spring Onions

Long stalks of green garlic are one of the earliest arrivals each spring at the farmers' market—and they add a mellow, gentle spice to this verdant couscous dish from Ilene Rosen's new Saladish. Along with green garlic, there is a smattering of other seasonal members of the allium family: spring onions, leeks and scallions. You sauté them all in olive oil until they're soft and then stir them into cooked pearl couscous and dress with a zippy watercress dressing for a hybrid pasta-salad bowl that's unexpected—and delicious.

Get the recipe: Couscous and Spring Allium Mix

Photo: Anson Smart

The Unfussy Tart That Highlights a Farmers' Market Treasure

Rustic and beautiful, these galettes—individual, free-form pastries often filled with savory ingredients and baked—are a wonderful spring meal alongside a soup or salad. The recipe, from the forthcoming book The Cook's Atelier by Marjorie Taylor and Kendall Smith Franchini, stars wild garlic or ramps; they nicely complement the fresh flavor of crumbled goat cheese. If you can't find them at a greenmarket, though, you can also use garlic chives or garlic scapes.

Get the recipe: Baby Leek Galettes with Goat Cheese and Wild Garlic

Photo: © 2017 by Johnny Autry

A Reinvention for One of Spring's Famously Pungent Veggies

If you haven't yet roasted a radish, prepare to be amazed. Cooking these edible roots, which have a punchy bite when raw, brings out their mellow side, says Alana Chernila, in her new book Eating from the Ground Up. She blasts them in a hot oven for a half-hour, then serves them with a lemon-feta-mint sauce. The result is a fabulous mash-up of hot and cool, sweet and tangy.

Get the recipe: Roasted Radishes with Feta Mint Sauce

Photo: Jack Mathews

A Different Use for Watercress

Watercress has a peppery bite, and while it's often available from spring through fall, the leaves and stems are at their peak flavor in the spring. Instead of using them in an expected salad, though, this recipe puts them to use as a terrific topping for open-faced tartine sandwiches (supporting cast: mellow mozzarella and avocado, plus herby pesto). They provide the perfect kick to a creamy, crunchy toast you can eat for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Get the recipe: Avocado-Pesto-Mozzarella Tartines

A Plate That's an Embarrassment of Seasonal Riches

If you find yourself hitting the jackpot of springtime produce, there's one dish to make—and this is it. It's a bracing and bright tangle of sautéed ramps (though you could use scallions, if ramps aren't available in your area) and crisp-tender sugar snaps, with baby squash thrown in at the end of the cooking so it softens but still remains toothsome. Toss in a few handfuls of pea tendrils and walnuts just before serving, and you'll never be happier that spring is (finally!) here.

Get the recipe: Sautéed Ramps, Sugar Snap Peas and Pattypan Squash
Published 03/06/2018