30 Minutes or Less

We've given eminently tasty salmon the crab-cake treatment. Topping the lovely, golden (and satisfyingly chunky) cakes is a tart, tangy yogurt sauce rather than the usual tartar.

Shrimp cocktail quickly becomes much more than a classic first course when you give it some Latin flair. Try tossing lime juice, cilantro, piquant adobo sauce, and creamy avocado into the mix.

The humble potato, given a little something extra, always elicits oohs and aahs. This is especially true when it's tossed with an herb-infused oil and cooked on the grill.

Pile a few choice toppings on store-bought pizza crust and throw it on the grill for a magnificent—and easy—vegetarian dinner for a crowd.

This sandwich gets a toasty power-up from your grill pan. Melted mozzarella bolsters chicken cutlets, and its gooey richness is offset by the fiery spark of cherry peppers. A tomato-basil salad rounds out the meal.

The height of tomato season often coincides with some of summer's most blistering days. Defeat the heat with a fresh side dish of green beans cloaked in a cool, tomatoey sauce inspired by gazpacho.

Radicchio adds streaks of scarlet and a pleasant bitterness to the usual Greek-salad suspects. A simple lemon and olive-oil dressing keeps things light and fresh.

Mushrooms spiked with the flavors of India add complexity and exoticism to beefy, well-marbled rib eye. They also go with virtually any other cut of steak.

The French custom of serving radishes with sweet butter and sea salt is a lesson in simplicity; there's something so satisfying about a lick of creamy butter against the snap of peppery radish. Here, anchovy paste adds a singular savor to the butter, but the ease of the tradition remains. It's worth seeking out small radishes like the French Breakfast variety; if you can find only big ones, just halve them.

Pita rounds spring to life after just a couple of minutes on a hot grill: The dimpled surfaces of the flatbread crisp up in a nice contrast with their soft interiors (be sure to buy the pocketless kind of pita, which is fluffier than pita that is meant to be split and stuffed). A shake of crunchy kosher salt and a brush of garlicky olive oil flecked with oregano knocks them out of the park.

Any excuse to cook a pork chop is a good excuse, and here is one of Italian origin: You get to stuff it with prosciutto, not to mention buttery Fontina and aromatic sage.

Cold noodle dishes are a great way to cool off, and since both calamari and rice-stick noodles require little cooking, the combination makes for an excellent lunch or dinner on a hot, lazy day. With its generous amount of fragrant garden herbs, this salad even smells refreshing.

A classic American sandwich gets a makeover: The avocado dressing has an inviting creaminess to it, and the crunchy grilled croutons are a revelation.

A take on muhammara, a Turkish and Syrian red pepper spread thickened with bread crumbs and walnuts, this sunset-hued condiment comes together in minutes and does double duty as an accompaniment to both the kebabs and the grilled pita.

Crown broiled peaches with pillows of meringue and a bit of honeyed crunch.