Vegetarian

Any variety or combination of summer squash will do for this recipe. Use more than one color for a more vibrant dish.

The trick to saucing pasta with pesto is to loosen the noodles with hot pasta water. It makes all the difference.

This is not a particularly traditional version of this recipe, but if you have ripe delicious tomatoes, it makes a beautiful piquant summer soup—a sort of liquid salad—that’s worth all the grating, pounding, and dicing. For a light summer meal, add a few shrimp—or other fish or shellfish—to the soup.

This is a soup for the height of summer, when tomatoes are abundant and perfectly ripe.

This is a no-fail soup as long as you have fresh sweet corn. I make it all summer and vary it with different garnishes through the season.

Tabbouleh is a Lebanese salad made with bulgur wheat, chopped herbs, and tomatoes. It is a spectacular salad, green and fresh, with more herbs than grain. Bulgur wheat is made from wheat grains that have been parboiled or steamed and then dried. It requires only quick cooking or soaking.

This makes an exciting salad for the middle of winter.

French green lentils or black Beluga lentils are the best varieties to use for lentil salads because they have lots of flavor and they hold their shape when cooked.

Fennel makes a very delicate salad when sliced paper-thin. It can be difficult to cut the fennel very thin with a knife, so instead I reach for my plastic Japanese mandoline. But watch your fingertips and use the guard!

There are many varieties of cucumbers, each with its own flavor and texture. I especially like Armenian, Japanese, and lemon cucumbers.

Use green cabbage, red cabbage, savoy cabbage, or napa cabbage. Each one is tasty, and each will make a slightly different salad.

This salad tastes best when the carrots have time to marinate and absorb the flavors of the spices.

My daughter always loved this salad and I would often make a tiny version for her lunch and change the shapes for variety: grated, thin curls (cut with a peeler), matchsticks, or slices.

Yellow potatoes such as Yellow Finn and Yukon Gold have very good flavor and texture for potato salad. Don’t use baking potatoes such as russets; they will fall apart.

Serve this winter salad alongside other little salads, such as marinated beets, carrot salad, or arugula salad.

Beets of different colors make a very beautiful salad. Dress the red ones separately so their color doesn’t bleed all over the others.

Leeks are at their best in the cold months, when lettuce is scarce. Dressed with this mustardy vinaigrette, they make a bright winter salad.

Look for all the different colors, sizes, and flavors of tomatoes at the farmers’ market all through tomato season—July, August, and September. Mix them together, sliced or wedged, for a strikingly beautiful salad.