Gluten Free

Young turnips with their greens are in the markets in spring and fall. The two together make a delicious soup or side dish.

This is a classic Mexican soup that is brought to the table with a variety of serve-yourself garnishes.

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.

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.

This composed salad is based on a recipe from Provence. It makes a delightful lunch or light dinner. The summer vegetables are set off by the piquant anchovies and rich hard-cooked egg.

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.

Cherry tomatoes and beans come in many sizes and colors. Mix them all together. You can include shell beans, too. The beans can be cooked and cooled in advance.

There are two varieties of persimmons available on the market, fuyu and hachiya. Fuyu are round and flat and are eaten while still crisp; they make colorful and tasty salads. Hachiya are elongated with a pointy tip, and are tannic until ripe and very, very soft.

Rocket and arugula are both common names for the spicy salad plant Eruca vesicaria, which has dark green, lobed leaves that taste nutty and peppery.

This salad is best made with whole uncut leaves of romaine. You may need to remove quite a few of the large outer leaves to expose the smaller pale green sweet leaves at the heart. There are tender small varieties called Little Gem and Winter Density that make incredible salads. Look for them at your farmers’ market.

This North African condiment is made from puréed sweet peppers and chiles. Use it to spice up a soup, roast meat, or grilled vegetables; as a sandwich spread; or as a sauce with rice or couscous dishes.

This sauce is a version of a raita, the cooling South Asian yogurt sauce, which is often seasoned with cumin seed, cinnamon, and cayenne. Try different varieties of cucumber such as lemon, Armenian, or Japanese. If the cucumbers have large seeds, use a spoon to scrape them out after you cut the cucumbers in half. A cool growing season sometimes yields bitter cucumbers, so taste each cucumber; a bitter cucumber will spoil the sauce.

This is a variation of a North African condiment. It is redolent of coriander and complements saffron rice with vegetables or fish.

This salsa is so easy to make and tastes so much better than anything you can buy in a jar! Use fresh ripe tomatoes in the summer and canned whole tomatoes the rest of the year.