The 31 Best Recipes to Cook This August
There’s a lot of great summer cooking that comes with June and July, but August always feels like when summer cooking hits the most delectable crescendo. This months calls for recipes that put the season’s best produce at the center of our plates (and I’m not just talking about salads!); dinner ideas that keep the oven off; and easy, make-ahead lunches for back-to-school season.
Perhaps the very best thing about August is the produce. Tomatoes are the ripest and juiciest you’ll find them all year (it’s the best time for a great BLT!), corn is impossibly sweet and crisp (consider creamy corn pasta with burrata a must), peaches and plums are absolutely perfect right now (use them in a stone fruit panzanella — it is the most impressive salad you’ll make all summer), and eggplant is in its prime.
I’m sure you’ll also need ideas for using up the glut of zucchini: Make lemon-y zucchini muffins, use it as the base for baked eggs, and try a batch of Parmesan-laced fritters. And, of course, don’t forget that you can freeze zucchini.
School is back in session for many parts of the country this month, which means it’s time to start packing lunch boxes again and adjusting your dinnertime routine. My favorite school lunch picks are ham and cheese muffins and marinated bean salad. Both can be made ahead of time (the muffins freeze like a dream), are easy to pack and eat, don’t need to be refrigerated or reheated, and aren’t a sandwich.
Regardless of your back-to-school status this month, it’s always a good idea to keep a short roster of simple weeknight dinners handy. This month go for Instant Pot penne (ideal for super-hot evenings), rotisserie chicken tacos, and salsa pork chops.
Bottom line: August is the month for loading up on all the corn, tomatoes, eggplant, and peaches; dinners that keep the oven off; and sweet treats that start with seasonal produce. Here are 31 of our favorite ideas to inspire your cooking (and baking!) all month long, because we want you to have a positively delicious August.