Garden to Table Recipes

Do you have a garden that is threatening to take over your whole yard? Bursting at the seams with fresh produce and not sure what to do with it? We've got all the best garden-fresh recipes for you here in one place so you can keep cooking all season long.

Putting it up instead of cooking it now? Head over to my Preserving recipe section for pickling, canning, freezing, and fermenting. This page is for cooking it now.

Tomatoes

Nothing beats a garden fresh tomato! These recipes really highlight all of that flavor that only comes around for a short time every year. I'm talking about fresh sauces that come together in the time it takes to boil the pasta, a gazpacho for when it's too hot to turn on the stove, and the green ones you harvest at the end of the season before the first frost.

Fresh Salsas

Raw salsa is the fastest way to use a lot of produce, and it's where those fresh garden tomatoes, chilies, onions, and cilantro all get to be the star. These are all no-cook or barely-cook, and every one of them scales to whatever you can pull off the vines.

Peppers

Surprised these aren't first on the list? Me too, but here we are. These recipes are the ones where the peppers truly carry the dish instead of just adding heat in the background. Roasted, blistered, stuffed, or cooked down nice and slow, these recipe will have you planting double the pepper plants next season. Besides, this entire site is dedicated to chili peppers, the thing I love the most.

Corn

Sweet corn is best cooked quickly to maintain its fresh texture. Grill it, char it, or cut it off the cob into salads and chowders and everything in-between.

Cucumbers

Cucumbers can take over a garden faster than anything else. Except maybe zucchini. Shocking that they are closely related, right? The good news is they're fantastic raw with a simple dressing, which means dinner or a salad in about ten minutes.

Tomatillos

If you've grown tomatillos, you know one plant produces an absurd amount of fruit. Roast them and you've got the base for green sauces, stews, and enchiladas all season.

Green Beans, Okra, Eggplant and Squash

The odds and ends of my garden, and some of the ingredients I'm actively trying to use more. These recipes are creative, delicious, and will become dishes you look forward to every year when the garden is bursting.

Herbs

Basil bolts, but cilantro bolts faster, so the best way to use them is to think volume. Pesto is the obvious choice. After that, look at chermoula and the Thai basil dishes, which use fistfuls of herbs. These are great in so many ways.