This article was updated in June 2024 to include more of our favorite products.
Summer is the CSA basket’s time to shine. That’s why Joshua McFadden’s Six Seasons—a seasonal-cooking bible that made our list of the top five books for all things vegetable—considers summer to be three different micro-seasons rolled into one. In that vein, I present to you a guide to summer vegetable cooking (or no-cooking) that’s broken down into early, mid, and late, using the vegetables in McFadden’s iconic cookbook as examples. But by all means, take creative liberties and cook outside the micro-seasons, paying attention to your local climate (and farmers markets). After all, summer is a time for a more relaxed approach to cooking that involves less oven, more salad, and loads of color. Here’s a cheat sheet:
