Bon Appétit

This one-skillet dinner gets deep oniony flavor from lots of leeks cooked down to jammy tenderness.

In this recipe, freshly baked gorditas get split open and packed with a saucy chile-shrimp filling, onions, avocados, and cilantro. Serve them with a generous squeeze of lime.

Traditionally, enfrijoladas are made by dipping stale tortillas into leftover frijoles from the night before. They are also great topped with a fried egg, or with roasted vegetables instead of chorizo to make this a plant-based breakfast.

Use plátanos manzanos—a short, fat, and incredibly sweet plantain variety—if you can find them. When pan-fried, the outside caramelizes and forms a hard shell while the inside becomes soft and custardy (like crème brûlée!). Look for them in Latin and Caribbean supermarkets or in the tropical fruit section of large supermarkets.

I love the flavor of orange zest and spices in a café de olla, so I created a concentrated syrup that is ready on demand to flavor any cold brew. Coconuts are grown all along the Pacific coast of Mexico; use coconut milk to add richness and even more tropical flavor.

Turmeric, chiles, and chewy-nutty cooked grains balance the sweetness of fresh corn in this loose vegan riff on creamed corn.

This savory pie calls for roasting tomatoes to concentrate their flavor, then layering them with two kinds of cheese atop a garlic-butter crust for a result as dramatic as it is delicious.

This dish of seared paneer channels flavors traditionally found in matar paneer—coriander, cumin, chile, and ginger—by incorporating them into a quick-cooking cherry tomato sauce.

This reimagined chicken salad is lighter and leafier than your standard picnic lunch. Tender poached chicken, crisp greens, cukes, and scallions get tossed with a sesame dressing that takes its cues form gomae, a Japanese spinach salad.

Sweet, sticky, charred, and crispy: Barbecued chicken is one of the surest signs of summer. This easy homemade barbecue sauce uses maple syrup for sweetness and Sriracha for heat.

This super-flavorful dish spins the flavors of shish barak—lamb and pine nut dumplings from the Levant—in a pasta direction.

This dish is inspired by a classic Cantonese preparation, which is traditionally battered and deep-fried. Here, the fish is pan-seared in hot oil, but still gets plenty of texture and flavor from ginger, caramelized scallions, and lots of freshly ground black pepper.

Fresh salmon makes these ginger and scallion-laced burgers luscious and flavorful. Pile them high with peppery watercress, crunchy cucumber quick pickles, fragrant mint, and cilantro.

Pork tacos al pastor may get the fame, but this fish al pastor deserves plenty of glory. A potent chile marinade adds lots of flavor before the fillets hit the grill, and a pineapple salsa is the perfect finishing touch.

Bound together with honey and nut butter, these just-sweet-enough bars are sturdy enough to throw in a beach bag and substantial enough to power you through til sunset.

These crispy zucchini fritters take inspiration from the Bengali onion snack piyaju. Soaked and blended red lentils make up the batter, which is spiked with turmeric and chile powder.

Some would call showering potato salad with potato chips “gilding the lily.” We would call it “extremely sensible and incredibly tasty.”

Tender lettuces get topped with juicy spiced chicken, ripe mangos, soft avocado, and cherry tomatoes. There's so much flavor and texture going on that there's barely a need for a dressing: just a hit of lime juice, salt, and EVOO, and dinner is done.

Zucchini keeps this cake incredibly moist, while scattered chocolate chips (or chocolate pyramids) and chopped walnuts add texture and dimension.

Eating fruit tarts is great. Rolling out dough on a brutally hot day isn't. Good thing this stunner has a no-fuss press-in crust.