summer cooking bucket list
plus: the crispy chewy chocolate chip cookie, even better
Monday, June 23, 2025
Good morning!
10 years of the Crunchwrap Supreme [NYTimes, unlocked]
Summer, welcome back! We thought you weren’t going to show up there for a while, what with the four weekends of cold rain (not that anyone was counting), but now that we are in the thick of a heatwave, we see what you did there. But we are so ready, aren’t we? For the tomatoes and the corn and the grilling and the peaches, okay currently especially the peaches. Below, a 2025 summer cooking bucket list. It’s not easy to whittle the 261 recipes tagged “summer” on smittenkitchen.com down to the 10 I can’t let you miss, but I feel that if nothing else, you’ve got to make this batch. Take lots of pictures and look at them on your phone one shivery day in January and you’ll be extra glad you did.
Plus, just because one of my favorite things to do is to pluck random recipes from way back in the archives out for reconsideration and revision — I know more about cooking than I did 10 or 15+ years ago, and we should take advantage of this — and over the last few chocolate-studded weeks, it’s been the 2009 Crispy Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies. The 2025 edition are one-bowl, hand-whisked, bake faster, and I’ve even added some tips to get them extra rumpled looking. Maybe it’s just what your Monday needs, too.
Cheers,
Deb
I’ve written three cookbooks and I’m a tiny bit biased, but I think you’d love them all. Wondering what you might cook from Smitten Kitchen Keepers now that summer is finally here? I thought you’d never ask! Try the two-bean salad with basil vinaigrette, tomato and corn cobbler, zucchini and pesto lasagna, and steak and corn tacos. To finish, I recommend the big crumb pie bars and the strawberry summer stack cake. Were you looking for a list of all the recipes in each of my cookbooks? I’ve added these in a separate page and hope it makes it easier for you to find everything you want to cook.
“One of the winning elements of ‘The Recipe’ is that it’s not prescriptive — rather than settling on one universal ‘perfect’ recipe, the chefs explain their personal preferences, then give listeners the information they need to make their own adjustments. By breaking their recipes down ingredient-by-ingredient, digging into what each one is doing, they make the science of cooking approachable and fun.” — New York Times, 7 Podcasts to Inspire a New Hobby
“J. Kenji Lopez-Alt and Deb Perelman’s new podcast gets to not only the heart of how they make their recipes—but also the why behind each decision, too.”
The latest full episode of my podcast with J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, The Recipe with Kenji and Deb, is about Burgers! You can listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts, such as Apple, Spotify, and more. The Recipe is going on hiatus for a bit while Kenji and I work on our new cookbook projects, but I’ll let you know when we’re back!
corn fritters
This is my platonic ideal of a corn fritter: crunchy, golden brown, and mostly sweet corn kernels with just the tiniest amount of batter to tether them together. These have scallions, chives, and cheddar and they're exquisite (with a dab of mayo, if you dare) but I've suggested at least four other flavor combinations (mm, cacio e pepe, miso-scallion...) I didn't get to -- yet.
slow-roasted tomatoes
There is no higher tomato calling than slow-roasting, which basically turns them into tangy tomato candy. They're dreamy with pasta, in omelettes, salads, and on sandwiches, or you can just eat them straight. Because: candy.
braised chickpeas with zucchini and pesto
Chickpeas are braised in broth and olive oil with zucchini, onion, and garlic until they’re plump and almost falling apart, then we stir in pesto, burrata, and parmesan and scoop the whole blissful lot onto grilled bread and repeat again every week for the rest of summer.
baked farro with summer vegetables
A pinnacle-of-summer baked grain dish that has all of the decadence of a pasta bake -- tomatoes, gooey cheese, and a crisp, burnished top. Farro, small, nutty and slightly chewy, provides heft while letting the vegetables star.
linguine and clams
A forever summer favorite, you do not need one fancy thing to make this, save the freshest clams you can find. You can pick them up on the way home from wherever you’ve been today, knowing that cooking dinner will be the easiest part of it.
simple eggplant parmesan
Really simple, weeknight-friendly, breading-and-frying-free eggplant parmesan that's baked until blistered, cozy, and absolutely spoonable, with stretches of cheese trying to drag each spoonful back to the pan. Spoiler: It will fail; you will win.
crispy oven pulled pork
A low-effort, high-reward pulled pork roast that channels the masterful simplicity of David Chang's Bo Ssam. There are only 10 ingredients -- including the fixings. This is one of my favorite summer recipes of all time.
salted caramel peach crisp
The summer peach crisp to end all peach crisps, infused with and sweetened by an easy (promise!) salted butter caramel sauce that's also drizzled over the final crisp, along with melty scoops of ice cream (not optional, sorry). [Video below!]
dimply plum cake
Way back in the archives is an adorable plum cake from Dorie Greenspan I had fun refreshing -- it's now one-bowl, too. I realized that while it's great with small plums, large ones are particularly dramatic and wonderful as they infuse the cake. Don't miss this beauty.
baked alaska
Homemade ice cream cakes — or even this Baked Alaska with a brownie base, marbled ice cream, and swirled of torched meringue — are so much easier that they sound to make. You’re in for a treat.
salted caramel peach crisp
shop my favorites
Ever wonder where I get my cutting boards, paring knives, offset spatulas and more than you see when I cook? I've created a page on Smitten Kitchen with links to some of my favorite kitchen items, the ones I'm asked about the most — yes, including the the Smitten Kitchen x Staub Braiser (which is back in stock!). For each item, I've attempted to provide a range of shopping links so we're not just focusing on one giant retailer.
What’s the Smitten Kitchen x Staub Braiser? It’s an 11-inch, 4-quart braiser — essentially a lower profile enameled cast-iron Dutch oven that works as as well as a deep sauté pan as it does a soup pot, roasting pan, or even casserole dish that perfectly fits a pasta bake. Not a week has gone by in the decade I’ve had mine when I don’t use it at least three times. And we just got in a limited run of a stunning blue color for spring!
Your braiser purchase contains three new recipes (two savory, one sweet) by me that work perfectly in your new pot. If you’re looking for even more ideas, I created a category on the site to highlight some of my favorite dishes I make in mine.
See you next week!
