Sugar Snap Pea

Broccoli rice is the base for bright toppings like fresh peas, avocados, and pickled ginger. Round out the bowl with a creamy, herby dressing and a soft-boiled egg.

No pots or pans needed for this easy summertime recipe. Just fire up the grill!

Asparagus ribbons, sliced sugar snap peas, and red onion tossed in lemon juice are the perfect springtime toppers for these smoky-spiced lamb burgers.

Swap in any kind of ground meat and any kind of vegetable for this saucy, clean-out-your-pantry rice noodle stir-fry.

This fresh, vegetable-packed soup is perfect for those chilly spring days when you're craving a bowl of something warm.

An easy herbed butter infuses fish and vegetables with rich flavor in this family-friendly dinner.

Roasting the chicken and making the peanut sauce ahead of time gets dinner on the table even faster.

Ginger-roasted cherry tomatoes, skillet-charred snap peas and scallions, and plenty of fresh basil and mint make this lighter pasta salad eminently craveable.

If there is one time we’d want to cheat and cook something indoors, it would be to make a pot of rice to soak up the extra dressing in this snapper recipe.

A mixture of almond meal and cornmeal replaces traditional breadcrumbs in these scallion- and mint-packed crab cakes. The raw snap pea salad is crunchy and refreshing—and it’s the perfect way to complete the meal.

Bright and refreshing green goddess dressing perks up the grains in this delicious bowl that's filled to the brim with all the green veggies.

Toss blanched snap peas and English peas with arugula and a mustardy vinaigrette, then drape with prosciutto for an elegant spring salad.

Fried rice is one of the fastest, easiest meals you can make, and a great way to use up leftovers. 

This Thai-inspired curry is ready in just 20 minutes with a little help from a rotisserie chicken.

This spring salad can be made with pretty much any grain and firm grating cheese you like.

I admit that I'm hard on sugar snap peas. I get disappointed when they suck, of course, but I also get grumpy when they're anything less than perfect—unblemished, super sweet, and not a bit starchy. That's the curse of keeping high standards, I suppose: you're so rarely satisfied. When at last I do find perfect snap peas, I make this salad. I leave them raw—only the finest snap peas can be this delightful without a dunk in boiling water—and accentuate their flavor with little more than a lemony dressing and mint. If you'd like, you could add some creamy goat cheese in blobs or good old burrata alongside.

Light, crunchy, and downright pretty, this fresh spring slaw will brighten any spread.

Pea shoots are the young, tender tips and vines of the snow pea or the sugar snap pea plant. Once your plants are established and producing an abundance of pods, clip off leaf and tendril sections about 4 inches (10 cm) long. If you don't have your own plants, look for these tender shoots at farmers' markets or Asian grocery stores. Sambal oelek is an Indonesian chile paste, and tart, citrusy makrut lime leaves are used in Southeast Asian cooking.

Fava beans, asparagus, and sugar snap peas are the essence of the season in this vibrant spring dish with a citrus twist; the caramelized shallots are a sweet counterpoint to the zesty zing of the fresh lemon. While this makes a terrific side dish for roasted meats like ham, turkey, or chicken, you can also toss it with pasta or rice for a main-course meal.

Creamy white beans, fresh basil, and crunchy young vegetables are combined in a light but substantial salad that takes advantage of the first fruits of the spring garden. Use a mild honey, like clover or wildflower. —Chef Sam

This recipe uses a combination of steaming to soften the texture and brighten the color (especially helpful when cooking green vegetables), and sautéing in butter to increase flavor. The method is similar to blanching then sautéing, only in the same pan. This steam-sauté method can also be used to cook green beans, snow peas, green peas, asparagus, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts. In the recipe below, sautéed snap peas are combined with shaved raw baby turnips, which are slightly bitter and contrast nicely with the sweetness of the peas. Radishes would offer the same balance of taste and crunchy texture.

Peas, Parmigiano, and prosciutto are a combination that you see often in Italy, and one that, to me, says spring. The way we plate this dish it looks like a bird’s nest, with half of a ball of burrata nestled into folds of speck, topped with a pile of peas, and then covered with a light dusting of Parmigiano that looks like fresh fallen snow. Although I prefer the smoky flavor of the speck, prosciutto is a fine substitute.