5 Ingredients or Fewer

Look for all the different colors, sizes, and flavors of tomatoes at the farmers’ market all through tomato season—July, August, and September. Mix them together, sliced or wedged, for a strikingly beautiful salad.

Cherry tomatoes and beans come in many sizes and colors. Mix them all together. You can include shell beans, too. The beans can be cooked and cooled in advance.

There are two varieties of persimmons available on the market, fuyu and hachiya. Fuyu are round and flat and are eaten while still crisp; they make colorful and tasty salads. Hachiya are elongated with a pointy tip, and are tannic until ripe and very, very soft.

Crème fraîche is heavy cream that has been cultured and thickened with a live enzyme like the one found in buttermilk. It is thick and smooth with a rich tangy flavor. Th e advantage of cooking with crème fraîche (as opposed to sour cream) is that it will not separate when boiled. Crème fraîche is easy to make and is amazingly versatile. Stir it into a vinaigrette for a creamy, tangy dressing. Flavor it with herbs and a touch of salt for a perfect garnish for a soup. Use it to thicken and enrich a pasta sauce or braise. A potato gratin is sublime when made with crème fraîche. For dessert it can be sweetened with sugar, honey, or maple syrup to make a simple sauce. It can be whipped to make a soft whipped cream (be sure not to overwhip it; it will become grainy, just like heavy cream). Mix with melted chocolate for a great frosting (page 386). And it makes delicious ice cream.

Rocket and arugula are both common names for the spicy salad plant Eruca vesicaria, which has dark green, lobed leaves that taste nutty and peppery.

This salad is best made with whole uncut leaves of romaine. You may need to remove quite a few of the large outer leaves to expose the smaller pale green sweet leaves at the heart. There are tender small varieties called Little Gem and Winter Density that make incredible salads. Look for them at your farmers’ market.

This North African condiment is made from puréed sweet peppers and chiles. Use it to spice up a soup, roast meat, or grilled vegetables; as a sandwich spread; or as a sauce with rice or couscous dishes.

This sauce is a version of a raita, the cooling South Asian yogurt sauce, which is often seasoned with cumin seed, cinnamon, and cayenne. Try different varieties of cucumber such as lemon, Armenian, or Japanese. If the cucumbers have large seeds, use a spoon to scrape them out after you cut the cucumbers in half. A cool growing season sometimes yields bitter cucumbers, so taste each cucumber; a bitter cucumber will spoil the sauce.

This salsa is so easy to make and tastes so much better than anything you can buy in a jar! Use fresh ripe tomatoes in the summer and canned whole tomatoes the rest of the year.

This bright-tasting sauce is a great accompaniment to grilled foods of all descriptions—steak, chicken, shrimp, or vegetables—and it is also wonderful as a dip for tortilla chips or as a sauce for tamales.

Gremolata is a mixture of chopped parsley, garlic, and lemon zest. Persillade (pronounced “per-see-odd”) is simply chopped parsley and garlic. Although these are not technically sauces, I use them as a fresh bright finish to sprinkle over roasted or braised meats, pastas, and anything grilled.

This salsa is a fresh complement to grilled or baked fish or fish tacos.

Bagna cauda means “warm bath” in an Italian dialect. Don’t let the anchovies steer you away. The strong flavors of garlic and anchovy are suspended in perfect balance in warm butter and olive oil. It is a delightful dipping sauce for raw vegetables, and it makes a tasty sauce for grilled vegetables and grilled or baked fish.

Pesto is my favorite sauce to make. I love the sensory experience of pounding it and smelling it and tasting it as I go. Pesto is more than a pasta sauce: it’s delicious on sliced tomatoes, as a dipping sauce for vegetables, on a pizza, or as a sauce for grilled chicken and vegetables.

This is the basic white sauce used in lasagna, vegetable gratins, and savory soufflés.

Pan gravy is classically made with the drippings of a roast. This method applies to any number of roasted meats: beef, lamb, pork, chicken, turkey. It’s easiest to make the gravy right in the pan that the meat was roasted in.

There are many varieties of avocados, and all may be used, but the Hass avocado is the ideal choice. The flesh has a rich, nutty, and herby taste. It is a good keeper, it peels easily, and the pit is easily removed. An avocado is ripe when it yields to the gentle pressure of your thumb.