Spring on a plate: 21 recipes to make the most of the season's bounty, from broad beans to fennel

After a season of braises and roasts, spring vegetables arrive looking almost too pretty to cook: fennel shaved paper-thin, broad beans a shock of green once they're podded, rhubarb blushing pink under a knife. This collection leans into that shift both ways – quick, colourful salads for an ordinary Tuesday and shareable plates for entertaining. Some recipes barely need a stove at all.

Spring vegetable tempura

Sokyo chef Chase Kojima runs his tempura batter through a soda siphon, to hold the bubbles fine enough that broccolini, asparagus and broad beans feel light and barely coated.

La vignarola

This traditional Roman spring vegetable stew treats lettuce as a vegetable to braise, not just a salad base, and this leans all the way into that logic: artichokes, peas, broad beans and wedges of baby gem cooked down together until the pan holds only a few spoonfuls of intensely flavoured liquid.

Rhubarb and strawberry crunch

Martin Benn built his reputation at Sepia on precision, and that shows even in a dessert simple enough to pull off at home: rhubarb stalks pressed into a sugared almond crumb and sealed under a second layer, baked until the top turns deep gold then topped with barely macerated strawberries and crème fraîche.

Sweet potato and spring garlic tart

Spring garlic is garlic caught early, before the cloves separate and the papery skin sets in, and Matthew Evans uses the whole head here, stalks included, fried until just wilted under roasted sweet potato, goat's cheese and walnuts. If you can't find it, young leeks are the better swap over the fully cured bulb.

Jamie Oliver's spring soup and ricotta toasts recipe

Jamie Oliver's technique here for blending only half the soup, then stirring it back through keeps some peas and broad beans whole for texture. The ricotta toast alongside is really two recipes in one: the lemon-and-parmesan ricotta holds in the fridge for a second round a few days later.

Smashed potatoes with watercress pesto

Who doesn't need another smashed potato recipe – and another pesto recipe, at that? Watercress brings a peppery bite that plain basil pesto can't match, and blitzing it with almonds and capers instead of pine nuts and parmesan keeps things lighter and sharper. Smashing the spuds flat before roasting ensures every piece ends up with more craggy surface area for crisping up.

Asparagus tart with walnuts and parmesan

This tart started as restaurant envy: asparagus charred in a wood-fired oven, walnut cream and shaved parmesan, good enough that its creator wanted the dish to herself rather than share it with her kids. The home version swaps in puff pastry and mascarpone, laying the spears single file so every slice gets its own from edge to edge.

Spring minestra with lettuce and broad beans

This minestra by Sydney chef O Tama Carey builds its flavour in stages: onions and radicchio softened first, then risoni and broad beans, then a last-minute cascade of tat soi, mizuna and rocket stirred through so each leaf keeps its own bite. Served with a healthy dose of freshly grated parmesan cheese.

Quinoa and spring vegetables salad

This salad works in layers rather than as a toss-together bowl: a pea and spinach purée on the base, black quinoa cooked in kombu-spiked stock to level up the umami, then green and white asparagus, sugar snap peas and radish flowers – all finished with a wasabi-spiked dressing. It's restaurant plating logic, scaled for a home kitchen.

Broccoli shoots with spring garlic and anchovy

Anchovies have a way of vanishing and adding a silent saltiness: they melt into the oil, leaving behind savoury depth rather than any hint of fish. Spring garlic keeps things mellow, and ten minutes later you have a broccoli side with more character than the vegetable usually gets credit for.

Spring pea risotto

Not a pea pod goes to waste here – shells are blanched to strip out their bitterness before blending them into the stock that cooks the rice. It's four components deep by the time you count the purée and the blanched vegetables, so save it for a day when risotto is the only thing on your list. The result is a risotto with pea flavour built into every layer, not just stirred through at the end.

Rhubarb, pistachio and orange blossom frangipane tart with rhubarb syrup

Frangipane tarts are a French classic, while this one is pulled toward the Middle East with the use of orange blossom water. Orange and rhubarb are a classic pairing, so it makes sense. Pistachios bring a little crunch and earthy sweetness to the situation.

Grilled asparagus with Taleggio

This asparagus recipe has just three ingredients, which works because Taleggio is doing serious heavy-lifting: a washed-rind cheese from the Lombardy valley it's named for, sticky and faintly funky once it melts. Grill the spears first for char, then let the cheese finish everything else.

Artichoke and olive blini pan pies

Preserved lemon and saffron push this artichoke filling toward Morocco, while the pastry trick, filo layered flat in a crêpe pan rather than folded into a case, is what gives the pie its neat, rounded finish without much fuss at all. It looks like the kind of thing that took far longer than it actually did.

Pickled fennel jam with burrata and grilled bread

Fennel cooked down in vinegar and sugar until it turns glassy and jam-like sits somewhere between a pickle and a preserve, sweet-sharp enough to cut through rich, oozy burrata. Spread it straight onto grilled sourdough and put the whole board in the middle of the table: this is built for sharing.

Shredded sugarloaf cabbage with burrata and spiced butter

Cabbage rarely gets to be the centrepiece, but shredding it raw and dousing it in browned, cayenne-and-turmeric spiced butter changes that entirely. Torn burrata melts slightly into the warm cabbage, and a scatter of currants and toasted pine nuts gives the whole plate a sweet-savoury pull.

Sticky gochujang brussels sprouts

Sweet, spicy, fermented Korean gochujang paste, combined with maple syrup and sesame oil, turns brussels sprouts into something closer to a snack than a vegetable side, sticky and a little sweet under the char from roasting. The same marinade would on tofu or firm vegetables just as well, so it's worth doubling the batch before you've even opened the oven door.

Fennel and potato salad, roasted leeks and crispy chickpeas

Soft roasted leek and crunchy oven-crisped chickpeas sit at opposite ends of the texture scale here, with buttery potato, sliced fennel and a fistful of peppery watercress doing the work in between. A roasted garlic and lemon dressing ties it together without needing much else, though poached chicken, prawns or smoked trout turn it into more of a meal.

Fried cauliflower and brussels sprouts with tahini sauce

This pile of fried brussels sprouts and cauliflower turns them both golden and crisp at the edges before they hit a pool of garlicky tahini-yoghurt sauce. A Lebanese-style gremolata of walnuts, coriander and chilli goes over the top, adding the crunch and heat that keep this from tasting like just another vegetable side.

Nonna Carla's oven-baked fennel

Fennel usually gets roasted dry until it caramelises, but Silvia Colloca bakes hers low and slow in milk instead, which turns the bulbs almost custardy under a golden crust of parmigiano.

Crushed broad beans with yoghurt, chervil and charred bread

Two garlic treatments do double duty here: raw and pounded into the yoghurt for heat, then slow-cooked in oil until sweet and mellow to fold through the crushed broad beans. Piled onto a plate with charred bread alongside for scooping, it's built to be torn into with your hands rather than served onto individual plates.