This is the kind of salad I come back to all summer. It's hearty enough to anchor a lunch, but just as happy sitting alongside grilled fish or chicken for dinner. The farro can be made a day or two ahead, and the vegetables are best when they've picked up a little char from the grill. It's a salad that only gets better as it sits, making it perfect for entertaining.

This is one of those recipes that doesn't require much planning—just a well-stocked pantry and whatever vegetables happen to be in your refrigerator. The beauty of a Niçoise-inspired salad is its flexibility. It's the perfect way to clean out the crisper drawer while still feeling elegant enough for guests. That said, a few things are non-negotiable for me: basil, potatoes, and good olives. Everything else is up to you.

Tofu haters often cite “blandness” as an excuse to steer clear of the plant-based protein. But its blandness is actually its biggest strength! It so wonderfully absorbs whatever sauce you add to it—like this utterly craveable Korean-inspired gochujang sauce. The sauce does the heavy lifting here; all you do is add some preprepped vegetables and a grain, and you’ll have a home-run dinner in minutes.

Whenever I return home from any trip, I have one blanket craving: vegetables. I’ll grab whatever veg is on the brink of expiring in my fridge (it’s almost always a bag of broccoli florets) and roast it to crisp perfection along with a can of chickpeas, which my pantry is never without. Add a nice dressing and an easy grain, and this simple, delicious veggie bowl becomes a full welcome-home feast.

Starring vine-ripe tiny tomatoes and a handful of fragrant basil—this, my friends, is peak summer cooking. What to Cookers everywhere are addicted to this pasta! It’s best with the freshest summer tomatoes—especially Sungolds—but if you’re craving it midwinter, you can make it with cherry tomatoes and add a pinch of sugar. Use whatever pasta you’ve got, but I’m telling you, angel hair is absolutely elite here.

Papas aliñadas, also called papas aliñás, are simple dressed potatoes, served at every single tapas bar in Andalucía—the kind of easy plate you eat while drinking a beer. I’ve had versions with spring onions or green peppers, which give a nice crunch against the soft potatoes. The key for good papas aliñás is timing: Toss the potatoes in the dressing when they’re still warm, so they soak up as much dressing as possible, though you can serve them at room temperature—like they do at my friend Isi Medina’s restaurant Ramón Pipi (above) in the south of Spain.

I’ll tell you a story—this is one of the tapas that actually helped launch my career. I was a very young chef working at a restaurant in Roses, on the Costa Brava of Catalunya. One summer night, very late, a customer came in and tasted my gambas al ajillo, and asked me to come work with him. That customer was Ferran Adrià, the chef of one of the most incredible restaurants of all time, elBulli, where I found my voice and learned so much. And I owe it all to these garlic shrimp! To me, it’s an amazing tapa because it is so simple and fast and the reward is so great. You have these sweet, juicy shrimp swimming in a hot, garlicky sauce made withextra virgin olive oil and Spanish brandy. Be sure you have some bread on hand to soak up all that sauce.

This was the first dish we came up with in the La Copine kitchen. We noticed the fryers, and immediately Nikki was reminded of how much she loved making fry bread as a kid, and pretty soon that translated into beignets. And because we knew we were going to do coffee and daytime hours, it felt right—like childhood nostalgia. La Copine is rooted in California, with our beginnings on the East Coast, inspired by France and the Mediterranean, New Orleans, and the South. Starting with beignets helped establish our identity—thoughtful yet indulgent. Beignets are something you wouldn’t find in the desert, and it has been important for us to provide something different from what was already here. We decided to make our beignets vegan so more people could have them, as inclusivity is at the root of all our dishes and our restaurant. We don’t advertise them as vegan, because we get a lot of cowboys who might not order them if they knew, haha. Traditional beignets are covered in powdered sugar, so we blend sugar to mimic powdered sugar but with a more granular crunch, then we add coffee grounds for a little more texture. You can make the dough the same day, but we like to make it the day before and let it slow ferment in the fridge overnight to develop more flavor. The next day, let the dough sit out on the counter for an hour before rolling it out and cutting it. You can then chill the cut beignets for up to four hours, until you’re ready to fry. Once the dough is cut, feel free to freeze whatever you are not frying that day. Fry from frozen, but the beignets might be less fluffy. Frying from fresh is always best.If you don’t need to make them vegan, and have dairy milk, butter, and eggs on hand, you can use them instead of the vegan ingredients. Sub equal parts for the milk and butter. Use one egg for the tablespoon of egg replacer and remove two tablespoons of water from the recipe. We are all about flexibility and using what you have on hand where it makes sense.