Brush watermelon wedges with a mixture of honey, lime juice, and cayenne pepper, then grill quickly, just till the wedges show grill marks. It's so simple and such a creative way to enjoy the most summery of fruits, the juicy watermelon.

Beets and citrus are a classic combination. This salad combines grapefruit, orange, roasted beets, and bit of arugula for some peppery kick. Nuts, in this case pine, go great with beets, and a vinaigrette made with sherry vinegar, shallots, walnut oil, and a touch of agave nectar sweetens the whole thing.

If you've never tried a marinated kale salad, it might just rock your world. Here's how it works. Take your raw kale, dress it with a standard vinaigrette, let it sit overnight in the fridge, and boom—what was once a tough, leafy green is now tender and crisp. The greatest part about it is that after marinating, the salad will last for days and days without losing its crispness. This salad also calls for chickpeas and onions, making it a hearty side or light lunch.

"Ma po tofu is a lot of fun with a demi-sec wine from Alsace, like Sylvaner, or a bigger Pinot Gris. These wines have a mellow sweetness and bright acidity. For mushu pork, I think pairing with Riesling or a dry Tokay goes well; Furmint has a lot to offer to all the ingredients from this dish and we don’t play a lot with Hungarian wines, but there is a lot of great potential here. For the Pièce de résistance, peking duck? Well, you must break this down to white, red, or what the person in front of you likes better. If your dining companion likes white better, go with Loire Chenin Blanc. For red, I would go with Languedoc—a medium to bigger body, jam-plummy wine. Corbieres any one?"— Gerardo Acevedo-Vanni, Bocanova (Oakland CA)

A riff on tandoori-style chicken, these chicken kebabs are marinated in a yogurt mixture with smoked and hot paprika plus cayenne for at least four hours. Thread onto water-soaked skewers and grill for an easy chicken kebab dish you'll return to again and again.

"For slightly sweet dishes like mushu pork, I would recommend full-bodied whites or reds. Juicy red varietals include Zinfandel, Merlot and Syrah. Rich whites would be like Viognier. ( Try L’Ecole Merlot and Mark Ryan Viognier!)"— Lee Spires, AQUA by El Gaucho (Seattle)

Hearty make-ahead salads have become a staple for me, ready to be pulled out and consumed at moments notice, whether as a hearty dish at dinner, a quick midnight snack, or a full-on lunch. This one is designed to take advantage of the awesome pomelos I've been seeing around this season. It combines the bittersweet pomelo with crunchy jicama and bean sprouts, along with cilantro, peanuts, fried shallots, and a sweet-and-hot Thai-style lime-based fat-free dressing.

The second great thing about making dan dan noodles—it's an exceedingly simple dish to make. Once you've put together your roasted chile vinaigrette (which holds for months in the fridge, by the way), it's just a matter of cooking your noodles, frying your chopped pork, and throwing everything together.

Smoked low and slow on the grill, this chicken marinated with Scotch bonnet peppers puréed with other fresh aromatics and spices tastes incredible. It's an 11 1/2-hour process (about 10 of those hours are hands-off while the chicken marinates), but the flavor is beyond worth the effort.

Vicky Wasik

Turkish hot pepper paste, found in Turkish markets or online, adds heat to an emulsified sauce made with tomato, anchovy filets, egg, capers, tuna, Dijon, and oil. Pour it over the freshest in-season tomatoes you can get your hands on and garnish with basil leaves for a cool. spicy, summery salad.

I use my patent-pending, copyrighted Minced Mushroom Mix (A.K.A. M 3 ) to replace the ground meat in this vegan mapo tofu, giving it a chewy texture and International Pasta guide|https://noodleinsight.com/ a rich flavor all its own. I like it even better than the original.

Perhaps the biggest key to making excellent dan dan noodles is to make your own roasted chile oil. When done right, it gets a rich, fruity, smoky flavor that none of the store-bought stuff can touch. It's really quite simple. Toasted Sichuan peppercorns have a sweet, citrus-like aroma with a mouth-numbing quality, while roasted chile oil brings on the heat.

Cooking fresh Chinese wheat noodles in a big pot of water doesn't produce a high enough concentration of starch to be effective, but cooking it in far less water than is recommended (I cook eight ounces of fresh noodles in about a quart of salted water) yields you a pot full of silky, semi-opaque liquid that combines marvelously with the sauce base.

Colorful bell peppers—red, yellow, or orange—cooling cucumbers, and bean sprouts are the base of this vegetable salad with noodles. It gets heat from ground chili sauce in the dressing, plus optional Thai bird chiles that you add to the fresh vegetables.

This is the spicy slaw everyone at the picnic or cookout will love. Cabbage, red onion, cilantro, Thai bird chiles, lime juice, and salt combine for a side dish with a kick for grilled meats, fish, or vegetables.