10 Tasty Recipes That Make the Most of Cherry Season

This fruity, boozy take on barbecue has all the characteristics of your favorite sauce—deep caramel notes, a savory backbone, and a pleasant vinegar tang. You can sub sweet cherries for sour, adjusting the amount of honey and vinegar to taste. For a shortcut, start with 1 cup purchased unsweetened cherry juice.

Creamy and luscious with a touch of tart, this simple fro-yo was a clear staff favorite. A combination of half-and-half, plain whole milk yogurt, and a little corn syrup gives the frozen yogurt its supersmooth texture.

Fresh cherries perform double duty, featuring in both the dressing (in which they’re pureed) and the finished salad. Curly kale has a hearty, slightly tough texture, but massaging it with the salt tenderizes it nicely. If you’d rather use baby kale, you can skip the massage. If you have trouble finding watermelon radishes, any radishes will work beautifully.

This creamy, goat cheese-base ice cream showcases seasonal Bing cherries, which have an intensely sweet and tangy flavor. Go the extra mile and make homemade waffle cone cups for serving (and a fun presentation!). Keep leftover ice cream in your freezer for when your sweet tooth strikes.

The mushrooms and cherries may seem like unlikely friends, but the cherries add a subtle sweetness and bright acidity to the savory mushrooms, giving you a mixture that’s slightly sweet, salty, rich, and earthy. This dinner is pretty simple to make, but if you want to make it ahead, go for it: simply reheat the mushroom raguand toss in the Brussels sprout leaves and cherries just before serving.

We like the "naked" look of a couple of tartlets with just a few star cutouts, as shown. If you don't, this recipe makes enough dough for each tartlet to have its own pastry lid.

Traditional tartare is an indulgent delight of varying raw textures, which we replicate here using cherries, walnuts, and a surprising mixture of orange and cream. Try it on baguettes with a grassy olive oil for contrast, or plate it among a bed of bitter greens (such as arugula) for a salad.

Instead of the fluorescent cocktail-cherry garnish, fresh cherries take center stage in this refreshing lemon-and-vodka sipper. Macerating the cherries in sugar helps to soften their thick skins and release their juices, which become gorgeously syrupy in the pan.

Cherries are a great base for savory sauces, like this tangy fresh cherry and fennel relish. For the best relish texture and presentation, be sure to evenly and finely chop all of the ingredients. A food processor would be a good shortcut, but chopping by hand gives the nicest result. Serve with grilled pork tenderloin, lamb chops, or grilled turkey cutlets. 

Move over, avocado toast! This ricotta toast is a world of textures thanks to the creamy fresh cheese, thick cherry spread, and crunchy pistachios.