August foods in season and what to cook with them

Take a look at August’s best seasonal ingredients and the brilliant dishes to make with them.

Vegetables

It's peak season for salad ingredients such as beetroot, celery, spring onion, cucumber, lettuce, tomatoes, peppers and watercress, and the fields are packed full of juicy corn ready to be harvested. It's also one of the best months to cook with broad beans, green beans, runner beans and peas. Enjoy courgettes while they're still in season too.

Runner bean and tomato casserole

Mexican-style barbecued corn on the cob

Roasted beetroot with grilled halloumi and gremolata

Courgette and halloumi skewers

Baked stuffed peppers with salad dressing

Tom Kerridge’s Outdoor Cooking/Bloomsbury Absolute

Meat

Game season in the UK starts on 12 August – also known as the Glorious Twelfth – with grouse, but you’ll also find wood pigeon and rabbit on menus at this time of year. Beef and lamb (particularly the salt marsh variety) are also great for cooking on the barbecue, as are sausages and burgers.

Rabbit tagliatelle

Lamb steaks with artichokes and cabbage

Slow-cooker pulled barbecue chicken sliders

Lamb koftas

Pibil-style pork ribs

Ciudad de Mexico/Hardie Grant

Seafood

There's an abundance of seafood to cook with in August. Catches of the month include plenty of oily and fatty fish that will benefit from grilling – think mackerel and sardines. Cod, salmon, hake, halibut, haddock and sea bream are also good. There’s also some luxurious shellfish fresh for the picking, including crab, prawns and queen scallops.

Baked scallops with chipotle butter

Oysters Kilpatrick

Hake and butter beans with lemon mayonnaise

Grilled tuna steak with vegetable vinaigrette

Lemony tomato, pepper and cod parcels

Happy Cooking /Ebury Press

Fruit

August is the month to enjoy stone fruits, like plump peaches, plums, apricots and the last of cherries, the proper way – with juices running down your arm. It's also time to make the most of the last of the summer berries, while figs are also starting to come into season. Look out for sweet blackberries on the supermarket shelves and in the hedgerows too.

Roast stone fruit with almond and orange flower crumb

Plum frangipane tart

Fig and Brazil nut chocolate mud cake

Peach sorbet

Cherry and pistachio frangipane tart

Maldon/loveFOOD

Lead image: Sentelia/Shutterstock