Our collection of 31 recipes to cook in August 2025 includes delicious dishes for everyone, whether you’re savouring the last balmy weeks of summer in the northern hemisphere or you’re relieved it’s the final month of winter in the southern hemisphere. Whatever the weather where you are, we’ve got recipes for you. Indeed, we’ve 31 recipes for you to make in August, whether you’re cooking around seasonal produce or using food days as a fun excuse to cook a dish you love.
There’s something for everyone in this compilation of 31 recipes to cook in August 2025, no matter where you are in the world and what weather you’re experiencing. We’ve rounded-up everything from Middle Eastern-inspired grilled baby corn on creamy butter beans and a cooling Cypriot watermelon and halloumi salad to a comforting Siberian dumpling soup and a hearty Spanish rabo de toro oxtail stew.
Once again, I’ve used Food Days to give you all reasons to get in the kitchen, from using National Mustard Day, which is as good an excuse as any to make my pork Stroganoff recipe, which includes a big tablespoon of wholegrain mustard, to National Raspberries and Cream Day as a reason to make cranachan, a Scottish dessert of fresh raspberries, cream, whisky, honey, and toasted oats.
And don’t forget: if you don’t find cooking inspiration in this collection, you could dig into our recipe archives, which contain many hundreds of recipes that we’ve cooked, created and collected from around the world, from places we’ve lived and worked, travelled and loved. Or browse our compilation of the most popular recipes of July, which were the most searched-for recipes on the site last month, the recipes where you all spent most of your time and hopefully cooked.
But before you scroll down to our 31 recipes to cook in August, I have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader supported. If you’ve enjoyed our recipes, please consider supporting Grantourismo by supporting our epic Cambodian cuisine history and cookbook on Patreon; or buying a handcrafted KROK, the best mortar and pestle ever; booking a cooking class or meal with locals on EatWith; or by buying something on Amazon, such as these cookbooks for culinary travellers, classic cookbooks for serious cooks, or gifts for Asian food lovers and picnic lovers. Now let’s tell you about our 31 recipes to cook in August 2025.
31 Recipes to Cook in August 2025 from Crunchy Salads to Comforting Soups
These are the 31 recipes to cook in August 2025, whether you’re using a Food Day as an excuse to cook a dish you love, you’re cooking for a casual gathering of family or friends, or making a meal for one or two.
Grilled Baby Corn on Creamy Butter Beans with Caramelised Shallots and Crispy Pistachios
Topping our list of 31 recipes to cook in August 2025 is one of our best corn recipes and one of our best recipes with nuts, a recipe for grilled baby corn with creamy butter beans, caramelised shallots and crispy pistachios inspired by those deliciously addictive dishes from the Middle East that marry different textures and flavours, such as this warm chickpea salad.
Charred in a griddle pan, the baby corn is tossed with caramelised shallots and crispy pistachios in a cumin-spiced extra virgin olive oil, before being piled onto a creamy butter bean spread, and sprinkled with fresh dill. It makes a fantastic snack or starter or vegetable side dish to a meaty main such as an Arabic mixed grill.
You’ll love it if you enjoyed our cauliflower florets oven-roasted in spiced olive oil, piled on creamy hummus, topped with fried chickpeas, zingy pickled shallots and fresh mint leaves; this hummus balila recipe for another warm chickpea salad with crunchy Arabic salad spread on top; our Antalya piyaz, a white bean salad of soupy white beans topped with a Turkish salad and soft jammy eggs; or our grilled baby carrots on dill yoghurt with dukkah and fresh herbs.
And if you’re a lover of corn salads, try my Middle Eastern inspired corn salad with bacon, pearl couscous, parsley, and fried shallots on yoghurt, this Thai corn salad with tomatoes, green beans and peanuts, our Mexican grilled corn salad with Mexican cheese, chilli, coriander, and lime, and this Thai take on an American cobb salad by Thai chef Ian Kittichai.
Grilled Baby Corn Recipe with Creamy Butter Beans, Caramelised Shallots and Crispy Pistachios
Pork Stroganoff Recipe for Tender Pork Made with the Chinese Velveting Technique
August 2nd is National Mustard Day, which is a good excuse to make my pork Stroganoff recipe, which includes a big tablespoon of wholegrain mustard. The recipe makes an umami-rich, melt-in-the-mouth pork Strog. The silky, tender-soft texture of the pork is courtesy of the Chinese velveting technique, a method that calls for marinating and pre-cooking the pork before stir-frying it.
Braised with mushrooms in a richly-spiced sour cream-based sauce, my pork Stroganoff takes inspiration from Shanghai’s East-West Haipai cuisine. If you enjoyed my richly spiced chicken Stroganoff recipe and you’re a lover of Chinese dishes made with the Chinese velveting technique – such as the popular stir-fried pork with mushrooms that inspired this dish – you’ll love this pork Strog, especially with crispy shoestring fries, a classic Stroganoff side.
If you’re serving this pork Stroganoff as part of a family meal, make a Russian garden salad to serve on the side, perhaps some piroshki to start, and maybe some Russian pelmeni which also came from the East, from Siberia, most likely having arrived during the Mongol invasions. Gherkins or dill pickles cut through the richness.
If you enjoy my pork Stroganoff, do try my traditional Russian beef Stroganoff recipe, my mushroom Stroganoff recipe for a vegetarian take on beef Stroganoff, my rustic meatball Stroganoff recipe, gently spiced chicken Stroganoff, or my spaghetti Stroganoff. Head here to my best Stroganoff recipes for the complete collection.
Pork Stroganoff Recipe for Tender Pork Made with the Chinese Velveting Technique
Refreshing Watermelon Tomato Halloumi Salad Recipe from Cyprus
The 3rd August is National Watermelon Day, so try our recipes for refreshing watermelon salads. We’ve got a Greek watermelon feta salad with fresh mint and dill and this watermelon tomato halloumi salad from Cyprus, which you’ll come across in many iterations across the Mediterranean.
You’ll love this salad if you’re a fan of the fruit and cheese combination in salads and starters – the best representation of that match being the Caprese salad of buffalo mozzarella, tomatoes and basil, from another Mediterranean island, that of Capri, off the coast of Southern Italy.
You could serve this watermelon tomato halloumi salad with gently spiced Cypriot meatballs for Cyprus-style keftedes – or any barbecued or grilled meats, such as smoky char-grilled chicken skewers for Greek souvlaki with the Greek cucumber and yoghurt dip, tzatziki. For a proper Mediterranean feast, start with meze such as homemade taramosalata and a Greek red pepper feta dip, and make a couple more salads, such as this Cypriot village salad, a classic Greek salad or Greek blistered cherry tomatoes on goats cheese.
I shared this watermelon tomato halloumi salad recipe as part of a series of recipes for the salads I had on rotation here in Australia over the summer, including this Italian melon, buffalo mozzarella and prosciutto salad (a fancier version of prosciutto e melone, the classic aperitivo snack and appetiser from Italy), and a Mediterranean style chicken salad with spring vegetables and a garlicky lemony Middle Eastern dressing.
Refreshing Watermelon Tomato Halloumi Salad Recipe from Cyprus
Vietnamese Roasted Spicy Peanuts Recipe for a Popular Hanoi Drinking Snack
August 3 is also ‘Grab Some Nuts Day’ so try Terence’s recipe for these Vietnamese roasted spicy peanuts. It’s one of our best recipes with nuts. Our recipe will make you the addictive spiced nuts that are usually offered as a drinking snack during a bia hoi session in Hanoi.
In some Hanoi bia hoi joints – casual local pubs that serve Hanoi’s famous effervescent fresh beer – peanuts in shells are served as a complimentary snack and these spiced nuts are sold separately. There are also loads of other delicious dishes to soak up the booze, from crispy fried tofu to salty pork ribs, but these nuts are hard to stop eating.
When we were living on Food Street in Hanoi, during a very cold winter, the aromas of the peanuts being slowly roasted that emanated from nearby shophouses were irresistible – which explains why Terence became obsessed with making these Vietnamese traditional roasted spicy peanuts.
Traditional Roasted Spicy Peanuts Recipe for a Popular Hanoi Drinking Snack
Turkish Scrambled Eggs Recipe for Menemen for a Traditional Turkish Breakfast Spread
Another one of our best 31 recipes to cook in August 2025, this Turkish scrambled eggs recipe makes menemen, a breakfast dish of eggs scrambled in a spicy tomato sauce in a pan. It’s a highlight of traditional Turkish breakfast spreads from Istanbul to Izmir. White cheese, green peppers and sucuk sausage can be added. The addition of onion is much debated.
You’ll spot recipes for menemen where the eggs are poached like the eggs in the Southern Italian eggs in purgatory or in shakshuka, but during all our extensive travels in Turkey over a couple of decades or so, including months-long trips renting houses to write up guidebooks, we have never been served menemen this way, whether for breakfast at a hotel or a local café.
That’s not to say that this Turkish eggs dish couldn’t be made that way. Perhaps that’s how menemen is served in fashionable cafés is Istanbul these days – it’s been a while since we’ve been back – or perhaps it’s how menemen is served in parts of Turkey we haven’t been.
Menemen certainly looks prettier with a couple of poached eggs swimming in the sauce, however, we like recreating the dishes as we’ve had them when we develop these recipes. By all means, add a couple of poached eggs at the end if you wish. Whatever you do, make menemen the centrepiece of a whole breakfast spread. Or breakfast for dinner if you like.
Turkish Scrambled Eggs Recipe for Menemen for a Traditional Turkish Breakfast Spread
Dumpling Soup Recipe for Siberian Pelmeni Soup with Fresh Dill and Sour Cream
This dumpling soup recipe for Siberian pelmeni soup with fresh dill and sour cream makes the delicious Russian dumplings called pelmeni in the Siberian style. Petite pelmeni stuffed with a savoury ground beef, minced pork and soft fried onion filling are served in a buttery broth with cracked pepper, dollops of sour cream, and plenty of fresh fragrant dill.
As a child, I only knew three things about Siberia – it was one of the coldest places on earth, it was home to horrific gulags where people were forced into back-breaking work until it killed them, and that Siberia was the reason my Russian great-grandmother never smiled.
My grandmother on the other hand, always had a twinkle in her eye and dimples when she smiled. Baboushka didn’t serve pelmeni in soup. So I had no idea this bone-chillingly cold place called Siberia, long associated with brutal labour camps, produced such warming bowls of dumpling goodness, known outside those frozen lands as Siberian pelmeni – until I tried them at a Siberian restaurant in Moscow.
If you’ve cooked and eaten the Russian and Ukrainian dumplings called pelmeni and vareniki and you’ve loved them, and you’re as devoted to soups as I am, then you’re going to adore this Russian dumpling soup recipe for Siberian pelmeni. For lunch, serve the soup with dill pickles and crusty bread. If you’re serving it as a starter, follow the dumpling filled broth with beef Stroganoff, chicken Kiev or Russian kotleti, and a classic garden salad.
Dumpling Soup Recipe for Siberian Pelmeni Soup with Fresh Dill and Sour Cream
Scottish Cranachan Recipe for Raspberries, Cream, Whisky, Honey and Oats
It’s National Raspberries and Cream Day on 7 August so why not try our recipe for cranachan, a Scottish dessert of fresh raspberries, cream, whisky, honey, and toasted oats that traditionally features on the menus of Burns Suppers – dinners held across Scotland and in the Scottish diaspora to celebrate the life and poetry of beloved Scottish poet Robert Burns.
The raspberries and heady honey cream are layered in a parfait glass for a sort of Scottish trifle or a Scottish take on the strawberry-driven English Eton Mess. Made with homegrown Scottish products, including Scotch whisky and oats, which Scots have been eating for 5,500 years, cranachan is a quintessentially Scottish dessert.
While I encourage you to try this recipe for a classic cranachan – it’s divine and worth planning a Burns Night Dinner around – I have to confess that I make my Scottish cranachan with a couple of twists. For a healthier cranachan, I skip the whisky and substitute whipped cream for creamy Greek yoghurt. In this form, I eat cranachan for breakfast.
If you’re looking for more raspberries and cream recipes, try our recipes for easy French toast with berries and whipped cream, my rose mascarpone cheesecake tart with mixed berries and fresh mint, and this sweet varenyky with berries for Ukrainian dessert dumplings, traditionally dolloped with sour cream.
Scottish Cranachan Recipe for Raspberries, Cream, Whisky, Honey and Oats
Roasted Broccoli Recipe with Zucchini, Green Beans and Sesame Seeds
This quick and easy recipe for roast broccoli, zucchini and green beans sprinkled with sesame seeds makes a delicious and healthy vegetable side dish that cooks in no time, and it’s another of our best 31 recipes to cook in August 2025. The veggies are quickly roasted on high heat in seasoned extra virgin olive oil, and piled onto a creamy butter bean spread.
We love to serve these roasted green veggies as a side to this succulent braised chicken with olives and capers but it’s fantastic with anything, frankly. If you’re feeding a crowd, we also love to serve it with sides such as this roasted cauliflower on hummus with crispy chickpeas and pickled shallots and Hassleback potatoes or creamy mashed potatoes.
And if you’re a lover of broccoli, also try my broccoli soup with cheddar, potato, crispy bacon and crunchy croutons, which I’m completely addicted to, but I think you’ll also enjoy this easy roast broccoli recipe.
Roasted Broccoli Recipe with Zucchini, Green Beans and Sesame Seeds
Hearty Penne Pasta with Sausage, Potatoes and Peppers Recipe
If you made my recipe for ‘poor man’s potatoes’ – a traditional dish from Southern Spain of fried potatoes, capsicums and onions cooked in olive oil and garlic, seasoned with little else but good quality sea salt and cracked black pepper, and showered with fresh flat-leaf parsley – and you enjoyed that, you’re going to love this penne pasta with sausage, potatoes and peppers.
Another of our best 31 recipes to cook in August 2025, this recipe makes a hearty pasta based on Spanish ‘poor man’s potatoes’, one of those dishes that make even better leftovers. Like a lot of recipes I create and share here, this penne pasta with sausage, potatoes and peppers was the result of getting creative with leftovers – in this case leftover ‘poor man’s potatoes’. Now I make that rustic dish just so I can make this penne pasta with sausage, potatoes, capsicums, and onions.
This is one of our best pasta recipes and one of our best recipes with potatoes. It’s also a recipe that makes a deliciously hearty vegetarian pasta if you leave out the sausages. Although juicy fatty sausages really make the dish, you can use whatever sausages you have in the fridge. I love herby Italian-style sausages, but a fat Spanish chorizo gives the pasta a nice kick of heat.
I first shared this dish as part of a series of easy pasta recipes, which included recipes for canned tuna pasta with scallions, capers and fresh herbs, asparagus, mushrooms and bacon gnocchi, a creamy tomato pasta sauce with gnocchi, my cherry tomato feta pasta recipe, a canned sardine pasta with gremolata and pangrattato, mac and cheese with caramelised shallots and crispy bacon, and bacon and mushroom pasta.
Hearty Penne Pasta with Sausage, Potatoes and Peppers Recipe
Russian Salmon Potato Salad Recipe with Soft-Boiled Eggs, Gherkins, Capers and Dill
My Russian salmon potato salad recipe with soft-boiled eggs, capers, gherkins and dill makes one of my Russian-Ukrainian family recipes and a filling salad that you can eat year-round. In the cool season, you can serve it with warm potatoes and seared salmon straight from the pan, while it can be refrigerated for warm weather meals, such as summer barbecues and spring picnics.
I love a salad you can eat year-round and this Russian salmon potato salad fits that bill. You can work quickly and combine the potatoes, pan-seared salmon and soft-boiled eggs while they’re still warm if you’re eating this in cool or cold weather. For your soft-boiled eggs, Terence has an excellent guide to boiling perfect eggs every time.
Or if you’re making this salmon potato salad recipe for picnics, barbecues or summer meals, then follow the instructions below and refrigerate it. This salad is fantastic whether chilled in summer or served warm in winter, which is something I adore in a salad, making it another of our best 31 recipes to cook in August 2025.
Salmon lover? Browse our best salmon recipes for recipes for blini with smoked salmon and caviar, buckwheat pancakes with smoked salmon and ‘caviar’ of gherkin and radish, creamy smoked salmon dip, devilled eggs with smoked salmon and caviar, Cambodian salmon ‘ceviche’, smoked salmon ‘carpaccio’, fish soup with salmon, smoked salmon pasta, Vietnamese caramelised salmon, an easy salmon tray bake, salmon fillets with crispy skin, and scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and caviar.
Russian Salmon Potato Salad Recipe with Soft-Boiled Eggs, Gherkins, Capers and Dill
Rose Mascarpone Cheesecake Tart Recipe with Mixed Berries and Fresh Mint
It’s National Raspberry Tart Day on 11 August, which is a great excuse to make this recipe for a rose mascarpone cheesecake tart with mixed berries and fresh mint. My recipe will make you the easiest no bake cheesecake made with cream cheese and mascarpone, flavoured with rose for a taste of the Middle East, generously topped with mixed berries — summer berries or winter berries, depending where you are — and garnished with fresh mint leaves.
The biscuit crust is made to a traditional recipe. Australian cooks have been making cheesecakes since Australians began milking dairy cows. Cheesecake recipes appeared in Australia’s earliest cookbooks, including The Colonial Cookbook published in 1864, which I have, through to the classic 1970s cookbooks of Margaret Fulton (Australia’s Julia Child). There’s no need to re-invent the wheel.
But if you’re time-poor, you can certainly use a store-bought base, which I occasionally do. I can’t suggest a brand yet, though, as I haven’t been entirely satisfied with any I’ve tried, but I will make a recommendation when I do find one that’s just as delicious as this easy Margaret Fulton cheesecake base. Make this showstopper the centrepiece of the table. I guarantee it will brighten any day.
Rose Mascarpone Cheesecake Tart Recipe with Mixed Berries and Fresh Mint
Best Shoestring Fries Recipe for Perfect Side for Burgers and Beef Stroganoff
August 12 is Julienne Fries Day and ‘julienne fries’ are ‘shoestring fries’ or ‘matchstick fries’ in our language, which is a great excuse to make our best shoestring fries recipe. These crunchy matchstick fries are the perfect side for everything from fried chicken and beer-battered fried fish (they’re fantastic dipped into our easy homemade tartare sauce), meat pies and sausage rolls, burgers, and beef Stroganoff.
You could tuck into these super-crispy skinny potato fries on their own, as you would hand-cut fries or potato wedges, sprinkled with your favourite chilli salt blend or spice mix, or doused in home-made condiments such as homemade Sriracha or sweet chilli sauce.
In Australia, there’s an enviable array of potato types, however, seafood chef Josh Niland recommends Sebago potatoes. We used to use Desiree for fries. Other countries will have similar types, such as Royal Blue, Pontiac, Coliban, Bintje, and King Edward, just for starters.
You’ll need what’s commonly known as a candy thermometer. This is a thermometer that attaches to the side of the pan and actually sits in the pan. Buy one that at least goes to 200°C. They usually have a ‘deep-frying’ indicator at around the 190°C mark.
Best Shoestring Fries Recipe for Perfect Side for Burgers and Beef Stroganoff
Russian Chicken Noodle Soup with Chicken Meatballs for a Comforting Old-Fashioned Broth
My recipe for this Russian chicken noodle soup with chicken meatballs makes another of my Russian-Ukrainian family recipes, my baboushka’s chicken noodle soup – with a few tweaks. It’s an old-fashioned chicken noodle soup, but it’s also a comforting soup as only chicken soups made from scratch can be, making it another of our best 31 recipes to cook in August 2025.
This Russian chicken noodle soup recipe is also an easy soup to make, coming together quickly, in just 30 minutes or so. The juicy chicken meatballs cook in the soup and there’s no stock to make; a subtle use of spice and flavour from the meatballs imbue the broth with flavour. It’s also a fantastic soup for leftovers, refrigerating well, and tasting even better the next day.
While baba made her chicken noodle soup in winter – when she didn’t have big pots of borscht or shchi simmering on the stove – we’ve lived in tropical Southeast Asia so long that we eat hot soups year-round. Southeast Asians believe hot soups make you perspire, thereby keeping you cool. I slurp hot soups all year, because our short winters mean only two months of soup weather and for a soup lover like me, ten months is far too long to go without soup.
Russian Chicken Noodle Soup with Chicken Meatballs for an Old-Fashioned Soup
Beet and Carrot Salad Recipe with Goat Cheese, Radish and Arugula
One of our best beetroot recipes, this beet carrot salad recipe makes a fabulous beetroot salad, a roasted beet salad with goat cheese, carrot, radish and arugula – or rucola, roca or rocket, if you prefer. While we can happily share a big plate of this for lunch, it’s fantastic for feeding a crowd for a relaxed gathering or laidback lunch or dinner.
If you’ve made and enjoyed our beetroot salad with feta, walnuts and rucola on butter bean purée, our roast beetroot salad recipe with feta, rucola and pistachios on cumin-spiced carrot hummus, my pumpkin beetroot salad on whipped feta with fresh mint, and pumpkin lentil salad with beetroot, goat cheese and poppy seeds, you’ll love this beet carrot salad. Incredibly delicious, it’s also super versatile.
The inspiration for these twists on a classic Med-style beetroot salad is the Middle Eastern balela salad, which is piled onto soupy chickpeas, and the Antalya version of a Turkish white bean salad, where the salad is spread over a white bean purée. Roasted cauliflower on hummus and baby corn on creamy white beans are in the same family.
Beet and Carrot Salad Recipe with Goat Cheese, Radish and Arugula
Cucumber Sour Cream Salad with Shallots and Dill
One of our best cucumber recipes, my cucumber sour cream salad recipe makes a creamy cucumber salad that has crunch from the cucumbers and shallots, zing from lemon and vinegar, tang from pickles and sour cream, and fragrance from fresh dill. The Eastern European style salad makes a fantastic addition to a zakuski table or delicious side dish for cabbage rolls or kotleti, delicious fried chicken meat patties.
We love our cucumber salads, but despite me calling this a cucumber sour cream salad recipe, it actually makes an Eastern European style cucumber side dish, that’s more akin to, say, Indian raita, the cooling accompaniment to spicy Indian curries, such as this Punjabi chole or chickpea curry or Indian-style Burmese curry. However you serve it, it’s one of our best cucumber recipes.
My Russian-Ukrainian grandmother presented her cucumber sour cream salad as an appetiser or zakuski, an array of small dishes that served as starters, which would then stay on the table to be eaten with mains, in the same way this Middle Eastern style cucumber yoghurt salad is served with kofta kebabs or baharat meatballs.
If you’re also a cucumber lover, we have more cucumber salad recipes – from this salad of crunchy cucumber spears tossed in our easy vinaigrette piled onto a creamy butter bean purée to this Burmese cucumber salad, Japanese cucumber cabbage salad and radish cucumber salad.
Creamy Cucumber Sour Cream Salad Recipe with Shallots and Dill
Vietnamese Chicken Salad with Cabbage, Crunchy Peanuts and Crispy Fried Shallots
This Vietnamese chicken salad recipe makes a fantastic year-round salad called gỏi gà bắp cải in Vietnamese, which literally means salad (gỏi) of chicken (gà) and cabbage (bắp cải). The healthy Vietnamese shredded chicken salad has heaps of texture thanks to shredded cabbage and carrot, crunchy peanuts and crispy fried onions. It’s also loaded with umami with a lively dressing of Vietnamese fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, garlic, and chilli.
It’s also one of our best nut recipes thanks to the crunchy peanuts, which give the salad loads of texture – also courtesy of the crispy fried shallots and shredded cabbage – in the way that the best Southeast Asian salads do. Som tam is another great example of those textured Asian salads. Like som tam, this salad is fantastic with grilled pork and fried chicken, and it’s another of our best 31 recipes to cook in August 2025.
The cuisines of Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam all feature deliciously addictive salads and we’ve got loads of Southeast Asian salad recipes in our archives. But if you’re new to Southeast Asian salads, some of my favourites are this Shan tomato salad from Myanmar, this Thai grilled eggplant salad, this Cambodian pork and yam bean salad and banana flower salad, and this Vietnamese bitter melon salad.
Vietnamese Chicken Salad Recipe with Cabbage, Crunchy Peanuts, Crispy Fried Shallots
Perfect Mushrooms on Toast with Fragrant Herbs and Parmigiano Reggiano
Our perfect mushrooms on toast recipe makes the most delicious mushrooms sautéed with garlic and shallots in salted butter and olive oil, and finished with a dollop of sour cream and plenty of fresh fragrant herbs. I love aromatic dill but you can use flat-leaf parsley or your favourite herb. Pile it all onto toasted sourdough and generously shower with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.
One of our best mushroom recipes, this recipe takes the best of my favourite sautéed mushrooms dishes – my baba’s mushrooms with dill, which are a fantastic accompaniment to classic Russian dishes such as chicken Kiev and kotleti, and my dad’s garlic mushrooms he’d do on the barbecue with leftover sausages and onions for late Sunday breakfasts. While those were my fondest mushroom-eating memories growing up, herbed mushrooms were a big part of Sydney café breakfasts in the 1980s and 1990s.
As a uni student in inner-city Sydney who waitressed at cafés after class and on weekends, I recall that every breakfast plate I delivered to tables featured herbed mushrooms on the side or spilling from fat focaccia sandwiches filled with roasted red capsicums, eggplants and artichokes that had me drooling just as much as the fatty bacon. Here’s how to make those perfect mushrooms.
Perfect Mushrooms on Toast Recipe with Fragrant Herbs and Parmigiano Reggiano
Traditional Scotch Eggs with a Thai Pad Kra Pao Twist
This traditional Scotch eggs recipe for the classic British picnic snack has a Thai-influenced twist inspired by the Thai stir-fry favourite, pad kra pao or pad gaprao, and it’s another of our best 31 recipes to cook in August 2025. Scotch eggs are traditionally made with a boiled egg wrapped in seasoned sausage meat, which is crumbed and deep-fried. Here, Terence has given the minced pork a pad kra pao flavour.
While Scotch eggs are still sold in supermarkets and service stations in the UK, the gastro-pub revolution saw the humble snack elevated to such an extent that Scotch eggs began gracing menus of Michelin-starred restaurants. Those posh Scotch eggs were long a source of inspiration for Terence, who decided to experiment with Scotch eggs some years ago for his long-running Weekend Eggs series on egg dishes from around the world.
If you’re a Scotch eggs lover, you’ll love this recipe, especially if you’re also a fan of traditional Thai pad kra pao. And if you are, I also recommend trying our original Thai pad krapow omelette rice bowl recipe for our idea of a Thai style donburi or Japanese rice bowl, and our pad kra pao udon noodles recipe, which we shared in Weekend Eggs.
Traditional Scotch Eggs Recipe with a Thai Inspired Pad Kra Pao Twist
Classic Crispy Hasselback Potatoes
August 19 is National Potato Day, which is a great excuse to make your favourite potato dish. This classic Hasselback potatoes recipe for crispy Hasselback potatoes with spiced butter and fresh herbs makes one of my favourite potato dishes, but if you’re not a fan of hasselbacks, we have many more recipes with potatoes.
Our recipe calls for baby potatoes, also known as new potatoes, which cook faster. Brushed with the spiced butter at fifteen minute intervals, these mini Hasselback potatoes are crunchy on the outside and soft within, making a potato side dish that’s both elegant and comforting.
Of course, Hasselback potatoes are still roast potatoes, they’re just finely sliced with close parallel cuts, about three-quarters through the potato so that it still holds together, and are brushed with butter (in this case a spiced butter) to add flavour and create the crispy texture and fan-like shape. They’re deliciously addictive!
Hasselback Potatoes Recipe with Baby Potatoes, Spiced Butter and Herbs
Bacon and Mushroom Pasta with Parmigiano and Parsley
I never need an excuse to cook with bacon, but it’s National Bacon Lovers Day on 20th August, so why not try my recipe for this easy bacon and mushroom pasta, sprinkled with grated Parmigiano Reggiano and fresh parsley. It makes an incredibly delicious and comforting pasta that’s a cinch to make, and it’s one of our best bacon recipes and one of our top mushroom recipes.
What I love about this bacon mushroom pasta recipe is that it’s super versatile. My preference is dried bucatini for this recipe, but you could use a thick spaghetti, linguini or fettuccini, or even penne or rigatoni. Use any type of mushroom you like, or a mix of wild mushrooms; ham, sausage or chorizo instead of bacon; and while I’m happy with a good extra virgin olive oil, add cream for a richer pasta dish.
I first shared this recipe as part of a series of speedy Italian pasta recipes that included recipes for mac and cheese with crispy bacon and caramelised shallots, pesto pasta with green beans and potatoes, a creamy tomato pasta sauce with gnocchi, my penne Bolognese for a ‘cheat’s Bol’, an asparagus, mushrooms and bacon gnocchi, a cherry tomato feta pasta recipe, a speedy spaghetti pangrattato, easy sardine pasta with caper gremolata and pangrattato, a tuna pasta with scallions, capers and fresh herbs, aromatic lemon pasta recipe for pasta al limone, and fusilli with creamy pumpkin pasta sauce.
Easy Bacon Mushroom Pasta Recipe with Parmigiano, Parsley and Bucatini
Muhammara Recipe for Syrian Walnut Roasted Red Pepper Dip
This authentic muhammara recipe will make you the delicious Syrian walnut and roasted red pepper dip from Aleppo that we fell in love with on our first trip to Syria way back in 1999. On our many subsequent trips to Syria to research and write the first Lonely Planet Syria and Lebanon guidebook, muhammara was the first dish we’d order soon after landing in Damascus. It’s one of our favourite Middle Eastern recipes.
Our recipe is based on the official Aleppo muhammarra recipe from the Academie Syrienne Gastronomie (Academy of Syrian Gastronomy), which was shared with us when we were in Aleppo for a food story – with just a couple of tweaks. If you haven’t tasted muhammara, it’s a deliciously smoky, savoury, sweet, and subtly spiced dip, traditionally served as one of an array of Arabic mezze or starters typically eaten with warmed flatbread and enjoyed alongside plates of mains, such as grilled meats like garlicky shish taouk and smoky kofta kebabs.
While muhammara hails from Aleppo, it’s a staple mezze throughout Syria and features on every restaurant menu around the country. We know, as we drove all over Syria researching and writing the first Lebanon and Syria guidebook for Lonely Planet years ago. Muhammara is also on menus at Syrian restaurants and Arabic restaurants across the Middle East and in the Middle Eastern diaspora. Although outside Syria, muhammara is nowhere near as ubiquitous as hummus and baba ganoush, we reckon it should be.
Authentic Muhammara Recipe for Syrian Walnut Roasted Red Pepper Dip from Aleppo
Rabo de Toro Oxtail Stew Recipe from Jerez in Southern Spain
Another of our best 31 recipes to cook in August 2025, this rabo de toro oxtail stew recipe from Jerez in Southern Spain makes a classic slow braised dish that requires a long cooking time, but rewards with rich, robust flavours and melt-in-your-mouth meat. It’s inspired by the rabo de toro that we ate at Bar Juanito in Jerez.
Terence has long had an obsession with what different cultures do with cheap cuts of meat. The stewing, the braising, and simple slow-cooking of often tough, sinewy or bony meats that people originally ate out of financial necessity is fascinating. It’s interesting how many slow cooked dishes have risen above their station and become regional specialties.
Bœuf bourguignon from Burgundy in France, osso bucco from northern Italy, tagine from Morocco, and beef rendang from Indonesia are all examples of dishes that began quite humbly and developed into taste sensations – as did this rabo de toro oxtail stew. These are dishes that generally taste better coming out of the kitchen of a skilled and experienced home cook than they do from a chef in a restaurant.
And if you love a deeply flavoured stew as much as we do, do browse our best stew recipes. We have recipes for an old-fashioned chicken stew, the Russian beef stew, Solyanka, a French cassoulet, a Cape Town tomato bredie, a traditional Irish beef stew, an Irish beef and Guinness stew with dumplings, the Hungarian stew porkolt (often confused goulash), a Cambodian pork stew with star anise, and a chorizo, cabbage and three bean stew.
Rabo de Toro Oxtail Stew Recipe from Jerez in Southern Spain
Cherry Tomato Salad Recipe for a Taste of Summer on the Mediterranean
This cherry tomato salad recipe is the best tomato salad recipe if you want a taste of summer on the Mediterranean and it’s super quick and easy to make – so easy that after you make this you’ll never have to look at this recipe again. The key to making this summer salad taste great is fresh, flavourful produce and top quality ingredients.
You want the best quality virgin olive oil, the best Greek feta cheese, salt-cured anchovies, and briny capers you can get your hands on. The feta, anchovies and capers should give you enough salt, but if you need more, opt for a coarse sea salt.
I think of this more as a Mediterranean salad rather than Greek, as – in my dreams! – I am using the sweetest tomatoes and crunchiest cucumbers from Lebanon, grassiest extra virgin olive oil from Valencia, sweet red onions from Tropea, briny capers from Pantelleria, Ortiz salted anchovies from Spain, aromatic Italian basil from Liguria, and, of course, the juiciest olives from Kalamata and finest feta from Greece.
Cherry Tomato Salad Recipe for a Taste of Summer on the Mediterranean
Sopa de Tortilla or Tortilla Soup Recipe from San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
This authentic sopa de tortilla recipe or tortilla soup recipe makes the most delicious tortilla soup we’ve ever tried. It’s a combination of a tortilla soup that Terence has been making for many years, since our first trip to Mexico in the Nineties, and a tortilla soup we learnt from the lovely Marilau at her excellent Mexican cooking school in San Miguel de Allende.
Sopa de tortilla is very simple to make, although it’s also easy to make a bad version of it. Trust us, we’ve had plenty of horrid versions of it: too weak, too many tomatoes, under-seasoned. And that was just on our last trip to Mexico. So why is it so hard to find someone who can follow a good sopa de tortilla recipe? Even in Mexico. Well, even Marilau couldn’t understand why when we asked her and shook her head.
Terence made this tortilla soup for lunch in the kitchen of the colourful casita that was our home away from home in San Miguel de Allende for two weeks during the yearlong global grand tour of the world that launched Grantourismo way back in 2010. I made an authentic guacamole and we washed it all down with classic margaritas and the micheladas we’ve been enjoying in Mexico City and Austin, Texas.
If you’re planning a full Mexican food feast, also see our recipes for an easy red tomato salsa, tacos al pastor inspired by the tacos at Salón Corona in Mexico City, the Mexican char-grilled corn on the cob street food snack elotes and grilled corn salad, along with chili con carne, quesadillas, and my ultimate nachos.
Sopa de Tortilla or Tortilla Soup Recipe from San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
Authentic Khmer Prahok Ktis Recipe for Cambodia’s Pork and Coconut Milk Dip
Another of our best 31 recipes to cook in August 2025, this authentic Khmer prahok ktis recipe makes the deliciously rich Cambodian dip made from fermented fish (prahok), yellow kroeung herb and spice paste, minced pork, pea eggplants, some chillies and coconut milk that is served with fresh crispy vegetables. It also makes a great introduction to the use of Cambodia’s beloved prahok and kroeung in authentic Khmer cuisine.
Our recipe is as authentic as they come, but it’s also a recipe where you can tone down the amount of prahok as a mild concession to Western palates. One of the things chefs in Siem Reap tell us is that when tourists to Cambodia first try prahok ktis, if it’s too fishy-smelling or tastes like an old French cheese, they automatically think there’s something wrong with it, usually because you don’t normally associate pork mince with a fermented aroma.
Once diners are assured that it’s fine, many go on to fall in love with the Cambodian dip, despite the fact that their ‘Western’-trained noses tell them the pork dip is ‘off’. It’s one of the battles the good Cambodian restaurants face here and it’s often the fault of the polite well-meaning staff who don’t go far enough to explain that it’s actually meant to taste like this.
When we dine with visitors keenly interested in learning about Khmer food, we always order it as a great introduction to the key ingredients in this much misunderstood cuisine. It’s one of our favourite Cambodian dishes and one of our best coconut milk recipes.
Authentic Khmer Prahok Ktis Recipe for Cambodia’s Pork and Coconut Milk Dip
Orecchiette con Sugo al Pomodoro Recipe from Alberobello in Puglia in Southern Italy
This orecchiette con sugo al pomodoro recipe makes one of our best pasta recipes and we have Maria, the manager of the traditional trullo we stayed at in Alberobello in southern Italy to thank. Maria gave us lessons in pasta making in our rustic kitchen, teaching us how to make homemade orecchiette and the rich tomato sauce that cloaks the pasta.
A few days earlier we’d written about the simplicity of Italian cuisine. We had eaten at a couple of trattorias in the village of Teulada on the island of Sardinia, and once again Italy had blown us away with its attitude towards food: simple honest dishes, made using the best local ingredients, treated with respect.
But that doesn’t mean that the best ingredients have to be expensive ingredients, as Maria showed us in Alberobello. She taught me how to make her orecchiette con sugo al pomodoro recipe using ingredients she had grown and made herself, from vine-ripened cherry tomatoes to first-pressed olive oil.
Maria, who quickly became a friend, came over to our trullo with her pasta board (a portable wooden board that covers a table or bench for making pasta) and a huge bag of flour, Semola di Grano Duro, which she used to make the pasta, pizza bases, and bread dough. She also taught us pizza making using the woodfire pizza oven attached to our trullo.
Orecchiette con Sugo al Pomodoro Recipe from Alberobello in Puglia in Southern Italy
Cambodian Banana Coconut Tapioca Pudding with Sesame and Star Anise
August 27 Is Banana Lovers Day, so try our banana coconut tapioca pudding recipe for Cambodia’s chek ktis. This sweet and creamy aromatic dessert of stewed banana in coconut milk and tapioca pearls, perfumed with star anise, is garnished with grated coconut, drizzled with coconut cream, and showered with sesame seeds. It’s another of our best 31 recipes to cook in August 2025.
If you enjoyed our mango sago pudding recipe, you’re going to love this banana coconut tapioca pudding recipe. It will make you a deliciously simple yet much loved Cambodian dessert called chek ktis – chek means banana in Cambodia’s Khmer language, and ktis, or more correctly k’tis or k’tiss, means coconut and covers coconut milk and coconut cream.
I love how Cambodians shorten names – which is something we Australians have a tendency to do – as it makes my life so much easier when it comes to naming dishes for the Cambodian culinary history and cookbook we’re (still) working on. But, of course, chek ktis is so much more than banana in coconut milk. For me, It’s sweet Cambodia in a bowl and it’s sublime. More Asian dessert recipes here.
Cambodian Banana Coconut Tapioca Pudding Recipe with Sesame and Star Anise for Chek Ktis
Homemade Chicken Curry Pie Recipe Made with Cambodian Chicken Curry
This chicken curry pie recipe uses the classic Cambodian chicken curry to make a flavourful spicy chicken pie. Unlike the classic curried chicken pie which uses curry powder to flavour the chicken filling, this recipe uses a Cambodian red curry paste. The classic Cambodian chicken curry has potatoes, long beans and Asian eggplants, which we’ve included to create a really hearty chicken pie.
This chicken curry pie recipes makes one of our best meat pie and sausage rolls recipes and is one of our easiest pie recipes. A chicken curry pie is nowhere near as popular back home in Australia where the classic meat pie rules in our meat pie and sausage roll loving country. However, if we happen to come by an award-winning artisanal bakery on our travels and they have a curried chicken pie on the blackboard, we’ll always get one to try it.
I’m a curried chicken pie lover and when they’re made by Australia’s best bakeries they are incredibly delicious. Chicken curry pies are also a good option if you don’t eat red meat. However, note that the best bakeries in Australia will often sell out of their curried chicken pies early in the day. A bakery will generally only make a very small amount of chicken pies compared to the classic meat pie that Aussies love so much.
Now if you want to make a curried beef pie, do try Terence’s recipe for a curry beef pie made with Cambodian Saraman curry based on Cambodia’s wonderful Saraman curry, a rich complex curry that’s a cousin of Thailand’s Massaman curry), and my spicy pork minced pie filled with prahok k’tis, a rich pork mince, prahok, coconut cream, and pea eggplant dip. If you’re also partial to a sausage roll, try my Saraman curry sausage rolls and my sausage rolls with eggplant and pork inspired by the Cambodian char-grilled eggplant and minced pork.
Homemade Chicken Curry Pie Recipe Made with Cambodian Chicken Curry
Fresh Herb Salad Recipe for Yum Chee from 100 Mahaseth Restaurant Bangkok
It’s ‘More Herbs, Less Salt Day’ on 29th August, which has been my mantra since learning I had dangerously high blood pressure earlier this year. Though I’d add ‘spice’ to that: more herbs and spices, and less salt! I’ve dramatically reduced my salt intake and am using even more herbs and spices than ever to inject flavour into the food I cook.
Another of our best 31 recipes to cook in August 2025, this fantastic fresh herb salad recipe makes a big fragrant bowl of yum chee from 100 Mahaseth Restaurant, Bangkok, and comes courtesy of owner-chef Chalee Kader. While more akin to a European-style green salad than a Thai salad, it’s nevertheless distinctly Southeast Asian in its sweet and sour flavours and zesty-ness.
I’d been hankering to make this fragrant fresh herb salad recipe for yum chee since we first tasted it at 100 Mahaseth, a casual nose-to-tail eatery in Bangkok‘s hip Charenkroeung neighbourhood that is one of the Thai capital’s most sustainable restaurants, and was thrilled when Chalee shared the recipe with us. I’ve been making the salad ever since and make it at least once a week. Try it and you’ll know why!
Fresh Herb Salad Recipe for Yum Chee from 100 Mahaseth Restaurant Bangkok
Russian Kotleti Recipe for Delicious Deep-Fried Russian Style Chicken Meat Patties
One of our best chicken cutlet recipes, my Russian kotleti recipe makes one of my favourite Russian recipes, the very moreish fried chicken meat patties or chicken cutlets, which is the direct translation. My Russian-Ukrainian grandmother would often cook these as one of the many traditional dishes that she would lay out for shared family meals – whether it was Orthodox Christmas or Easter feast or one of the countless long Sunday lunches that turned into dinners.
If it was a small group of immediate family members, perhaps only papa, baba and myself if I’d trekked out to Blacktown on the train from inner-city Sydney for a night or two, as I did during my first two years at university, then baba might serve us individually, plating the kotleti with creamy mashed potatoes and her Russian garden salad.
But if the whole family was gathered around the table then the kotleti would be one of many dishes to be passed around the table as part of a sharing-style meal that might have featured casserole pots brimming with Russian pelmeni and Ukrainian vareniki and stuffed cabbage rolls, and salads, such as this beet potato salad and Olivier salad.
Russian Kotleti Recipe for Delicious Deep-Fried Russian Style Chicken Meat Patties
Soul Nourishing Chicken Vegetable Soup with Wild Rice
Another of our best 31 recipes to cook in August 2025, my chicken and vegetable soup recipe will make you a soul-nourishing stew-like soup with shredded chicken and spring vegetables such as fennel, leek, zucchini, broccoli, and broccolini; wild rice, to add texture, as well as nutrients, fibre and antioxidants; and a generous shower of grated Parmigiano Reggiano, which gives richness and umami.
If you’re fond of a classic chicken and vegetable soup but bored with the age-old combination of chicken, carrot, celery, and potatoes, then try this quick and easy, soul-nourishing chicken vegetable soup with green vegetables and wild rice. It’s one of our best chicken soup recipes and one of our best chicken recipes. I’ve got a pot simmering on the stove right now, because it’s well and truly soup weather here.
This soup is a great use of leftover rotisserie chicken or poached chicken breasts. I often make this soup as an excuse to use up any leftover store-bought chicken. But if you’re like Terence who always has poached chicken breasts in the fridge, use those. We’ve got more leftover rotisserie chicken ideas here. And if you enjoy this, also try my Scottish chicken and leek soup.
Soul Nourishing Chicken Vegetable Soup with Wild Rice and Spring Vegetables
Please do let us know if you make any of our 31 recipes to cook in August 2025 as we’d love to know how they turn out for you.
