Our Best Lemon Recipes – NYT Cooking

Yossy Arefi’s lemon yogurt cheesecake.Mark Weinberg for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Monica Pierini.

Published April 15, 2025Updated April 15, 2025

Lemon is a wonder. It can transform a rich, creamy dish like pudding or cheesy pasta into something light and nuanced. And sure, you can add acid to a dish in many ways — vinegar, yogurt, fermented vegetables — but none offers as perfect a balance of adaptability and bright freshness as lemon. Whether you’ve got a glut of lemons or you’re just looking to make a kitchen staple shine in new ways, these 18 lemon recipes won’t disappoint.

Cookies with deep cracks all over them and a white topping sit on a beige counter.

These stylish sun-streaked cookies from Eric Kim aren’t all good looks. They also have a transcendent texture. The key to the delicate crumb, he says, is precision in your flour measurement and making sure not to overmix the dry ingredients. They’re not too sweet, which makes them an optimal breakfast cookie — and easy to eat more than one.

Recipe: Lemon Turmeric Crinkle Cookies

A fork with a swirl of pasta on it sits on a ceramic plate filled with more pasta.

Cheesy, peppery pasta is even better when you add lemon to it. Ali Slagle cuts through the fat in a deeply appetizing way with its bright, fresh acidity. And don’t worry: There’s still a hint of spice here, too, thanks to crushed red pepper and, of course, lots of freshly ground black pepper.

Recipe: Lemon-Garlic Linguine

A stack of lemon ricotta pancakes topped with berry compote sits on a plate. A blue mug is visible in the backgroun.

Genevieve Ko’s zippy pancakes get their floral, citrusy flavor from lots of lemon zest, vanilla extract and sugar. The suggested blueberry syrup complements the lemon flavor well, but the real lemon heads know that these pancakes should be topped with lemon curd.

Recipe: Lemon Ricotta Pancakes

A Dutch oven filled with rice, chicken, olives and lemon slices.

Caramelizing whole lemon slices in chicken fat, as Dan Pelosi does here, tames the bitterness of the rind and pith, so they’re sweet and soft. They make for a perfect compliment to briny Castelvetrano olives and fresh parsley. These condiments add complexity to what would otherwise be simple comfort food: warming, savory chicken and rice.

Recipe: One-Pot Chicken and Rice With Caramelized Lemon

A slice of strawberry lemonade cake with pink frosting and topped with sliced strawberries sits next to the whole cake.

Yossy Arefi’s centerpiece-worthy cake is delightfully pink (and full of concentrated berry flavor) from pulverized freeze-dried strawberries mixed into the lemon buttercream. It calls for reverse creaming, a technique popularized by Rose Levy Beranbaum, in which a solid fat, like butter, is mixed into flour before the wet ingredients are added, making the batter virtually impossible to overmix.

Recipe: Strawberry Lemonade Cake

Crispy tofu topped with black and white sesame seeds sits on a pink plate surrounded by mint leaves and snap peas.

Perfect spring meal loading: Slabs of tofu coated in cornstarch, sesame seeds and plenty of black pepper crisp up in the oven and are ready to serve alongside peak-season snap peas. And the lemon? Ali Slagle uses it to add crucial lightness to a creamy tahini sauce.

Recipe: Lemon-Pepper Tofu and Snap Peas

A slice of lemon pudding cake sits in a white bowl with a spoon.

You’ll find many home cooks in the comments who swear by this recipe, which Julia Moskin adapted from Ian Knauer, and have served it at numerous dinner parties over the years. Trust their great tips, like the ones that suggest doubling the lemon zest, or mixing in fresh berries.

Recipe: Lemon Pudding Cake

Broccoli topped with sliced garlic and pepper sits on a rectangular platter with a large metal spoon.

This broccoli salad has become iconic at Yotam Ottolenghi’s London restaurants, and for good reason. Charring vegetables gives them a deep flavor reminiscent of meatier dishes, which also lets them play well as a side to grilled steak or pork. You also grill the lemons, which makes them sweet and sour while adding just a hint of bitter flavor (the good kind, promise).

Recipe: Grilled Broccoli and Lemon With Chile and Garlic

A lemon yogurt cheesecake with a slice taken out and another cut slice sits on a plate. It’s topped with whipped cream.

Yossy Arefi’s combination of lots of lemon zest and Greek yogurt ensures this cheesecake is light and tangy, but topping it with plenty of whipped cream and thin curls of lemon zest (for lightness and brightness) also means that this dessert will look gorgeous, even if it cracks. (The trick to avoid this common pitfall of the cheesecake, by the way, is to let the cake cool gradually in the oven, with the door cracked open).

Recipe: Lemon Yogurt Cheesecake

A pot is filled with creamy potatoes stirred by a spoon.

You may think you don’t need a recipe for mashed potatoes, but this one, which Julia Moskin adapted from Ina Garten, will teach you a few ways to finesse a classic dish into something transcendent. The secret, of course, is lots of lemon (the zest of two whole fruits) to cut through the richness, for a springier version of the dish.

Recipe: Puréed Potatoes With Lemon

Several curled cookies frosted with icing sit on a pink background.

Yewande Komolafe’s buttery cookies are delicate enough to melt in your mouth, but sturdy enough that you can pipe or press them into any shape you want. The lemon comes in through both zest and juice, so you get the complexity of citrus as well as the brightness.

Recipe: Lemon Butter Curls

An overhead image of chicken breasts on a griddle next to a creamy sauce.

After years of trying, Priya Krishna finally pried the recipe for this powerful marinade out of her aunt’s hands — and we get to benefit. Lemon juice binds and brings out the flavors of a variety of herbs and spices: fresh cilantro and mint, earthy coriander, turmeric and amchur.

Recipe: Garlic-Ginger Chicken Breasts With Cilantro and Mint

A square of French toast sits on a plate next to a lemon wedge and berries.

The next time you have overnight guests, don’t spend hours over the stove. Make this French toast in casserole form instead. Melissa Clark teaches you a cool technique here: If you toast the challah slices before soaking them in custard, they get more warm, buttery flavor and they’ll soak up the custard better And, to add even more lemon flavor without increasing the sweetness , top the toast with lemon juice instead of syrup.

Recipe: Lemon Souffle French Toast

An overhead image of a beef stir-fry next to rice and slivered scallions.

Lemon and beef are a lesser-seen flavor combination, but after making this Andy Baraghani recipe, you’ll wonder why it’s not everywhere, with the lemon enhancing the beef’s rich flavor. Celery gives it all a pleasant herbal flavor and crunch.

Recipe: Pepper Steak and Celery Stir-Fry With Lemon

A lemony olive oil cake is photographed from the side with a slice missing.

There’s something so elegant about this simple cake from Brian Levy — no glaze, no frosting, no fruit topping. Pick an olive oil with citrusy, floral qualities to really compliment the citrus here and know that the cake will get only more moist over time.

Recipe: One-Bowl Lemon Olive Oil Cake

Fish covered in herbs and sliced citrus sits on a plate.

Here, Andy Baraghani cooks fish slowly, at a low temperature and in a generous amount of olive oil, for a foolproof way to a rich, buttery texture. And because fish generally cooks so quickly, even slow-cooking takes only 25 minutes. Thinly sliced citrus — whole Meyer lemon as well as orange — melts over your fish of choice as it roasts, becoming soft, sweet and the perfect compliment to fresh dill and floral saffron.

Recipe: Slow-Cooked Fish With Citrus and Herbs

Three crinkle-edged yellow cookies sit on a beige surface.

These cookies are the best of two continents. Clare DeBoer’s combination of lemon, polenta and rosemary will transport you to Italy. But they also have the texture of your favorite American chocolate chip cookie, thanks to a technique from the cookbook author Sarah Kieffer. Letting them come to room temperature before you eat them will allow the bright lemon and woody rosemary flavors to pull forward.

Recipe: Chewy Lemon Cookies

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