My chilli seedlings on the balcony went from sulking little things to genuinely pushy in about a fortnight, and that’s usually my first real sign that spring produce is worth paying attention to again. Not the calendar. The seedlings. Once they start putting on new leaf that fast, the greengrocer on Illawarra Road in Marrickville starts filling its crates with things that actually taste like something, rather than the tired stone fruit and soft citrus that hang around at the tail end of winter.
Spring in Australia is a bit of a tease, honestly. One week it’s still jumper weather on the Central Coast, the next you’re sweating over a soup you made out of habit rather than need. But the produce doesn’t wait for the weather to sort itself out, and there’s a good six to eight week window where the stuff coming in is worth reorganising a menu around.
What’s genuinely worth buying in spring
Asparagus is the one everyone talks about, and for good reason. Early spring bunches, especially the thinner ones, have a sweetness that disappears by the time it’s sitting under supermarket lights in December. I buy it when the stalks still squeak slightly when you bend them and the cut ends look freshly trimmed rather than dried out and woody. If it’s gone floppy in the bag, it’s been sitting too long and no amount of butter will fix that.
Broad beans turn up around the same time, and I’ll be upfront: they’re a lot of effort for what you get back. Podding them, then blanching, then peeling that second waxy skin off each individual bean is genuinely fiddly work, and unless you’ve got a spare half hour and someone to talk to while you do it, I’d steer you toward peas instead. Fresh peas give you almost the same bright, grassy flavour with a fraction of the fuss, and they’re just as much a spring thing.
Artichokes are lovely, prepping them is not
Globe artichokes get a lot of romantic write-up this time of year and I understand why, they’re a strange and beautiful vegetable. But trimming them properly, working through the tough outer leaves and scooping the choke without losing half the heart, takes real practice. For a weeknight I’ll happily use the marinated jarred ones through a salad or scattered over a grain bowl. Save the fresh whole ones for a weekend when you’re not rushing anyone out the door.
Silverbeet, rocket and the first of the snow peas are quietly doing their best work right now too, and they don’t ask much of you at all. A hot pan, a splash of oil, maybe some chilli from the balcony if I’m feeling generous, and they’re done in under three minutes.
Cooking spring produce without overdressing it
The mistake I see most with spring vegetables is treating them the way you’d treat a winter root vegetable, roasting them low and slow until they collapse. Asparagus wants heat and speed. A quick char in a hot pan or a short blast under the grill is enough, and the smell that lifts off it as it hits the pan, slightly nutty, a bit green, is honestly one of my favourite kitchen smells of the whole year.
Peas barely need cooking at all. I’ll blanch them for ninety seconds, no more, then straight into cold water to keep that colour. Overcook a fresh pea and you’ve basically made a dull, khaki version of the frozen ones, which defeats the purpose of buying them fresh in the first place.
If you want a template for this kind of light-touch spring cooking, the shaved fennel and orange salad is a good one to have in rotation, it’s built on the idea that raw and barely-cooked vegetables can carry a whole dish if the dressing is doing its job properly.
Eating for how spring actually feels
There’s a reason lighter, greener meals feel right this time of year beyond just what’s in season. Nutrition Australia and other peak bodies generally note that eating with the seasons tends to naturally vary your intake of vitamins and fibre across the year, which is a nice side effect of just buying what’s fresh rather than a strict rule to follow. You can read more on the Eat for Health guidelines if you want the more detailed version.
Spring is also hay fever season for a lot of us along the coast, and if pollen has you sneezing through the school pickup, it’s worth reading eating through hay fever season on the Central Coast, which goes into some of the small dietary habits people find helpful, without pretending food is a cure for anything. It’s not, and I’d be careful of anyone who tells you otherwise.
If sleep’s gone a bit patchy with the earlier light, magnesium-rich foods are worth a look too, and I’d point you to why magnesium-rich foods are worth knowing about rather than repeat it all here.
A simple spring plate worth trying this week
My go-to at the moment is blanched asparagus and peas through a warm grain bowl, a soft egg on top, a scrape of lemon zest, and whatever chilli’s ready on the balcony. It takes about fifteen minutes and doesn’t need a recipe so much as a rough order of operations. Grains first, dressing while they’re warm, vegetables last so they keep their colour and bite.
For something closer to a proper breakfast, the spinach and ricotta baked eggs take well to a handful of chopped asparagus tips stirred through before it goes in the oven, and the feta, sweet potato and eggplant frittata is another one where you can swap in whatever spring vegetable is looking best that day without upsetting the balance of the dish.
Buying it properly matters more than the recipe
None of this works if the produce isn’t right to begin with. I’d rather see someone buy a smaller bunch of good asparagus from a proper greengrocer than a bigger bag of tired stuff from wherever’s closest. The CSIRO’s seasonal food resources are a decent reference if you want to check what’s genuinely in season where you live rather than going on the supermarket’s version of spring, which tends to run a few weeks ahead of what’s actually good. You can find that through the CSIRO site.
Spring produce doesn’t need much done to it, and that’s the appeal. A hot pan, a short cooking time, and getting out of the way of what the vegetable is already doing well. The seedlings on my balcony will tell me when it’s properly warmed up. Until then, I’m cooking like it already has.
– Mei Lin, Golden Door Living kitchen
