21 Radish Recipes That Pack a Spicy, Flavorful Punch
These fresh, juicy root veggies are the key ingredient in some seriously 'rad dishes'.
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Our Best Ideas for Radishes
We love everything about radishes—their bold colors, their jewel-evoking sizes and shapes, but most of all, their heat, from the little nose tickle of the classic magenta Cherry Belles you find in every grocery store, to the sweet-plus-tingle of the daikon (which looks like a bloated white carrot) in your CSA box, to the nuclear sinus-clearing of the black radish (which resembles a lump of coal with stems attached). We’ve come to expect availability of radishes year-round, so we can be forgiven to forget that springtime is a particularly good season for radish lovers, when small and delicate radishes of all varieties are at their peak. Cooked, their heat dissipates almost entirely and they become as sweet as turnips; thinly sliced or julienned into matchsticks, they add crunch and a hint of pungency that never overpowers. But sometimes you’ve just got to wedge them up and eat them out of hand (or in a salad like this one) and let them bite you back in all their glory.
Get the Recipe: Sugar Snap Pea and Radish Salad
Radish and Smoked Salmon Tart
Perfect for entertaining, this recipe takes a few flavorful ingredients and, with little effort on your part, transforms them into something elegant and delicious.
Get the Recipe: Radish and Smoked Salmon Tart
Buttery Radishes with Honey and Chives
Radishes are often overlooked, but we give them the star treatment in this recipe. A bit spicy raw, radishes that are cooked take on a much mellower flavor. A touch of butter and a drizzle of honey make these downright decadent. Serve them alongside pan-roasted chicken for a quick and healthy meal.
Get the Recipe: Buttery Radishes with Honey and Chives
Musaengchae
Though lesser known than its cousin, kimchi, musaengchae is no less an essential part of banchan, the small plates that accompany Korean meals. Here, the fermentation process wilts the texture of fresh radishes just a bit, and the gochugaru (Korean red chile flakes) pumps up the heat. The result is juicy, crunchy and spicy, and hard to stop eating.
Get the Recipe: Musaengchae
Sheet Pan Cod with Honey-Lemon Radishes and Radish Top Pesto
Lest we neglect to mention it, radish greens are edible too! They can be mild or spicy, depending on the radish. This recipe takes full advantage of the bumper crop in your CSA box, using radishes plus tops to complement a roasted cod. The sum tastes like spring on a plate.
Get the Recipe: Sheet Pan Cod with Honey-Lemon Radishes and Radish Top Pesto
Pickled Radishes
Crunchy, sour, sweet and peppery are possibly the best adjectives for food, and they all describe these quick and easy pickled radishes. The radishes still have a peppery bite, while the vinegar mixed with sugar gives them that classic sweet pickle flavor. Ready in just minutes, these bright pink pickles are perfect for cheese and charcuterie boards, sandwiches, tacos or an afternoon snack.
Get the Recipe: Pickled Radishes
Spring Green Minestrone Soup
When the weather has the first hint of warmth in the air, we’re not quite ready to leave soup behind, but the heavier chowders of winter aren’t quite right anymore. This spring soup from Geoffrey Zakarian might be exactly what you do crave at this time of year. Green and fresh, and punched up with lots of crunchy and refreshing veggies, it’s filling, yet bright and light.
Get the Recipe: Spring Green Minestrone Soup
Chili-Lime Roasted Radishes
The sweetness and juiciness that roasting brings out makes radishes a delicious base for spiking with lip-smacking chile-lime seasoning and fresh cilantro.
Get the Recipe: Chili-Lime Roasted Radishes
Law Bak Go
We won’t lie, these "turnip cakes" (actually made from daikon radishes) are a project. But making them is a true labor of love—and you'll be well rewarded for your efforts. If you’re looking for an authentic Chinese recipe for Lunar New Year, this is it.
Get the Recipe: Law Bak Go
Spring Radish Salad
A peppery and whimsical salad is only enhanced in beauty and flavor by using several different kinds of radishes. The licorice crunch of fennel and juicy sweetness of pink grapefruit really work well here.
Get the Recipe: Spring Radish Salad
Open Rye Sandwich with Smoked Salmon, Herb Cream Cheese and Radishes
Thinly sliced radishes really finish an open-faced sandwich, kind of like putting on earrings before leaving the house. You’ll want to top all your avocado toasts with sliced radish from now on—but they also cut the buttery saltiness of smoked salmon with their crunch.
Get the Recipe: Open Rye Sandwich with Smoked Salmon, Herb Cream Cheese and Radishes
Summer Pasta Salad
What’s better than a recipe that only requires you to boil noodles? You’ll find yourself making this dish again and again, to take to cookouts or to just make a dinner of it on a hot summer night (and the leftovers travel well in a lunchbox for the next day, too).
Get the Recipe: Summer Pasta Salad
Tofu Tacos
What’s a taco without radishes? If you’re not putting radishes on the buffet every Tuesday, it’s time to start. Their crunch and tingle are a particularly good foil for seared tofu.
Get the Recipe: Tofu Tacos
Glazed Radishes
This side couldn’t be more straightforward to prepare. It works gloriously with fresh, clean radishes from the farmers market with intact stems left on, but it also revives that bunch you bought from the grocery store a week ago and forgot to use.
Get the Recipe: Glazed Radishes
Radish, Avocado and Asparagus Salad
This elegant salad from Jeff Mauro would complement any main course, but it is also rich enough and interesting enough, with the addition of the walnut dressing and avocado, to top with a protein and call it dinner.
Get the Recipe: Radish, Avocado and Asparagus Salad
Miso Hot Dog with Watermelon Radish, Sesame Seeds and Nori
Welcome to your entertaining hero this summer. Just a few key ingredients—slices of pungent watermelon radishes, chopped briny nori, and miso-spiked mayonnaise—make hot dogs suddenly feel like the most special thing you could serve.
Get the Recipe: Miso Hot Dog with Watermelon Radish, Sesame Seeds and Nori
Radish Flatbread with Chive Butter
Pairing the heat of fresh radishes with butter and salt has long been a classic way to enjoy them; this carries that combination through to a more filling app, without losing any of the simplicity.
Get the Recipe: Radish Flatbread with Chive Butter
Whole-Wheat Pasta with Broccolini and Feta
Whole-wheat pasta requires strong flavors to complement its nuttiness, and salty feta and bitter broccolini fit the bill. Radishes and shallots are equally assertive supporting players.
Get the Recipe: Whole-Wheat Pasta with Broccolini and Feta
Fried Fish Tacos with Grilled Corn Elote Salsa, Guacamole and Quick Pickled Radish and Onions
Quick-pickling radishes is a genius move from Anne Burrell, preserving crunch and heat but adding a deep sweet-and-sour element that works so well with battered and fried fish.
Get the Recipe: Fried Fish Tacos with Grilled Corn Elote Salsa, Guacamole and Quick Pickled Radish and Onions
Grilled Shrimp with Mango, Lime and Radish Salsa
We love Tyler Florence’s salsa, with cubes of mango, radish and onion bringing sweet juiciness, heat and savoriness, even eaten just with tortilla or plantain chips. But paired with the char of grilled shrimp, it truly makes a memorable generous appetizer or light main course.
Get the Recipe: Grilled Shrimp with Mango, Lime and Radish Salsa
Crab Cakes with Dijonnaise and Frisee, Fennel and Radish Salad
The complexity of the very zesty salad atop these crab cakes complements their briny sweetness, for a meal that will evoke the salty sea air and waves slapping against the shore, even if you are miles from the coast.
Get the Recipe: Crab Cakes with Dijonnaise and Frisee, Fennel and Radish Salad
