Every fruit and veggie has its time of year to shine. And for home cooks, it’s important to know when those seasons are so they can purchase produce with the maximum flavor.
Here are six types of produce that aren’t nearly as good out of season and generally best avoided—at least if you intend to buy them fresh and not canned. While we always recommend buying produce in-season, these are the ones you REALLY should listen to us about.
Corn
Corn is like the fun uncle of the vegetable family—always bringing joy to the summer BBQ. When corn is in season, it’s sweet, crunchy, and ready to be slathered in a vat of butter. But if you buy corn in the off-season, you might as well be eating cardboard. Seriously, no one wants to bite into a cob of corn that tastes like it’s been sitting in a time capsule. And that’s what you’re gonna experience if you take a bite of off-season corn, so stick with frozen or canned if it’s not summer.
Pumpkins
Pumpkins are the ultimate fall celebrities. They grace our porches and spice up our lattes, but buying them outside of fall is a guaranteed bummer. The window of opportunity for pumpkins might be small, but during this time, they’re perfect for baking or carving. But pumpkins in spring? It’s just never going to be the vibe. So squash your desires for spring squash, unless you want some sad looking produce.
Peaches
Peaches are another produce item that are best enjoyed in summer. They’re a welcome addition to any summer fruit salad or delightful cobbler. But out of season, they get as hard as rocks. Biting into a hard, tasteless peach is a specific kind of heartbreak we wouldn’t wish on our worst enemies. So unless you’re going to buy the good stuff already in syrup, stick with summer peaches if you want to experience their trademark succulence.
Strawberries
Strawberries are among everyone’s favorite fruits—they’re sweet, juicy, and easy to enjoy on the go. But if you find strawberries in the winter, they’re probably just sad, overripe impostors masquerading as their vibrant summer selves. They might look cute in a fruit salad, but trust us, they taste like disappointment. Wait for summer, when they’re plump, juicy, and ready to make your shortcake dreams come true!
Asparagus
Asparagus is our first entry on this list that’s best enjoyed in spring. And by “best enjoyed,” we basically mean ONLY enjoyed. When it’s in season, it’s tender and full of flavor—perfect for roasting or grilling. But an out of season asparagus is, for lack of a better term, pretty unappetizing. If the asparagus you’re buying isn’t fresh and crisp, you might as well be throwing your money away. Because there’s no way you’re going to be pleased with preparing a mid-fall asparagus dish.
Tomatoes
We’ve saved tomatoes for last because they’re the most used produce, and many people enjoy them year-round. But they’re extremely temperamental. Summer is when they are at their juiciest. But they fall off in deliciousness dramatically outside of summer and can often be mushy or even rubbery. Since tomatoes are such a major part of most people’s culinary creations, we recommend stocking up on canned tomato products for the off-season so you can still get that tomato-y goodness without compromising on flavor.
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