pesto

As temperatures rise, there's one particular sauce that embodies the brightness, promise and ease of spring-into-summer: pesto.

In college, I once overheard a friend order a sandwich in the dining hall that would soon become my go-to for months: chicken cutlets, Muenster, pesto and mayonnaise on a hard roll.

Beyond nut milks, pestos and Romesco sauce, nuts are particularly vital in Mexican and Mexican-American cuisine, enriching salsas and sauces with texture, richness and depth.

I made homemade pesto pasta with salmon for dinner and a sweet potato hash topped with a runny egg for breakfast.

In Han’s cookbook “Stacked,” he adds the perfect crisps to a stellar turkey sandwich with pesto, red onions, pickled banana pepper and Calabrian mayonnaise.