Cured | by Steve McHugh with Paula Forbes

Boost the flavor of any meal with this definitive guide on cooking with pickles, jams, preserves, sauces, and more—whether you make them from scratch or use store-bought ingredients—featuring 150+ recipes for everything from quick weeknight meals to Sunday suppers.

“Insightful, brilliant, clever, and beautiful.”—John Currence, James Beard Award winner and author of Tailgreat

The secret to six-time James Beard Award finalist Steve McHugh’s success comes down to one word: curing. To cure something is to transform it, allowing it to emerge as something new. Steve himself was transformed after battling lymphoma when he was just thirty-three; he came through that experience wanting to prolong moments of joy in everyday life. That philosophy extends to how he approaches food and cooking, sourcing the best ingredients when they are at their peak and then curing them to enjoy later. He intensifies their flavors, changing them into charcuterie, pickles, mustards, and more, making his seasonal favorites available year-round. And with Cured, you can have access to this arsenal of flavor as well, whether it’s making your own preserves from scratch or using store-bought ingredients in your daily cooking. 

An invaluable guide, Cured explains both how to easily preserve foods and why you should embrace this popular technique in your own home. Whether a beginner or seasoned preserver, you’ll discover how to make preserved lemons, then use them in a bright, beautiful bowl of Israeli Couscous with Preserved Lemon, Bacon, and Greens. Learn to use sugar as your curing method to make Cherry Orange Marmalade, then use it later in the week to make yourself a Mix-and-Match Jam Cocktail. Or maybe make some Smoked Nuts to use in the Smoked Nut Chocolate Tart. The possibilities are truly endless.

Steve leads you through how to make preserves, and also gives you recipes for when you bought a jar or bottle at the market that you can’t decide how to use. Filled with bright and colorful photography, Cured will make you want to experiment with whatever fresh produce you have on hand. Whether you dabble in making your own preserves from scratch or want to learn how to use what you already have at home, these 150+ recipes will become hundreds and thousands as you start to mix and match the ingredients with your own favorites, prolonging the joy in your everyday life and meals.