Is There A Best Season For Meat Like There Is For Fresh Produce?

Mid-July watermelon and early September peaches are absolute perfection because that's when those fruits are in season. It's when they're the most nutrient-dense and flavorful, sometimes so intense you can smell them from across the room. We love those flavors so much, we created a Month-To-Month Seasonal Produce Guide so you don't have to miss a second of seasonal fruit and veggie bliss. You shouldn't stop at just eating seasonal produce, though. Meat has seasons, too, and unlocking the best times to incorporate pork, lamb, beef, and wild meats into your diet opens a door to a whole new level of eating.

Understanding meat seasons is a little more involved than produce, because it's based on an animal's age, availability of food, and slaughter times, but the basic concept is: if you want fresh meat, buy it as close to when it was slaughtered as possible. The year-round slaughter cycles of commercial production have made it a little difficult to decipher exact slaughter times, but just like produce, you can turn to local farms for fresh meat. Since Americans care about how their meat is raised so much, there are many ways to access pasture-raised, grass-fed, and free-range meats, from local butchers to meat box subscription services. Depending on the time of year, you'll be looking for different kinds of meat, just like you would with fruits and vegetables.

If you're on a mission to cook restaurant-worthy lamb at home, plan to make the dish in the spring, when it's lambing season on the ranch, and a perfect Pesto Baked Salmon would really be a show-stopper in June or July. That's because these two dishes feature meats that are only in season for a short while. Spring lamb, for instance, is the most flavorful and tender because it's in that window of time before the sheep turns one year old. If you wait longer, it'll become a different dish entirely. All meat is like that. There's a reason pork is often paired with apples and lamb goes well with springtime herbs; meats are seasonal.

Beef and chicken season runs year-round, but in the early fall and late summer, cattle and chicken slaughter reach their peak because that's the end of the grazing season. Fall and early winter are pork season because pigs are usually slaughtered just before real winter arrives. Turkey and wild game are in season in the late fall and early winter, during hunting season and the Thanksgiving turkey harvest. Fish and seafood seasons vary depending on the species and subspecies – crabs, for instance, are available almost year-round, but king crab is only in season October through January, and Dungeness crabs are in season December through August. The Alaskan salmon season is mid-May through July, and shrimp season generally is from March through December.