How to Use Extra Lemons: 15+ Fresh Lemon Recipes to Brighten Your Table

Are you looking for some fresh lemon recipes to use up a lemon surplus? They always say, when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade. And that’s a great idea.

But what about if you also tried these 15 different fresh lemon recipes as well?!

We have a lemon tree in our yard here in New Zealand, and it is currently absolutely loaded with lemons, which makes me so happy! So I am making my weekly meal plans to include a lot of lemon-inspired foods.

I love the fresh, bright flavor of lemons. Growing up, my grandmother always had lemons in her fridge, and she would squeeze them into her iced tea.

While I am not a religious ice tea drinker, I still gravitate toward lemon flavored things. I love lemon in savory dishes, sweet dishes, snacks, or desserts. Bring on all the tangy, brightness of fresh lemons!

This post is 15 lemon recipe ideas you might not have thought of that will help use up extra lemons if you have a surplus in your house right now.

They’re perfect for families, busy home cooks that are juggling a thousand other things, and those wanting to lean into fresh, flavorful, seasonal produce.

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I make a small commission at no extra cost to you. See my full disclosure here.

What you’ll love about this fresh lemon recipes list:

• I’ve tried to include recipes that use lemons generously! So if you are looking for a recipe that only requires a scant teaspoon of lemon juice, you might want to find another source of ideas.
• This list has a good mix of different types of foods – breakfast, baked goods, healthy snacks, savory main dishes, and sweet desserts.
• Since we’re a large family living on a budget, I’ve tried to keep these options relatively budget friendly. Again, this is in line with creatively utilizing the fresh, seasonal produce we have growing in our back yard!

Fresh Lemon Recipes: Main Dishes and Sides

Main dishes and sides are the first thing up on this list. So if you’re looking for what to make for dinner this week, these fresh lemon recipe ideas will give you some inspiration!

This Creamy Tuscan Chicken recipe doesn’t actually call for any lemons IN the recipe, but go crazy with it for the recommended garnish, and you’ll use up some lemons! I squeezed a whole, large lemon into the sauce just before I served it, and it was delicious.

Protein packed, full of healthy fats and vegetables, this bright, creamy, and summery meal would be delicious any time of year. Serve it up with rice, quinoa, pasta, or the lemon-potato recipe later on in this list, like I did, and you’ll have an easy, well-rounded meal.

Made in one skillet (yay for minimal dishes to wash!), and quick to come together, this fresh lemon recipe would make for a special hot lunch, or an easy weeknight dinner. Also elegant enough to feel good about serving up for company, it’s a crowd-favorite!

I swapped out the spinach (which I didn’t have) for kale (which I have an abundance of growing in my garden beds), and it was delicious. You could also get creative with adding additional veggies if you wanted: I think mushrooms, zucchini, or bell peppers would be fun additions to this dish. But honestly, it’s delicious as-is!

Get the full recipe from Right At Home With Violet.

For a fresh lemon recipe that provides a nutrition-packed main dish, this Gremolata Salmon Salad takes the prize.

If you, like me, didn’t know what “gremolata” is, let me tell you: it’s an Italian condiment made from (traditionally) parsley, garlic, and lemon zest that serves as a flavorful garnish for pasta, meat or vegetables.

This dish is zesty, crunchy, refreshing, and comes together quickly for a healthy and delicious meal. With salmon to provide a buttery, rich protein source, all the crispy greens and sprouts, and the herb-packed and tangy additions of the gremolata and lemon vinaigrette, this dish is super satisfying but not heavy at all.

If you wanted more substance, you could serve it with a grain option (the lemon orzo salad below would be fun, or the roasted lemon potatoes below that, or simply a loaf of basic sourdough bread with butter), but I don’t think that is necessary as it is a filling, nutritious dish on its own.

You can find the full recipe from Kimberley at This Purely Joyful Life.

This Fresh Lemon Orzo Pasta recipe provides a lemony burst in a chilled pasta salad, ideal for make-ahead potlucks, meal prepping lunches, or as a unique side for grilled or baked main dishes.

Orzo is a small, hearty pasta that pairs beautifully with seasonal vegetables, tangy dressing, and some crumbly feta cheese.

I love the original author’s ideas for how to adapt it to the season, and utilize the fresh produce you have on hand. This seems like the perfect salad to come back to when my garden beds start producing more produce.

Versatile, healthy, hearty, and customizable, this recipe is a great option to use up some lemons and put something bright, healthy, and beautiful on the table.

For the full recipe, head on over to Tessa’s site, Sprig and Spoon.

Sheet Pan Lemon Potatoes are a simple, super easy recipe that somehow turns a bit magical with the lemon zest and lemon juice added!

Crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, and with lemon zest that provides a hint of tangy crunch, I highly recommend adding the lemon juice suggested before serving up this delicious side dish.

I didn’t have the “baby” potatoes the recipe calls for (as my kids call them), so I just chopped up normal size potatoes into chunks and it worked beautifully. And I love making roasted potatoes because they also are fantastic reheated as leftovers with some scrambled eggs the next day!

Less than 24 hours after we’d eaten this dish with our dinner, I had two kids asking if we could have these lemon potatoes for dinner again that night, so they are definitely kid-approved.

You can view the whole recipe from Molly over at Plum Branch Home.

This lemon-y, creamy, Simple Hummus recipe is one of my favorite creations! It is always a hit with my household, and it harkens me back to an incredible late of hummus I ate with warm pita bread 15 years ago at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant outside of Petra Archaeological Park in Jordan.

Yes, it is possible for food memories to last that long!

I love to use crockpot cooked chickpeas, fresh squeezed lemon juice, smooth tahini, and a nice tasting olive oil in this recipe because the simple flavor profile is best with quality ingredients.

With raw cashews included for extra creaminess, and a good quality mineral salt to add some nutrients, it is a dip or side condiment you can feel really good about eating.

Fantastic scooped onto a budda bowl, served with fresh veggies or warm pita, or crunchy corn chips, you can view the full recipe over here.

My Lemon Almond Chia Snack Cake is a combination of fragrant almonds meet tangy lemon meet crunchy chia seeds in a muffin-inspired cake form.

The top and edges are a bit crunchy, like muffins, while the inside is moist and crumbly.

This non-muffin muffin cake (I guess it is sort of like a coffee cake?) is a breeze to clean up (no muffin tins to scrub!). And since it has yogurt and ground up almonds in it, it packs more protein with about 1/2 the sugar ratio of most muffin recipes.

So you can feel good about eating it for breakfast, with a cup of strong tea in the afternoon, or even serving it up as an easy dessert with a dollop of whipped cream on top.

You can find the full recipe here.

These convenient, eggy, puffy Sheet Pan Swedish Pancakes don’t technically have any lemon in the recipe, but my family eats them with a sprinkle of powdered sugar and fresh lemon wedges to squeeze over the top as our most common topping option.

So we use up 2-3 lemons each time we make them.

Currently, they are our favorite Sabbath morning brunch choice, so we’re eating them at least once a week these days.

Protein packed, great to serve for a crowd or hungry children because everything bakes at once so you can sit down together and eat hot food (no standing over a griddle required), they’re a popular breakfast option with children and adults alike at my house.

You can view the full recipe here.

White Chocolate and Lemon Scones combine the elegant, creamy, and sweet flavor of white chocolate chips with the bright, zesty flavor of lemon against the backdrop of one of the ultimate tea-time making experiences: tender, crispy-edged scones.

We are big tea drinkers in our house, and one of my children absolutely loves white chocolate, so these scones are the perfect, EASY “special occasion” treat for when we want a good reason to combine all our loves into one flavorful experience.

Although this recipe calls for sourdough discard, I just used my not-super-active sourdough starter (which is basically sourdough discard until I add more flour to it and let it get active again), and that worked just fine. So don’t get intimidated by the sourdough aspect.

And for tea recommendations, I’d suggest pairing these scones with some Earl Grey or Lady Grey tea, English Breakfast or Irish Breakfast tea, or Vanilla Almond black tea.

Find the full recipe from Lydia over at Blessed Pursuit of Motherhood.

Lemon Blueberry Dutch Babies are custardy, tender, crispy on the edges, and packed with zesty, bright lemon flavor and juicy, summery blueberries.

Growing up, my grandmother frequently made dutch babies for breakfast if my sisters and I would stay the night at her house. I remember crowding around the door of the oven to peer through the glass to see how high the dutch baby had risen while it was baking.

Loaded with eggs and milk, this breakfast provides some protein to keep you full and going all morning, but includes the sweetness of the berries to make it feel fun and celebratory.

And, of course, you can always sprinkle with powdered sugar and squeeze fresh lemon wedges over it to incorporate additional lemon usage!

You can get the full recipe from Hailey over at Rooted at Heart.

This Sourdough Lemon Pound Cake is the perfect, classic pound cake recipe! Loaded with delicious, lemon-y flavor from both lemon zest and lemon juice, this cake serves up moist and tender.

Simple to make, with straightforward, real ingredients and the unique addition of a sourdough tang, I think this recipe would be perfect for a summer party or to bring to a potluck.

The lemon glazing adds an extra lemon flavor boost, so definitely don’t skip that step!

You can grab the full recipe from Molly over at Plumb Branch Home.

If you’re looking for a super refreshing, chilled lemon-y dessert recipe, this fresh Lemon Mousse is the perfect candidate!

Although it is not summer at the time of writing this blog post, I am already planning to make this mousse a regular summer dessert option. With the light, airy texture provided by the whipped cream, the refreshing, tangy burst of lemon flavor, and the cool creaminess of the yogurt, I think it will be JUST what I’m looking for as the temperatures rise.

I love that you can make this dessert ahead of time if you’re party planning, or just to keep some on hand over a heat wave! I also love that it calls for almost a cup of lemon juice, which definitely helps utilize an abundance of lemons!

You can grab the whole recipe from Anja over at Our Gabled Home.

Crunchy, shortbread-like crust meets custard-y, tangy filling in these Sourdough Lemon Bars, and my family is hooked!

I loved the simplicity of this recipe (I made it while simultaneously making dinner – no, we did not wait the proper time for it to cool before jumping on it for our dessert!), and I loved the fact that it was sweet but not TOO sweet so the lemon flavors could shine through.

I’m a classic “sugar reducer” (usually by half) in every recipe I try, but with this one, I did NOT reduce the modest sugar amount, and it was perfect.

Terrific for a family dessert or to take with you to a party or potluck (or, in my case, as a wedding dessert), lemon bars are one of my favorite sweet treats, and this recipe with sourdough incorporated into it did NOT disappoint.

You can grab the full recipe from Anja over at Our Gabled Home.

Lemon curd was something I discovered when I moved to New Zealand 8 years ago, and the soft, fluffy, rich, tangy, sweet-ness of it became a favorite dessert option from the get-go. This Lemon Curd Tart delivered beautifully on all those classic attributes of lemon curd!

This is a great recipe to make ahead of time as the lemon curd needs to cool for the optimal texture. Although a tart recipe can seem intimidating (needing to bake the crust first, and then make the curd, and then allow everything to chill), the results are elegant yet simple in the most flavorful way possible.

You can get the full recipe from Angie at The Tastes of Life.

15. Lemon Tahini Spice Cookies

Of course, I could not skip putting an actual Lemonade Recipe on this list of fresh lemon recipes list!

I particularly loved that this lemonade recipe utilizes coconut sugar rather than typical white sugar. I also loved that there is no syrup making step or cooking required: just measure, stir, chill, and enjoy!

Perfect for when our family runs out of kombucha or to serve to guests who aren’t a fan of carbonation or fermented drinks, this lemonade recipe feels like the essence of summer hospitality.

You can find the recipe over at Right At Home with Violet.

18. Healthy Lemon Frosting Recipe