There are pear recipes that call for perfectly ripe fruit—dinner salads, antipasto plates, relishes. In these instances, the pears are served in their raw state, so you’ll want them at their crisp, floral, juicy best. Then there are recipes where you can get away with using an under- or overripe pear. When you’re applying heat to a piece of fruit, it doesn’t have to be quite so perfect. Here’s a good rule to keep in mind: If you want the pear to have some bite, say for whole roasted pears or baked pear blondies, using a harder, slightly underripe specimen is fine. Want it to collapse into nearly a sauce, like in the marinade for bulgogi? That’s the time for an overripe pear (the kind that dents when you press your thumb into it).

Now that you’ve got that trick up your sleeve, we challenge you—or encourage you, rather—to cook a pear dish this weekend. Just pick up an armful of Bosc pears. Or Anjou pears. Or Bartlett, Comice, or any pears that strike your fancy. They’re typically in season from late summer through early winter. Let your imagination run wild, or scroll on and pick from one of our very best pear recipes. We know what we’d choose.