Cookout Party

Serve the pulled pork with coleslaw and pickles, or mound it on hamburger buns and top with coleslaw and thinly sliced onion and dill pickles.

Linton Hopkins calls this vinegary slaw a maceration salad, because it sits overnight to develop its superbly tangy flavor. “I love mayonnaise, but for buffets, I get disturbed by having a lot of mayonnaise-heavy things sitting out in the summer sun,” he says.

Prick fresh sausages all over before grilling to release the excess fat.

This dish is great for entertaining: The spiced lamb marinates overnight, and the sauce can be made ahead of time. All you have to do right before serving is grill the skewers for seven minutes.

Linton Hopkins’s aunt Julia—“my paternal grandmother’s sister-in-law,” he says—made giant vats of this barbecue sauce on her farm in Alabama, then drove around delivering it to everyone in her extended family.

For Ray Lampe’s sweet and sticky chicken wings, slash the inside of the joints so the wings cook through and the seasonings penetrate.

Branzino, a European sea bass, is low in fat but has a wonderful richness when cooked on the bone. Barbara Lynch stuffs the fish with lemons and herbs, then grills it until the skin is browned and crispy to add even more flavor.

To create the flavorings for these ribs, Donald Link combines eight spices for a rub and prepares a barbecue sauce with homemade pork stock. To simplify, cut back the number of spices in the rub to the five essentials, and use canned beef broth in the barbecue sauce.

“Most people prefer margaritas either frozen or on the rocks. In Texas, it's the same with refried beans versus charro,” says Tim Love. Refried beans are made with mashed pintos; for charro—a Tex-Mex take on pork and beans—the beans are served whole in a spicy broth.

In Argentina, a mixed grill is called a parrillada (parrilla means "grill" in Spanish). The dish is served in a rustic style, with whole pieces of meat like chicken hearts and sausage brought to the table.

For these Vietnamese-style grilled-beef rolls (bo la lot), Andrew Zimmern wraps flavorful ground sirloin in briny grape leaves and serves them with a sweet, spicy, tangy dipping sauce. Traditionally, they are made with the betel leaf, which is also delicious and can be found at some Asian markets.

Tim Byres’s shrimp tacos are delicious with this tangy salsa, but the surprise here is the crunchy celery salad on top.

Roasting a whole chicken takes about an hour, but cut out the backbone and flatten the bird and it will grill perfectly in 30 minutes. Melissa Rubel rubs the chicken all over with a very simple, Thai-inspired mix of red curry paste, coconut milk and brown sugar.

Crunchy, juicy and mildly smoky, this grilled romaine lettuce is fantastic with the Southeast Asian-style fish sauce dressing.

Michael Chiarello prefers cooking fruit near the beginning of the grilling session, when the grate is cleanest. Here, grilled oranges, lemons and grapes add a wonderful, subtle smokiness to sangria. If you grill twice as much fruit as the recipe calls for, you’ll be all ready to make a second batch.