Lazy Grilling

Try Smoky Ingredients: Take advantage of the flavors of ingredients like smoked almonds and smoked trout, and you don’t even need to grill. Fauchald adds fabulous smoky flavors to the Catalan sauce romesco by swapping in smoked almonds for the usual plain kind and adding a touch of pimentón de la Vera (powdered, smoked Spanish red peppers).

Try Big Cuts for Big Parties: Large cuts of meat feed a crowd with relatively little effort. Beef tenderloin cooks quickly, and pork shoulder almost cooks by itself. Nick Fauchald serves sliced tenderloin alongside grilled bread smeared with chile butter.

Use Thin Cuts for Everyday: Slender cuts like veal scallopine, beef skirt steak and lamb rib chops save time, since they take only a few minutes to grill. In this faster version of a steak salad, charred tomatoes add their warm, tangy juices to an arugula salad served alongside quick-grilled veal scallopine.

Plan for Leftovers:The leftovers from one meal become the basis for the next one. This popular Vietnamese sandwich combines sweet, sour, crunchy and soft in one delicious—and portable—package. Leftover ingredients like chicken, carrot or cilantro can be used for a boldly flavored Vietnamese chicken salad.

Use the Grill as an Oven: Using the grill as an oven (to bake muffins) prevents lots of repeat trips from the grill to the kitchen. When baking these bacon-and-scallion-flecked corn muffins—a great accompaniment to all kinds of barbecue—Fauchald prefers the grill to a conventional oven for two reasons: The muffins absorb some of the grill’s great smoky flavors, and he can spend that much more time outside.