24 Grilling Side Dishes

This simple summer salad from Portland, Oregon, chef Joshua McFadden perfectly showcases summer produce at its peak.

Gently crushing the cucumbers for this salad releases their aroma and creates nooks and crannies for soaking up the dressing.

“When I was a kid, my mom would marinate cucumbers, red onions and canned potatoes in jarred creamy Italian dressing,” says Jamie Bissonnette. “I’m not saying she was a great cook, but creamy Italian dressing is still my favorite. I make a version of it for this salad.”

In this refreshing salad, crisp cucumbers and aromatic cilantro are tossed with a tangy dressing made with lime juice, fish sauce and fiery Thai chiles.

Serve with crusty bread and extra hot sauce.

If you’ve never tried grilling broccoli, you are definitely missing out: The vegetable becomes tender and deliciously charred. Tossing the broccoli with a butter flavored with lime zest, honey and smoky chipotle Tabasco makes it luscious.

"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.

Private chef Michael Emanuel's late-harvest salad gets its surprisingly meaty richness from the sliced red bell peppers he roasts in a clay oven; a broiler also works well.

Jeri Ryan's favorite sandwich stuffing is a mix of crumbly cheese, crispy bacon and charred red onions. She likes the savory combination so much she's turned it into a salad with tender new potatoes. It's incredibly good as a side with grilled beef tenderloin or steak.

Yotam Ottolenghi loves mixing unorthodox ingredients, like lime juice, jalapeño and maple syrup, into his Middle Eastern food.

Terrific as a salad or a spread for flatbread, adzhapsandali is like a Georgian version of ratatouille. Grilling the eggplant gives the dish a luscious, smoky flavor.

Although Jacques Pépin cuts a small, seedless watermelon into rounds with a melon baller (adding the trimmings to the salad, too, so as not to waste them), you can also chop the watermelon into cubes.

When baking these bacon-and-scallion-flecked corn muffins—a great accompaniment to all kinds of barbecue—Nick 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.

Chef Nate Appleman quickly grills whole fava beans, tosses them with a crushed red pepper dressing and serves them hot. They can be eaten whole—the tender pods develop a lovely charred flavor on the grill—but it’s also easy to eat them in the traditional way by popping the beans out of their pods and outer skins.

Two Middle Eastern staples make one great dressing.

Richard Blais garnishes his take on a caprese salad of tomato and mozzarella with pickled walnuts, made by tossing candied walnuts with a little vinegar. (Alternatively, use British pickled walnuts, available at some specialty food stores.) “The blue cheese and the celery give this dish a little ‘adultness,’” he says.

“Butter is not the villain it once was,” says Michel Nischan, who adds a little bit to roasted garlic to create a rich, creamy spread for corn on the cob.

Chef Nate Appleman swears by coating vegetables with a mayonnaise-based marinade; it creates a beautifully blistered crust when grilled. Here he offers a marinade for asparagus that is also fabulous on broccoli and fennel.

Steam helps loosen a pepper's charred skin from its flesh. To create steam, place the hot pepper in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap, or place in it a plastic bag and seal, then let sit for 5 minutes and remove. The skin should slip right off.

More Tasty Salads

Rösti potatoes are Swiss-style shredded potatoes shaped into cakes. Francis Mallmann's directions for making them are very precise: Once the cakes touch the hot griddle, cook them very slowly and don't touch—except to flip them over—until they're done. That's the only way to get a sensational crust.

These supereasy, indulgent potatoes are based on a recipe Brooklyn butcher Tom Mylan found in a South Dakota centennial cookbook. They're layered with pats of chive and sour cream butter, then wrapped in foil and grilled until soft and delicious.

For his Asian take on elote, the grilled corn on the cob sold on the streets of Mexico, Bill Kim seasons mayonnaise with a spicy and tangy mix of lime juice, curry powder and chile paste. In place of the cheese that’s commonly sprinkled on top, he dusts the corn with a mix of lime zest, lemon zest, chile and salt.

This sweet and crunchy salad with lots of immune-boosting vitamin C is delicious with grilled pork or in a pulled-pork sandwich. To wilt the fennel slightly, Michel Nischan briefly marinates it in vinegar and salt before tossing it with firm, ripe peaches.