Best Unexpected Foods You Can Grill That (Mostly) Aren’t Meat

In a grilling rut? Let us take you off the beaten path—and off the meat-en path—with some of the most unexpected foods you can grill, smoke, and barbecue to mix up your repertoire and impress your guests. “Just don’t try to experiment when you have guests coming,” says pitmaster Rodney Scott, owner of five Rodney Scott’s BBQ restaurants and author of the cookbook Rodney Scott’s World of BBQ: Every Day is a Good Day. “That’s one of the biggest mistakes I see people do. Experiment alone.”

1. Watermelon steak

“The beauty of watermelon is it’s very porous, almost like a sponge, and it sucks up the smoke,” says Steven Raichlen, PBS cooking show host and author of Project Fire, Project Smoke, and The Barbecue! Bible cookbook series. Cut fresh watermelon in 1-inch steaks or wedges 4 to 5 inches along the rind. “Baste in some kind of oil so it sizzles on the outside,” says Raichlen. “Then, grill until singed and grill-marked on both sides, but still raw in the center, 1 to 2 minutes per side.” You can slather it with Mascarpone cheese and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar, he says. Or, pair it with a firm, salty cheese like queso fresco (which Raichlen prefers over feta for being “a little salty without being quite so sour”) and sprinkle on chopped fresh cilantro and very thinly sliced serrano peppers, he says, or add fresh mint and serve it over arugula with a honey-lime dressing.

2. Wheel of Brie

Start with your grill at medium-high heat (350 to 400 degrees). Place a small wheel of Brie directly on the grill grates, then get ready, says Brad Wise, chef at Rare Society steak house in San Diego, which grills Santa Maria-style, over live red oak. “Cook and keep flipping it until you see one speck of cheese ooze out—then take it off immediately.” Poke through the top with a spoon, “and fill it with any kind of preserves or jam,” he says, “along with chopped nuts like walnuts or spiced almonds.” Put it out with a fresh, un-toasted baguette for dipping.

3. Grilled grapefruit cocktail

A mixologist can add a hint of smoke to your cocktail at the bar; you can smoke yours entirely at home. Cut a grapefruit in half and coat the cut side with 1 to 2 tablespoons of sugar, like you’re dusting a donut, says Nordin. You don’t want to soak up all its juices, so go easy. ”Place the grapefruit on the grill, cut-side down, until it slightly chars, as “the juice from the fruit mixes with the sugar and it caramelizes for a burnt, smoky flavor.” Cut a small slice off the blackened grilled part to use as a garnish. Then, squeeze and mix the juice with about 2 ounces mezcal or a smoky tequila, pour it over ice, and top with about 3.3 ounces of club soda. (Optional: Add a splash of beetroot juice.) Garnish with charred grapefruit wedge.

4. Bacon

Grilled bacon will give you an even smokier flavor, less grease, and a happy crowd. “I have done bacon on the grill a few times, no pan whatsoever,” says Scott, who says to put all of the heat on one side of the grill and lay the bacon across sideways on the indirect side of the grill. There, it can slowly cook, and you don’t run the risk of the bacon fat dripping directly onto the flames. “It’s very, very risky if it’s over direct heat,” he says. “It will catch quick.” Cook, flipping once, until crispy.

5. Smoked ice cream

“It’s uncanny how vanilla ice cream winds up tasting exactly like a toasted marshmallow,” says Raichlen of smoking ice cream. In advance, fill an aluminum foil drip pan with water (one to two inches high) and freeze it, he says, “so you’ll have kind of a cold pedestal.” Then, set up a charcoal grill for indirect grilling (around 400 degrees) with the coals on one side. When you’re ready to go, un-mold a pint of ice cream by running hot water on the container and sliding out the cylinder of ice cream. Place the ice pedestal pan on the indirect heat, and place the ice cream on top of that. Then, “supercharge your fire with wood chips” says Raichlen—who’ll use two big handfuls of apple or hickory chips—and close the grill lid. Smoke for 3 to 5 minutes. “The outsides will melt a little bit, but it’ll get sort of a black, dark, filmy layer of smoke on it,” he says. If it melts too much, refreeze it. Then serve it with grilled fruit like peaches.

6. Whole Branzino

Grilling a whole fish may seem intimidating, but “it’s surprisingly simple and impressive enough to make anyone look like an expert,” says Joe Gurrera, owner of Citarella and author of Joe Knows Fish: Taking the Intimidation Out of Cooking Seafood. Branzino is great for grilling for a group, he says. “The white flesh is both tender and firm, flaky yet buttery.” And a single fish (approximately 1 lb.) feeds one person, so everyone gets their own. Buy your Branzino whole and cleaned. And as “with any whole fish, never score the skin,” he says. “The fish will cook faster, and the meat will be drier.” Instead, bathe it in olive oil, salt, and pepper. Oil your grill and make sure it’s hot. Cook each 1 lb. Branzino “for 5 minutes on each side,” he says. “The result will be tender meat and crispy skin.” Drizzle the cooked fish with a fine olive oil. Or, he says, “melt cherry tomatoes in a sauté pan with olive oil, add pitted Calamata olives and sliced Judean artichokes or marinated artichoke hearts.” Toss and serve over fish.

7. Peaches on cinnamon sticks

The hardest thing about this is finding a ripe peach, says Raichlen. Once you do, cut it in quarters then “use a slender bamboo skewer to make starter holes,” he says (stabbing it through belly to back on the peach, not head to feet). Next, push a 3-inch long cinnamon stick through the channel you’ve made. Bring equal parts butter, brown sugar, and bourbon to a boil—then baste the peaches. Grill until the edges are darkly brown and serve over vanilla ice cream.

8. Smoked cauliflower

“A whole cauliflower is brilliant on the barbecue,” says Genevieve Taylor, chef and author of the cookbooks Charred and Seared. After trimming the outer stems, blanch it in boiling water for 5 minutes or so. “That’s going to help start opening up the cell walls so it soaks up the smoke better,” says Taylor. Drizzle the blanched head with olive oil and salt, then place on indirect heat in a small tin and shut the lid. (You’re looking for a temp around 300 degrees.) Let it cook for roughly 1 hour “so it softens and sucks up all that smoke and loveliness,” she says. While it’s cooking, mush up some butter, garlic, chopped herbs like oregano and marjoram, cumin seeds, and chili flakes. Spoon it over the cauliflower, close the lid again, and cook for another 15 to 20 minutes to let the butter melt all the way through. “Super simple,” she says, “it just takes a little bit of time.”

9. Oysters

Grill raw oysters on the half shell. “Shuck them raw, add a little bit of minced garlic and butter, and put them on the grill,” says Scott. “Cook until they bubble a bit, then add a touch of Parmesan.” Or, throw whole oysters on the grill—still closed, no prep. Place them on a piece of metal or in a cast iron pan to protect them from the direct heat, and sprinkle water on them for moisture while they cook. “Then you can close the grill down,” says Scott, “or, go buck wild and sit there and see which one pops first.”

10. Coal-cooked cabbage

Rub salt over a whole white cabbage and let it sit so it really absorbs, says Josiah Citrin, author of the cookbook Charcoal, who serves this as a signature dish at his Venice, CA, restaurant of the same name. “Get your embers all ready to go—the coals as red-hot as can be—and bury the cabbage inside the coals,” covering it completely. Let it cook for about 1 hour and 10 minutes, moving it around now and then to be sure it’s cooking evenly—but “delicately,” he says, “so you don’t rip the outside crust.” Remove it once it’s black on the outside and cooked all the way through. (Put a skewer through it to check if it moves through easily.) Cool the cabbage a bit, cut it into 4 or 6 wedges, and “drizzle it with olive oil, sea salt, chives, and a little fresh black pepper.” Then, serve it the way Charcoal does: with Greek yogurt mixed with sumac, lemon zest, and chives.

11. Grilled Caesar salad

Impress your guests with a grilled salad, says Wise. Cut baby romaine in half or quarters, brush it with a little oil and season with salt. (Pepper adds too much to romaine’s subtle flavor, and it’s better for pepper not to burn.) When the grill is hot (450 or 500 degrees), place the romaine cut-side down. “You want to char the inside root of the lettuce, not the outside green part,” he says. Cook it over that very high heat for about 2.5 minutes or until you have grill marks,” says Wise. “Just know, the longer you cook it, the less crunchy it will be.” Brush on a Caesar dressing of your choice, and top with croutons and shaved Parmesan.

12. Ember-cooked carrots

Carrots are another great root vegetable you can cook right in the embers. Just lightly clean them off, and “as the fire is slowing down and you’re waiting for the coals to get perfect for whatever else you’re cooking,” says Nordin, “put the carrots straight on the embers.” Turn them to get them black and burnt on all sides. When they soften enough and have some give, put it on indirect heat to keep warm. Scrape off the burnt part with a knife and serve.

13. Skillet Provolone

Provoleta, or grilled provolone cheese curd, is often grilled right on the grates as part of a traditional Argentine asado, says Germán Lucarelli, owner of The Lost Fire restaurant in Maine and author of The Lost Fire cookbook. He recommends using American provolone in cast iron “so it can bubble into the pan.” First, place the empty cast iron pan on the grill over high heat and get it very hot. Then, add a couple drops of olive oil, a bit of oregano, and chili flakes to an inch-thick wheel of cheese. Place it in the pan, and pan sear until it makes that nice crust everyone loves—“super crunchy, crusty on the outside and very cheesy on the inside,” Lucarelli says. He suggests serving with grilled bread seasoned with olive oil and rubbed with a garlic clove.

14. Frozen pizza

You can grill a pizza from scratch, of course, but if you’re low on time and people are hungry, take a frozen pizza and throw it on the grill. “I put it on the Big Green Egg and it was just like a pizza oven!” says Scott. He uses a rising-crust frozen pie. Because the plate that keeps direct heat from the bottom of the pie isn’t in the grill and all the coals are on one side, just kept spinning the pizza so it cooks evenly.

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