Food and Wine’s Ultimate Grilling Guide

As you get ready for grilling season check-out Food and Wine’s Ultimate Grilling Guide. They have recipes for burgers, no-fuss dishes, seafood, sides, make-ahead salads and most importantly, Summer wines and cocktails.

Food and Wine’s Nick Fauchald shares 5 Great Techniques for the Lazy Griller:

1.  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.

Grilled Beef Tenderloin with Ancho-Jalapeño Butter

Carolina-Style Pulled Pork

2.  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.

Veal Scallopine with Charred Cherry Tomato Salad

Lamb Chops with Harissa-Yogurt Sauce

Skirt Steak with Salsa Verde

3.  Use the Grill as a Stove

Using the grill as an oven (to bake muffins) and as a stovetop (for fondue) prevents lots of repeat trips from the grill to the kitchen.

Grill-Roasted Bacon-and-Scallion Corn Muffins

Chocolate Fondue with Fruit and Grilled Pound Cake

4.  Plan for Leftovers

The leftovers from one meal (like Grilled-Chicken Banh Mi) become the basis for the next one (like Vietnamese Chicken Salad).

Grilled-Chicken Banh Mi

Vietnamese Chicken Salad

5.  Try Smoky Ingredients

Take advantage of the flavors of ingredients like smoked almonds and smoked trout, and you don’t even need to grill.

Grilled Tuna with Smoked-Almond Romesco Sauce

Pan-Fried Smoked-Trout Cakes with Lemony Salad

If you are looking for some crowd pleasing drinks to cool-off your party guests, F&W shares 25 Pitcher drinks and 10 punches to appease your guests.  This beer-based sangria below sounds refreshing and was inspired by a British customer who was wanting a Shandy–a blend of lager beer and lemonade or soda.  This is a fast, make-ahead drink that serves 8.

Brewsky Sangria

Ingredients:

• 2 Bartlett pears, peeled and chopped
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• Four 12-ounce bottles lager, chilled
• 1 cup triple sec
• Ice
• 2 Bosc pears, sliced, for garnish

Directions:

1. In a food processor, combine the Bartlett pears with 2 tablespoons of the lemon juice and process to a puree.
2. Slowly pour the beer into a pitcher. Stir in the remaining 1 cup of lemon juice, the triple sec and the pear puree. Fill pint glasses halfway with ice. Add the sangria and garnish with the Bosc pear slices.