Memorial Day is a time for us to honor the men and women who have died protecting our country. It is a time when we can gather with friends and family, attend parades, visit cemeteries, and pay homage to those who passed while in military service.
Many of us gather together with our families and grill out. We’ve scoured the web for the 25 best recipes for every taste that are sure to impress your friends and family this Memorial Day.
1. Perfect Grilled Cheeseburger
There’s nothing quite like biting into the perfect cheeseburger. The chargrilled taste, melted cheese, and crisp toppings create the ideal flavor bite. Simply topped with ketchup and mustard or fully loaded with lettuce, tomato, pickles, and onion, the cheeseburger provides a platform sure to please any meat lover. We’ve tasted many cheeseburgers over the years; this recipe captures the essence of a great cheeseburger.
2. Flattened Chicken and Grilled Romaine with Parsley-Lemon Sauce
When we first saw this recipe and “grilled romaine,” our immediate thought was … “Grilled salad? Is that possible?” The acidity of the lemon sauce and the smoky flavor of romaine lettuce takes on from the grilled sold us. Chicken is notoriously hard to get right; you want it cooked through without being dry in your mouth. This bone-in cooking style helps keep the chicken moist and cooked just right. Trust us; you’ll love it: find the recipe here.
3. Grilled Chicken with Rosemary and Bacon
Following up on our flattened bone-in recipe is this one with wrapped boneless chicken breasts. The combination of rosemary and bacon seals the deal on this grilled chicken; the bacon keeps the chicken moist while helping it cook all the way through. The trick with grilling this dish is to ensure there aren’t too many flare-ups from the bacon; on a charcoal grill, you might need to stand by with a water spray bottle. Discover grilled chicken with rosemary and bacon.
4. Grilled Salmon
If you want to lighten up your grill session with a fish that can withstand the heat, try this great grilled salmon recipe. Salmon can stand up to a grill’s heat; we recommend grilling with the skin on (and skin side down). This will keep the fish from falling apart while providing that great crisp skin to nibble on. If you’re a garlic lover, add fresh diced garlic to the marinade instead of the garlic powder.
Looking for a different kind of grilled fish? Try one of these recipes:
5. Grilled Halibut and Fresh Mango Salsa
6. Indonesian Grilled Swordfish
7. Grilled Swordfish with Lemon, Mint, and Basil
8. Grilled Tuna with Basil Pesto
9. Grilled Watermelon Salad
We’ve been on a mission to grill all sorts of food with mixed success. One of the most interesting groups of food to grill is fruit. Grilling watermelon helps caramelize the sugars on the outside, creating a rich flavor. Balsamic vinegar provides the right amount of acidity and sweetness for the watermelon. If you’re looking for something unique and exciting on the grill, try this salad.
10. Grilled Artichokes & Polenta with Blistered Tomatoes and Pesto
We often throw some vegetables on the grill as a side dish when we grill. This recipe with grilled artichokes is one of the best we’ve found. We’re not big polenta users, but grilling it brings a crisp, charred corn flavor. Optionally, you can throw some goat cheese in to give it a rich and creamy taste. The pesto brings rich vegetable flavor. Discover the recipe here.
More grilled vegetable side dish recipes you’ll love:
11. Grilled Potato Salad with Black Pepper Vinaigrette
12. Grilled Corn on the Cob with Roasted Jalapeño Butter
13. Grilled Japanese Eggplant
14. Grilled Stuffed Jalapeños
When grilled, jalapeños lose a lot of their heat, providing a nice muted spiciness to complement the bacon, cream cheese, and cheddar filling. Unlike when you bake a stuffed jalapeño, grilling the pepper helps it retain a little bit of its snap so it doesn’t get mushy on you. As an appetizer, this recipe can’t be beat!
15. Grilled Pork Chops with Spicy Balsamic Grilled Peaches
Pork can be a tricky meat to grill. Getting the doneness just right makes the difference between a nice juicy chop and shoe leather. Leaving the pork on the chop helps keep in flavor and keep the pork chop nice and juicy. The spicy balsamic grilled peaches tease your taste buds, activating spicy, sweet, and sour. Check out this excellent pork chop recipe.
16. Grilled London Broil
Steak. Just saying the word makes my mouth water. We have to be honest; the London broil has not been one of our favorite cuts of meat. It’s too easy to go from flavorful, juicy steak to bland, chewy dry rubber. We found the marinade on this steak, and getting the grill smoking hot when cooking this recipe helped to lock in the juiciness and create a caramelized exterior second to none. Paired with a horseradish sauce, this steak will be perfect for your Memorial Day.
17. Grilled Chicken Breasts with Chive Butter
Sometimes we need a simple recipe to highlight the best of grilled chicken breasts. Our love for compound butter makes this dish. Yes, boneless chicken breasts can be difficult. But once you get the timing right, it’s as delicious as anything coming off the grill. Combine it with flavorful butter. Divine. Enjoy this grilled chicken recipe.
18. Grilled Asparagus with Wasabi Soy Dipping Sauce
We keep asparagus in the house to throw on the grill or in a piping-hot oven as a side dish. It’s one of our favorite side dish preps, but we didn’t think of combining it with a dipping sauce until we enjoyed it in this recipe. Wasabi is the hot Japanese horseradish you most often associate with sushi, but creating a dipping sauce tempers the heat a little. The charred exterior of the grilled asparagus combined with this tempered hot dipping sauce? So good. Don’t be afraid of the salt on the asparagus before grilling – it helps bring out the flavor. Enjoy this side dish recipe.
19. Bacon Wrapped Grilled Peaches
Bacon. Peaches. Grilled. We could have ended this paragraph with those three words, and 90% of you would have clicked the link. But we can’t just end there. We’ve wrapped all sorts of things with bacon: dates, chicken breasts, steak, and more bacon, but there was something about the salty, smoky exterior to this caramelized peach that beat out a lot of other options. We’re not sure if this is a side dish or a dessert, but one thing we know it is: a great recipe.
20. Grilled Caesar Buffalo Chicken Salad
A cookout is no time for a salad unless it’s potato salad. Or so we thought before diving into the grilled Caesar buffalo chicken salad. Yes, hot sauce is a weakness for us. We turn into Pavlov’s dog whenever the hot vinegar smell enters a room so we just had to make this salad for dinner. If you’re looking for a salad with a little kick, look no further. Enjoy.
21. Charred Corn with Rosemary Pizza
Grilled pizza. Saying it just makes us laugh. Until we tried it for the first time. Unbelievable flavors. The smoky crunch of the crust with just the right toppings is the right way to enjoy a family get-together. The trick with grilling pizza is fast-cooking toppings. Too slow, and the crust burns. We love to throw corn on the grill – combining that on a pizza? Genius. We hope you enjoy this as much as we do.
22. Grilled Pineapple and Corn Salsa
If we’re grilling corn, we might as well throw it into a salsa. Second to corn, our favorite non-meat to grill is pineapple. It’s so versatile: grill it on kabobs, put it on a burger, or just grill a few slices to eat on its own. Any way you use it, grilled pineapple is delicious. Combining it with corn in a salsa? Delicious. A great side dish to enjoy with your family. Pair with tortilla chips or (our favorite) grilled lavish bread.
23. Grilled Brie Cheese
Perhaps the easiest recipe on the list, this is also the most surprising. We chuckled at first when we saw “grilled brie,” but then when we took that first bite of this melted, oozing smoke-infused cheese on a slice of French bread, we were sold. Combined with a fruit preserve, this appetizer (or some might believe dessert) will tide over the hungry crowd while you prepare the rest of the recipes on your list. Be careful not to puncture the outer shell of the brie, or you’ll end up with a grilled mess. Check out the recipe here.
24. Chili Garlic Chicken Skewers with Dipping Sauce
We love kabobs. When grilling season starts, we often hunt for wooden skewers and chop chicken and steak to marinade. One of the things we often forget about is a dipping sauce. What’s better than the dynamic flavors of spice and coolness competing against one another? This recipe is not only easy to do, but provides the heat you sometimes need with a quick cool-off you sometimes require.
25. Grilled Kohlrabi
We think kohlrabi may be one of the best-kept secrets in the vegetable world. You can almost treat it like a potato, but the firm, crisp, and subtly sweet flavors help add dimension, whereas potatoes often lack in adding flavor to the party. We love to grill kohlrabi; the last time we used this recipe, we did so in a cast iron skillet on the grill. The smoky flavors and some bbq spice set this side apart from bland potato chips or fries. Read more about grilled kohlrabi.
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