With the weather becoming warmer, you want to spend as much time as possible soaking up the sun and breathing the fresh, balmy air. Cooking on the grill is a great way to go outside and make something simple and delicious that will have you coming back for more. It is the season for barbecuing.!
Grilling adds deep smoky flavors and crisps up the outside of vegetables while retaining all the succulent juices inside. Every bite is flavorful and addictive. With minimal ingredients and cooking, the flavors of the vegetables shine through and the nutrients stay intact.
No matter how you grill, the preparation is simple, quick and the result is rewarding. There are plenty of different ways to cook veggies on the grill and so many great veggies to choose from!
What to Grill:
Vegetable Kabobs
One of the easiest and most delicious ways to roast vegetables is to cut an assortment of different veggies into equal-sized chunks and toss them lightly with olive oil, spices, and balsamic vinegar for added flavor. Poke skewers through each chunk, layering them interchangeably.
Use vegetables that have similar cook times. Our personal favorite is a combination of sweet peppers (all colors!), mushroom, zucchini, yellow squash, and we even add some pineapple for refreshing sweetness. Other great additions are cherry tomatoes, corn on the cob, red onion (quartered), and eggplant. Try to avoid potatoes and other dense starches as they cook too slowly and will not be ready at the same time as the rest of the vegetables.
If you use wooden or bamboo sticks, make sure to soak them in water for at least 30 minutes beforehand to avoid burning them. The benefit of using metal skewers is they are reusable, but they will get extremely hot so turn them using a potholder or towel or heat-resistant material. When you serve them, you might have to take them off the skewers to eat them as they will retain the heat long after you have taken them off the grill. We recommend wooden skewers as there is not much waste and since it is wood, it is biodegradable and reduces the chances of someone getting burned.
Related Article: The Best Plant-Based Seasonal Dishes
How to Grill:
1. Aluminum foil
A kind of ‘set-it-and-forget-it’ method, all that is needed is your choice of vegetables, aluminum foil, and cooking oil. This is also a great method for roasting potatoes. Just cut them into equal-sized chunks, toss in oil and spices of your choice. With this method, you can throw in whole cloves of garlic or whole sprigs of herbs as they will flavor the potatoes while the steam roasts everything together inside the aluminum foil.
Some great additions to the potatoes can be carrots, corn on the cob (quartered), and white onions (quartered). You can foil wrap pretty much any vegetable and put it on the grill. The foil will steam them inside and give them that nice smoky flavor you get when you grill.
Make sure your sheets are large enough to wrap around everything inside and create a ball and twist off the top. No need to poke holes, the top allows a bit of airflow to enter and escape.
2. Straight on!
To get those beautiful, picture-perfect grill marks on your vegetables, toss them in a little bit of oil and lay them right on the grill. A chef’s secret is to lay your vegetables diagonally, once the color starts to develop and the marks are defined, use tongs to pick them up, turn them 90 degrees and lay them back down on the same side. You will get a stunning crisscross pattern.
Some of the best vegetables for grilling using this method include those with large surface areas. Long vegetables like zucchini can be cut into wedges, sliced into circles, or cut into vertical strips, or you could even roast the whole zucchini to have a soft inside and charred skin. The more surface area you have, the crispier the outside.
You can put any vegetable on the grill, no matter the size, from grape tomatoes to eggplants, just ensure they do not fall through the grates of your grill!