Smart Outdoor Grilling Tips
Here you will find a few Outdoor Grilling Tips that will surely make your next grill out better than the last. These tips are intended to make your Outdoor Grilling easier, safer, more efficient, and taste better!
On to the tips.
Some Outdoor Grilling Tips before you fire it up:
Picking out what your going to grill. You want tender, moist, tasty meat and fish right? Well a lot of it has to do with the cut. Follow the general tips:
Steaks: You want them at least 1.25 inches thick and you want to trim to 1/8 inch fat to reduce flare ups later. For more steak tips see our other article: Tips on Grilling Steaks
Burgers: If you like them juicy buy ground beef with 15-20 percent fat. For more burger tips see our other article: Tips Grilling Burgers
Fish: Have your fish fillets cut from 1 - 1 ½ inch thick otherwise it will dry out.
Pork Chops: Have cuts that are 1 - 1 ½ inches thick also. (For later you’ll know pork chops are done when it is no longer pink around the bone and the juices run clear.)
Chicken: You can buy any legs or breasts and they will cook just fine. For more tips on chicken be sure to check out our other popular grilling article: Tips for Grilling Chicken.
Do you want to marinate some of the food? Many like the added tenderness and flavor. If you do you should use 1-2 cups of marinade for every 1 ½ - 2 pounds of meat. You can start marinating first thing in the morning.
Keep the grill away from your house, fence, and trees. I made this mistake with my 1st grill. It melted the new siding on my 1st house from 3 feet away! Dumb I know but I had to mention it.If grilling with a propane tank make sure you have enough gas especially if your having people over! If it feels low it is low. I always recommend having 2 tanks full of propane. Not only will you never run out you’ll be able to pick up both and compare by the weight whether it’s almost empty or not.
Get prepared with all your utensils before you start that grill up. Nothing like wanting to turn your meat or vegetables only to find the tongs are hidden somewhere in the kitchen drawer or shed.
Now onto the Outdoor Grilling Tips for after you fire it up:
Let the grill heat up before putting your meat in. Putting the food in early prolongs the cook time and dries out the food.
Try to figure out how you, your family, and guests want their food cooked.
You can have one side of your grill hotter than the other to accommodate this. If you have a gas grill simply turn one of the dials up more on one side than the other. If you have a charcoal grill you will need to add more coals to one side to generate more heat.
Some like their steaks rarer than others. With Chicken, Pork, and burgers you don’t have to worry about this as much.
Now your cooking!
Adjust the flame as necessary when cooking. The flames will get bigger and flare up searing the food when the fat starts dripping down.
When grilling it's best to only turn the meat once.
Here are some Outdoor Grilling Tips on the approximate cooking times of different meats:
Don’t take these too literally as they are just approximates. Depending on how hot you have the grill, what kind of grill, how thick the meat is, and to what doneness you want the food, times vary.
Meat Approx. Cooking Time
Chicken 5-10 minutes each side
Fish 3-5 minutes each side
Hamburgers 14-18 minutes
Baby Back Ribs 30-45 minutes
Pork Chops 10-12 minutes
T-Bone Steak 14-17 minutes
Ribeye Steak 8-12 minutes
Sirloin Steak 13-16 minutes
Shrimp 3-4 minutes each side
Why not add veggies? Vegetables are great on the grill.
Corn on the cob, peppers, tomatoes, onions, potatoes, eggplant, squash, just about any vegetable can be grilled. You can buy a very handy vegetable tray as shown in the picture to the right that cooks veggies to perfection and are well worth the investment.
For now I’m going to assume you don’t have one. Until you do you can
wrap them in foil with a little butter or olive oil and some
seasonings. Place them away from the hotter parts of the grill and save
that room for the meat. Check on them about 10 minutes after putting them on and it’s as simple as that. It usually takes 15-20 minutes to cook veggies.
If you want to start growing your own delicious vegetables be sure to check out our other popular article: Vegetable Gardening Tips.
You want to keep your grilled food tender right? Then heed this Outdoor Grilling Tip. Use Tongs and/or a spatula not forks to turn your food. Poking holes in your grilling food let’s some of those precious tenderizing juices escape.
Don’t leave the grill unattended for longer than 5 minutes. Not only can it be dangerous but you can come back to a overdone piece of meat which is the worst.
The last of the Outdoor Grilling Tips is when your done cooking be sure to clean the grates while they are still hot. This removes the residue much easier than when the grates are cool.
You can do this shortly after your finished cooking or do it when your firing up the grill for the next grill out. Use a wire brush to do this. You don’t have to push hard as that will wear away the porcelain or paint finish on your grates.
And that’s it!
With these simple Outdoor Grilling Tips your cook-out is sure to be better than the last. The more you grill out the more you get to know to what doneness everyone likes it and how your grill behaves!
It’ll only get better from here. Enjoy!
Be sure to check out our other popular Outdoors & Grilling articles:
Tips on Grilling Steaks
Tips for Grilling Chicken
Vegetable Gardening Tips
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