How To Barbeque - Appetizers

I’m sure your magnetic personality and charm are enough to draw the hoards to you as you carefully nurture and tend to the grilling, but if the silly hat and apron don’t do the trick, then you can step into the pro arena of barbecue mastery and try your hand at some appetizers!


You can prepare tasty appetizers such as mini pizzas, mini tacos, Buffalo wings and potato skins on the grill and they will be tastier than if you prepared them in your oven. The main difference between cooking appetizers on the grill and cooking them in the oven is that a grill has a much more intense heat, even if you are using the indirect method. But if you coat the cooking surface with oil, use indirect heat, the upper rack and keep a close eye on your food, you will have everyone eating out of your hand...literally!

A tool that can be very useful when grilling vegetables or appetizers is the grill topper. It’s a tray-like device that won’t impede the heat from your grill.  You can find grill toppers at hardware and department stores and once you put it to use, you'll keep on using it! You can use it as a tray and transfer everything to the preheated grill at once, then, when  the food is cooked, just remove the grill topper and serve, straight from grill to table!

The trick to making the best appetizers for your gathering is to do as much of the preparation as possible in advance. (Once your wife knows that you can handle the heat, she won’t mind helping you out.) You can prepare most of them a day or more ahead of time and refrigerate, or even freeze them.  The mini pizzas, potato skins and Buffalo wings can even be bought "ready to cook" and will just require a little heating on the grill, and nobody will be the wiser. The grill will heat them up fast too, so you won't need to stay around the grill…too long.

Just like at any party, you want the appetizers to compliment the meal and not fill people up so they don’t enjoy the rest of your efforts.  If you can, get pre-marinated chicken or beef strips, skewer them with some mushrooms or light veggies and dip.  They taste great, but aren't filling.

Virtually anything you can do in the oven, you can do on your grill.  I already enjoy doing corn, mini bell peppers, mushrooms, Belgian endive, cabbage, crook necked squash and any number of legumes on the grill for our sides.  (All using the indirect method, of course.)

Use your imagination! Once you feel confident in those, try doing some of our favorites, like stuffed jalapeno poppers, or roasted artichoke with aioli dip.  There's a special tray for the poppers that makes things a breeze and you you make several different fillings (indirect, 15 mins.)  The roasted artichokes need to be boiled for ten minutes first, then seasoned, indirect heat for ten minutes, then direct for five.  Look up any recipe for the aioli dip or use Hollandaise or French Onion, or whatever dip you think you can do with confidence.  It's different and it's fun, and everyone has to eat with their hands!

Start paying attention to menu appetizers, particularly those you enjoy at some of your favorite restaurants.  Usually the servers are pretty good at spilling the beans on what goes into some of their specialties.  But, if you’ve been paying attention, you won’t have any trouble modifying or replicating your appetizers, just through experimentation.

Hopefully, as you apply the techniques that I have presented in this series of articles, following the rules and the tips, you’ll gain confidence in using your grill as more than something to send smoke signals with and experimenting with new flavors and techniques will become second nature.