Better Grilling
Tips to simplify your outdoor summer cooking.
Grilling is not only one of the healthiest methods to cook a great meal – because fat drips away from food – it’s also one of the easiest. Cooking outdoors eliminates heavy cleanup in your kitchen – saving energy and time. Makes one wonder: Could cooking be any more carefree? You bet! By employing a few grilling tips and handy tools, you can make your next backyard barbecue simpler and safer.
Meet the right heat. The last thing you want is for your culinary creation to make yourself and your guests sick. Meat needs to reach a minimum temperature (165 degrees for chicken, 145 for beef, 160 for burgers TEMP? for seafood) to eliminate harmful bacteria and make it safe to eat. Gauge safe temperatures and turn food for even cooking with a thermometer fork,
Get a better Grip. Long-handled tools like a spatula and tongs keep your hands far from the flame as you cook and help you scoop, grip and flip food like a tongs and give you extra stability and grip to flip food.
Stir-Fry It. Shish kebabs are barbecue classics. But skewers can be a pain to thread and even tougher to turn without getting burned, or without the food spinning and falling off. Skip the skewers, and use a grill-friendly stir fry pan instead.
Flip and Turn. A rectangular nonstick grill basket keeps food contained and helps cook hard-to-turn items such as flaky seafood or sliced veggies. Plus, you can flip over an entire cooktop’s worth of chicken breasts or steaks with a single turn.
Keep it Clean. Cleaning the grill usually requires serious elbow grease, but there are easier ways. Start with a clean grill every time you cook by barbecuing food directly on top of a grill liner. Made of the same heavy-duty aluminum used in disposable baking pans, the liners fit over grill bars and are recyclable.
Thinking of going on a picnic? Read our tips for healthy picnic planning.
