Grilling Tips from the Walden Team
Summer is here and grilling season is in full swing! As a team of fellow home cooks, we thought we’d share a few of our favorite tips to keep in mind this season:
Clean your grill every time
This will set you up for minimal sticking on your cooking surface. Bonus: you can clean your grill with just an onion! Just heat the grill, slice the onion in half and rub on the grates.
Hot and patient
Use a hot grill to get that delightful crust and be patient with cooking to your desired temp. Don’t forget to use a meat thermometer!
Avoid drying out your steak!
When grilling our grass-fed steaks (or other cuts for that matter), sear over high heat first to get your sear then move them to an indirect heat section of the grill to get to your desired doneness temp.
Don’t flip too often
Let the meat cook! Once one side gets a good sear, it will release more naturally. Continuing to flip can increase cook time and damage the protein, ultimately contributing to a dryer dinner.
To cover or not to cover
If what you’re cooking is ¾ in thick or less, no need to close the lid of the grill when cooking, if it’s thicker, closing the lid while cooking will allow heat to build and for the meat to cook more evenly.
Plan a little bit ahead
Bring meat to room temperature before grilling to ensure even cooking! This can take 20-60 min depending on the cut and thickness of the piece of meat.
Marinating
Don’t reuse your marinade or add it to fully cooked meat, if you want to use some as a sausage or basting, set some aside before marinating. Always do your marinating in the fridge, and avoid marinating for longer than 48 hrs, which can cause fibers to break down and become mushy.
Repurpose something on hand
Have a roast in your freezer you missed using over the winter months? Just defrost, dice, and make into easy kabobs!
Grill your fruit too!
Charred lemon makes an incredible ingredient for vinaigrette. Grilled pineapple is fantastic in tacos (with a little bacon or lardo). Halving and charring stone fruit caramelizes the sugars and makes a great pair with pork chops or sliced in a steak salad (with blue cheese, white beans and summer greens).
No grill?
No problem- you can follow all of these tips for a cast iron grill pan, using the oven as your indirect heat source.
Don’t forget to shop our monthly specials page to add everything you need to your upcoming share! Happy grilling from all of us at Walden!
