Memorial Day Menu Ideas

Decided to switch it up and do a Chili-Lime rubbed Flank Steak with the baked beans, corn on the grill with the lime zest butter (Tyler Florence recipe idea), a watermelon salad and Jacque Torres Chocolate Chip cookies. Thanks for all the suggestions! They will be used throughout the grilling season and summer cookouts! Happy Memorial Day, everyone!

My go to sides for Memorial Day/summer BBQs are panzanella and a Balkan cucumber yogurt salad from the Moosewood cookbook. You can also try this one, it's delicious: https://food52.com/recipes/16513-celery-and-za-atar-tabouli

I make a watermelon salad with cigilene mozzarella, red onion , grape tomatoes and fresh basil, nice cool contrast to the fatty steaks and burgers. grill the corn and take it off the cob for a nice salad. warm potato tossed with whole grain mustard and herbs. Lastly I like to put out then sliced grilled zucchini/eggplant/ yellow squash/ red onion. people can use them as sides or on the burger. good luck

I've made this corn salad many times. The dressing is so good I usually make extra and use it over lettuce salad as well. https://food52.com/recipes/12928-dilled-crunchy-sweet-corn-salad-with-buttermilk-dressing

I've also made this corn side dish with good results: https://food52.com/recipes/34760-kickin-corn-with-avocado-cream

How about homemade baked beans? Or this recipe for salt crusted potatoes https://food52.com/recipes/22261-jose-pizarro-s-salt-crusted-potatoes-with-cilantro-mojo

This salad is really tasty: https://food52.com/recipes/9110-radish-and-pecan-grain-salad
Also if you don't have a set plan for steaks this is recipe is fantastic: http://recipes.oregonlive.com/recipes/grilled-beef-skirt-steak-with-onion-marinade-and-chimichurri

If you want to jazz up corn on the cob, you might like what I did tonight. I soaked some corn in water for a about half and hour, then my husband grilled them in the husks. I removed the husks and rubbed mayo over them. Then I rolled them in crumbled cojita cheese and sprinkled on chopped cilantro. It was very simple to do but it gave them a little excitement than plain corn on the cob.

My go to for summer cook outs is a low country shrimp boil. With the bagged zatarines spice bag. Very easy. Start it with beer simmer...fill with water and salt it, then your sausage, simmer, then potatoes, simmer, then corn cut in thirds, simmer, then the shrimp for 10 mins or so. Drain it and dump it on newsprint. Salad and cocktail sauce. You're done.

Thank you for the the wonderful suggestions. I'm mainly looking for side dishes, I should have been clearer on the request. The burgers and steak are always requested so anything that would jazz up the usual corn on the cob side, would be great! The potato salad sounds delicious, Stephanie G!

I recently tried the "beer cooler sous vide" method from J Kenjie Lopez-Alt's The Food Lab. (pics of my first try with flank steak here: https://www.instagram.com/p/BDriEGkOYcZ/?hl=en). If you have a well insulated beer cooler, I suggest making steak tacos, it was so good. I used flank steak, but some chuck steak would be more tender and a bit cheaper if you have lots of people coming. You can make red, white and blue condiments/garnishes for everyone to choose from (and definately try grilling some flour tortillas, yum!)

You can find the technique here on Serious Eats: http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/04/cook-your-meat-in-a-beer-cooler-the-worlds-best-sous-vide-hack.html

I try to break the rules whn it comes to holidays so my inclination is to do something like a muffaletta https://food52.com/recipes/4805-waiting-for-bonaparte-muffaletta-the-remix-edition
One thing I real want to do this year is take my porchetta recipe outdoors and spit roast it. That's what you see on Italian market days or outside the football grounds.

Try the Eggy Potato Salad from Bon Appetit or you can find it on the epicurious website. http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/eggy-potato-salad-with-pickles

Fish tacos. And grill a couple of portobello mushrooms as well. That pretty much takes care of the pescatarian, vegetarian/vegan, non-dairy and gluten-free folks.