Closet Cooking

25 Recipes for the Grill

With the warmer weather here grilling season is open and it is time to get your grill on! Dust off your barbecue, fire it up and start grilling your steaks, chicken, burgers, vegetables and even your fruits! Late spring is always a great time of year when the weather gets warmer and you can can start doing more things outside including cooking. With the first long weekend of warm weather upon us I thought that I would take the opportunity to pull out some of my favourite recipes that can be cooked outside on the grill. Of course burgers are featured predominately but lets not forget about chicken and fish and even fruits and vegetables. Once you have your meat or vegetable grilled you can use them in many different dishes from sandwiches to salads to wraps to tacos etc. No matter what you are grilling, it is bound to be outside cooking under the sun!

Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno Popper Burgers

Tequila Lime Grilled Chicken Club Sandwich with Guacamole and Roasted Jalapeno Mayo

Chicken Fajitas

Carne Asada (Grilled Marinated Steak)

Chipotle Lime Fish Tacos

Strawberry and Balsamic Grilled Chicken Salad

Grilled Chicken Club Sandwich with Avocado and Chipotle Caramelized Onions

Chicken Souvlaki Salad

Fajita Burgers

Grilled Pineapple Salsa

BBQ Chicken Salad with Creamy Avocado Dressing

Strawberry BBQ Chicken Club Sandwich with Bacon, Avocado and Goat Cheese

Buffalo Chicken Club Sandwich

Chicken Satay Salad in Spicy Peanut Dressing

Cilantro and Lime Fish Tacos

Burgers Smothered in a Caramelized Onion, Mushroom and Blue Cheese Sauce

Tequila Lime Grilled Chicken

Mojito Grilled Fish Tacos with Strawberry Salsa

Banh Mi Burgers with Vietnamese Caramel BBQ Sauce

Chicken Satay with Spicy Peanut Dipping Sauce

Salsa Verde Turkey Burger

Grilled Chicken Club Sandwich with Pesto Mayo

Greek Lamb Burger

Black and Blue Steak Sandwich

Bulgogi Burgers

More Recipes for the Grill

Looking for more recipes for the grill? Check out my Get Your Grill On! Pinboard.

Strawberry BBQ Chicken Spinach and Quinoa Salad with Bacon, Avocado and Goat Cheese

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After making the strawberry BBQ chicken club sandwiches with bacon, avocado and goat cheese I still had plenty of the roasted strawberry BBQ sauce leftover and I knew just what I wanted to make with it, a strawberry BBQ quinoa salad. I have been wanting to try making a BBQ chicken quinoa salad with black beans and corn for a while now but a strawberry BBQ quinoa salad suddenly sounded like a much better idea! I used a lot of the same flavours as in the strawberry BBQ chicken sandwich in this quinoa salad including the avocado, bacon and goat cheese since they worked so amazingly well together. I filled the quinoa salad out with baby spinach along with some green onions and cilantro. If you have the cooked chicken on hand, this salad is as easy to make as cooking the quinoa and throwing everything together and despite that it is so fantastically good!

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Crispy Baked Asparagus Fries

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I have really been looking forward to spring and the fresh local asparagus and one of the first things that I wanted to make with it was some crispy baked asparagus fries! Ever since I discovered that you can coat vegetables in panko bread crumbs and bake them that they would become healthy 'fries' I have been doing it with pretty much every vegetable that I can get my hands on. Given that asparagus is already in perfect 'fry' shape it seemed only natural to turn them in fries and it couldn't be easier to do so! You pretty much just need to dredge the asparagus in flour, dip in egg, coat in panko breadcrumbs and bake until crispy. All said and told you can be enjoying these healthy baked asparagus fries in about 20 minutes so you can make them whenever you want. If you are a fan of asparagus, you will definitely enjoy these asparagus fries and they might just be that one new asparagus that you absolutely need to try this spring!

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Strawberry BBQ Chicken Club Sandwich with Bacon, Avocado and Goat Cheese

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Armed with my shiny new roasted strawberry BBQ sauce I was ready to use it on something grilled! Before I had even made the strawberry BBQ sauce I was already thinking about using it in a grilled chicken club sandwich with lettuce, tomato and bacon in addition to the grilled chicken and the BBQ sauce. Even though the sandwich would be great just like that I really could not resist kicking it up a bit! I find that a creamy and tangy goat cheese tends to go really well with fruity sweet and spicy sauces like this strawberry BBQ sauce so I had to include some and a chicken club sandwich always benefits from some cool and creamy avocado! The flavours in this grilled chicken sandwich meld together magically and you will definitely be licking you fingers clean after eating one! With grilling season about to begin these strawberry BBQ chicken club sandwiches are a great way to kick things off this upcoming long weekend!

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Roasted Strawberry BBQ Sauce

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Grilling season is quickly approaching and I am getting ready by making some homemade BBQ sauces starting with this seasonal strawberry BBQ sauce. This strawberry BBQ sauce was inspired by the flavours in my strawberry and balsamic grilled chicken salad and my balsamic strawberry and chicken pizza with sweet onions and smoked bacon which predominantly feature the strawberry and balsamic vinegar flavours along with some Asian influences. I really wanted to be able to taste the strawberries in this BBQ sauce so that meant starting with a lot of strawberries and roasting them to concentrate their flavour. I like a BBQ sauce with a nice sweet side so for the sweetener I went with a combo of maple syrup and some homemade strawberry jam to add even more strawberry flavour. Up next was the balsamic vinegar for some tartness, soy sauce for the saltiness and a smoky and spicy chipotle chili in adobo. Continuing with the Asian influence I added plenty of garlic and ginger along with some BBQ sauce staples with a fresh cilantro finish. I have to say that this roasted strawberry BBQ sauce is addictively good! The strawberry flavours shine through and it has a really nice balance of sweet, spicy, tart and salty and lets not forget those sultry smoky undertones.

For my next batch I plan on adding bacon since both the salad and the pizza that inspired this dressing include bacon!

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Crispy Baked Quinoa Crusted Chicken Parmesan

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As many of you know, I am a big fan of quinoa and I have been ever since I first tried it. You can use quinoa in surprisingly many ways and I have been enjoying experimenting with different ways of using it over the last few years. My next experiment was to use it as a replacement for breadcrumbs to get a crispy coating on chicken (or other things) that was inspired by the fact that when you bake or toast cooked quinoa it gets nice and crispy. One of the first things that came to mind to try the quinoa coating on was chicken parmesan which typically consists of breaded chicken that is fried or baked and then covered in a marinara sauce and melted cheese. The recipe for the quinoa crusted version of chicken parmesan could not be simpler, you pretty much just take your basic baked chicken parmesan recipe and replace the breadcrumbs with cooked quinoa.

The cooked quinoa coating on the chicken toasted up nice and crispy and golden brown on the chicken just like bread crumbs and I quite enjoyed the texture of it! Now that I know that the quinoa coating works I can't wait to try it on other things! Crispy quinoa crusted zucchini fries anyone?

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34 Spring Recipes

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Although spring has officially been here for a while now I don't really see spring as having started until the weather gets warmer and the local asparagus starts to show up, which it finally did this week. This is always a happy time of year for me as it means that for the next few months I will get to head down to the farmers market every week to see what is new and pick up a few things up. With the first spring produce here I thought that it was a great opportunity to gather some of my favourite recipes using some spring ingredients including asparagus, ramps, fiddleheads, peas, fava beans, rhubarb, strawberries, artichokes and morel mushrooms. I hope that you enjoy these spring recipes! I am definitely looking forward to using them in some new recipes over the next few weeks!