For a Great BBQ, Make 1 of These 22 Sides. For the Best BBQ Ever, Cook More—Many More!

If you're looking for that ultimate crowd pleaser try this refreshing, crunchy slaw. Shredded napa cabbage, crunchy almonds, sweet peas, and crisp radish slices are tossed with a creamy soy dressing in, arguably, our most requested recipe.

Recipe: Crunchy Napa Cabbage Slaw

Chris Cosentino of Cockscomb restaurant in San Francisco likes to serve this barely seared vegetable dish hot. Since it requires a blazing fire, start with a fresh chimney, if you’re using charcoal.

Recipe: Blistered Squash Blossoms

A touch of char adds a pleasantly bitter counterpoint to artichokes' natural sweetness. Once you clean and simmer them, they grill in about the same time as boneless chicken breasts.

Recipe: Classic Grilled Artichokes

We reimagined Mexican street corn with Israeli flavors, seasoning the grilled ears with tangy yogurt, salty feta, herbs, citrus, and a little heat.

Recipe: Israeli Street Corn

During his charcuterie apprenticeship in Switzerland, Elias Cairo of Olympia Provisions in Portland learned to make Landrauchschinken, Swiss country ham that’s cured, dipped in burnt sugar with juniper and rosemary, and smoked. He wraps slices around asparagus and grills the bundles over a wood fire—a dead-simple but phenomenally flavorful dish. It’s also good made with prosciutto, and of course, if your grill is charcoal, that will work, too.

Recipe: Grilled Ham and Asparagus

Meltingly tender, these mustard greens get a little snap from a drizzle of cider vinegar and a good quantity of spring onions. These onions resemble green onions, but the greens are thicker and the bulbs much larger; also, they have fairly sharp, bracing flavor that mellows when cooked. If you can't find them, use a triple amount of green onions (scallions) instead--it's equally good.

Recipe: Braised Mustard Greens with Spring Onions

Collards are a classic BBQ accompaniment; this recipe sweetens the greens up with pear. Nuts and grains make this a full meal when paired with a barbequed protein.

Recipe: Collard Greens Salad with Freekeh

To create this refreshing salad, we started with an easy recipe for pickled daikon courtesy of chef Alexander Ong from his days at Betelnut restaurant in San Francisco.

Recipe: Spicy-Sweet Asian Slaw with Pickled Daikon

This simple, crunchy, fresh slaw counters the fattiness of burgers and rich barbecued meats.

Recipe: Jicama and Green Cabbage Slaw

This recipe, from Reader Jeffrey Lehane of Lone Jack, Missouri, runs hot, so you might want to err on the side of under-spicing.

Recipe: Fat Jeff’s Fat Tire Beans

Cindy Daniel of the late, lamented Healdsburg Shed in Northern California, learned how to make this moist cornbread from her mom while she was growing up in Louisiana.

Recipe: Buttermilk Cornbread

Basic cornbread, a classic BBQ staple, gets a tad more sophisticated with the addition of smoky brown butter, and a touch of maple sweetness. Try it slathered with spicy jalapeño butter.

Recipe: Brown Butter Maple Cornbread

Apple cider vinegar makes this German-style slaw ultra-refreshing.

Recipe: Carrot, Apple, and Corn Slaw

This raw salad shows off the beauty of a mix of squashes. Investing a little time to salt them, which pulls out moisture, ensures that the dressing doesn’t get watered down. If you have zucchini blossoms, tear a few into strips and add them as well.

Recipe: Summer Squash Salad with Crispy Shallots

This tangy, exuberant salad comes together quickly, considering the size of the recipe (and it can easily be halved or even quartered). And it’s even quicker if you do it with friends, so the recipe is written with that in mind.

Created by Brad Cecchi, chef and owner of Canon, a seasonally driven restaurant in Sacramento, the salad brings in flavors from all over the globe and blends them with top-quality local produce. “It’s great for a block party, because it doesn’t need to be hot or ice-cold and won’t wilt,” he says. “It’s not your typical block-party fare—it’ll make you look cool. And it’s beautiful.” If you’re looking for something to serve with it, he suggests grilled or smoked whole chickens, baby back ribs, or beef tri-tips.

Recipe: Summer Nectarine and Herb Salad

This is our standby Sunset salad in the summer, when corn is sweet and juicy and peppers pile up in our gardens and markets. It’s easy—just throw the vegetables on the grill and make the salad while the chicken or steak is on the fire.

Recipe: Grilled Corn Poblano Salad with Chipotle Vinaigrette

So cute even vegetable-haters can’t resist them, these little wheels of corn have emphatic flavor. We give you four different choices for seasoning.

Recipe: Grilled Corn Cobettes

Crisp-edged bacon, starchy potatoes, and juicy onions together make an unbeatable side for just about any summer dish. The recipe, by Greg Denton and Gabrielle Quiñónez Denton of Ox restaurant in Portland, is adapted from their book Around the Fire with Stacy Adimando. You'll need 6 flat metal skewers, each 14 in., or a dozen 7-in. skewers. You’ll need 6 flat metal skewers, each 14 in., or a dozen 7-in. skewers.

Recipe: Grilled Potato, Onion, and Bacon Skewers

For this salad, chef Alex Seidel of Denver restaurants Fruition and Mercantile Dining & Provision uses a mix of tomato varieties—whichever are ripest at the moment in his greenhouse. The eggplant "croutons" are small cubes, breaded in seasoned panko and briskly fried. His Fruition Farms Dairy & Creamery also produces the burrata cheese.

Recipe: Heirloom Tomato Salad with Arugula, Burrata, and Eggplant Croutons

This savory-sweet summer salad is a perfect example of the saying, "If it grows together, it goes together."

Recipe: Watermelon, Corn and Tomato Salad

Tomatoes and avocados are like summer on a plate. The sprinkle of sesame seeds and the addition of soy sauce to the dressing give the dish a dash of worldliness and enrich the flavors.

 Recipe: Tomato and Avocado Salad with Soy Vinaigrette

Fresh, juicy, and colorful layered tomatoes, drizzled with sweet and tangy balsamic vinegar make for a refreshing salad on a hot summer day.

Recipe: Marinated Heirloom Tomato Salad