’Tis the season to venture outside and enjoy the pleasure of cooking and imbibing your meals under the warm sunshine. And cooking in the great outdoors gets an exciting uplift when you grab your tongs and try BBQ fusion dishes.
BBQ fusion is a culinary trend that weaves traditional barbecue techniques with flavors and ingredients from global cuisines. It’s a fun way to reinvent classic grilled dishes like burgers by incorporating elements from varied culinary traditions.
Think burgers seasoned with Caribbean spices, or grilled fish tacos surprisingly stuffed with Asian flavors. Flame-licked pizza adorned with a punchy gochujang mayo sauce? You bet. The possibilities are endless, and the goal is to create unique and delicious dishes by combining unexpected tastes that push the boundaries of conventional barbecue, yet all served in a casual manner that befits flip-flop season.
Exciting, right? Now let’s get outside, unwind, and explore some sizzling BBQ fusion meals.
Banh Mi Grilled Pizza
Inspired by the popular Vietnamese banh mì sandwich, this grilled pizza is bursting with fresh and lively flavor from crunchy pickled veggies, gingery pork, and fiery mayo sauce. No pizza oven is required when you have a grill. Flatbreads are an easy pizza base, but you could be more adventurous and grill formed pizza dough.
Kung Pao Salmon Tacos with Broccoli Slaw
Buttery grilled salmon smothered in a deeply flavored Chinese-inspired kung pao sauce and topped with fresh broccoli slaw and peanut crunch is a recipe for taco night happiness. Using the same sauce for the fish and broccoli elevates the tacos with an even greater savory, spicy, sweet flavor that is the signature of kung pao.
Jerk Turkey Burgers with Grilled Pineapple Sauce
Jerk chicken is the most popular dish to come out of Jamaica, and it’s the inspiration for these burgers that sing to the island nation’s audacious spirit. Turkey burgers are flavored with Jamaican-inspired seasoning, seared, and then served adorned with a punchy pineapple sauce. The result is a burger with the perfect balance of seasoning, smoke, and heat.
Brazilian-Style Tempeh Churrasco with Chimichurri
Churrasco is the traditional Brazilian way to barbecue. Strips of steak are sliced thin, then grilled on skewers and finally dressed in herby chimichurri sauce. Meaty tempeh is a noble stand-in for beef to make this grilling tradition of Brazil a plant-based crowd pleaser.
Harissa Smothered Chicken with Golden Grilled Potatoes
With seasoning inspiration from North African cuisine, this grilled chicken and potato meal is simple enough to serve on any summer weeknight. Harissa is a feisty chili paste hailing from North Africa and an exciting marinade for juicy chicken. With a bit of extra fat, chicken thighs tend to retain more juicy flavor on the grill than does breast meat. Taking the extra step of par-boiling your potatoes until slightly soft before grilling them helps ensure that the outsides don’t char long before the potatoes are cooked all the way through on the grill. If available, try the Moroccan spice mixture ras el hanout to season the potatoes.
This collection originally appeared on alive.com as “Fire It Up.”
