Easy BBQ Recipes: How to Spice Up to Your Next Barbie

While we Aussies take pride in being handy with a pair of barbeque tongs, even we can get in a bit of
barbeque rut from time to time.

Don’t get us wrong – there’s nothing wrong with throwing some steak and snags on the barbie and whipping up a couple of quick salads (who doesn’t love a crunchy noodle salad?)

But if you feel like your barbeques could do with some spicing up – y’know to keep the passion alive – we have some quick and easy BBQ meal ideas to add some zing back into barbequing.

We’re not here to bombard you with complicated BBQ recipes with 26 ingredients and half a day of prep time. Quite the opposite in fact. Simply adding a couple of tasty homemade sauces and seasonings to your barbeque repertoire could be a total game changer when you’re firing up the barbie at your place.

Best of all, when it’s homemade, you can enjoy mouth-watering flavours without the additives, preservatives, and flavour enhancers you’ll find in the store-bought stuff. Fresh food made from fresh ingredients is all the flavour enhancer you need.

Get Saucy

A truly great barbeque can be all about the simple things, done right. Like serving a rich, chunky tomato relish or a spicy homemade barbeque sauce on the side rather than stock standard sauce out of a bottle. Try these quick and easy recipes for max flavour with minimum effort.

Easy-As Tomato Relish

This delicious tomato relish may only take less than 20 minutes to whip up, but your barbeque guests will be talking about it for weeks.

Ingredients:
1 punnet of cherry tomatoes
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 cloves of crushed garlic
1 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon brown sugar
Salt to taste

Method:
Cut your cherry tomatoes into quarters then fry them off in a pan for a couple of minutes with the olive oil. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 10 minutes. Let your relish cool then pop it in a bowl to ready to serve or pour it in a jar and keep it in the fridge until it’s barbeque time.

Banging BBQ sauce

This super-easy, yet super tasty sauce is quick to whip up. And because you’re the master of your own destiny, you can tweak the ingredients to suit your taste, or even add your own secret ingredient (like a sprinkle of chilli powder) to create your signature blend.

Ingredients:
2 cups tomato sauce (if possible start with organic tomato sauce or ketchup)
Half a cup of brown sugar
2 teaspoons paprika
1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste.

Method:
Add all ingredients into a bowl and whisk to combine or pop them in the blender and blitz them to a smooth saucy consistency.

Mayo Marinade

Super-creamy homemade mayo is an amazing addition to your BBQ dinner in more ways than one. It’s not only a delicious addition to burgers or chicken kebabs, but it also makes an amazing marinade for steak or chicken. Say what? Yep, coating your steak with mayo before you add the rest of your spices keeps the meat tender and juicy while also helping your seasoning to stick.

Stick Mixer Whole Egg Mayo

If you have a stick blender in the back of your kitchen cupboard, now is the time to put it to use and whip up some delicious homemade mayo.

This recipe includes mustard which not only gives your mayo an extra bit of homemade zing, but also helps it to emulsify (i.e. come together and not separate).

Ingredients:
1 large egg at room temperature (just leave one on the bench for half an hour before you start)
1 tablespoon of vinegar (preferably white wine or apple cider vinegar)
1 teaspoon of lemon juice
1 teaspoons of Dijon mustard
1cup of light-flavoured olive oil or avocado oil
Salt to taste

Method:
Grab your stick mixer beaker (the tall narrow kind that just fits the mixer without a lot of room either side) and carefully crack your egg into it making sure that you don’t break the yolk. Then add all the other ingredient and allow the mixture to settle.

Next insert your stick mixer, ensuring you fully cover the yolk with the head of the mixer. Start blending at full power and as you begin to see the mixture emulsify. As you see the mixture change, gradually raise your mixer up through the mixture, watching it transform into creamy mayo as you go. You can do one more short pass up and down to complete the transformation. Voila, super-creamy, zingy homemade mayo.

Spice it up

Adding some simple spices to your meat or vegetables before you toss them on the barbeque can be a total gamechanger. Making your own blend like Dukkah is easy to do and will transform your meal from ‘meh’ to ‘more please’.

Dukkah

A delicious Egyptian spice and nut mix, Dukkah is traditionally served with with bread, but it can also be used as a crusty seasoning for meats or vegetable slices (like eggplant), destined for the barbeque.
It can also be made ahead of time and stored in your pantry for when you want to heat up the barbie and spice it up.

Ingredients:
½ cup nuts (hazelnuts and almonds work well)
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seeds (or ground fennel)
1 teaspoon cumin
2 teaspoons Coriander
Salt

Method:
Add all your ingredients into a food processor and pulse until you have a coarse blend (you want to make sure your nut pieces are still a little chunky). Don’t blend for too long or you’ll end up with nut butter!

Place your dukkah mixture into a skillet on the stove and toast over a medium heat for a few minutes until fragrant. Toss or stir every minute or so to avoid burning.

Allow your dukkah to cool, then transfer to air tight jar to store until needed.

A juicy secret

The Greek word ‘souvlaki’ simply means ‘meat on skewers’. But it’s what you do to the meat that counts. The real magic is in the marinade which will give you delicious, succulent meat, every time.

Greek Souvlaki

Rather than thinking about Souvlaki as a recipe, simply remember these five ingredients so you can add this simple marinade to your everyday barbeque arsenal.

Ingredients:
Oregano (fresh or dried)
Thyme (fresh or dried)
4 tablespoons olive oil
Juice of one lemon
4 cloves garlic

Method:
If you have fresh oregano and thyme on hand, grab a couple of handfuls and chop finely. (If you don’t have any of the fresh stuff, dried herbs will do just fine and still add great flavour to your kebabs.) Throw all ingredients in a bowl, give them a quick stir, then pour or baste over your meat skewers. The longer you can let your skewers marinade the more succulent the meat will be. Even letting them sit for half an hour will help them to tenderise, but, if possible, try to plan ahead and prepare them a few hours early or even the day before for maximum tenderness.

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