The choreographer for the Bolshoi Ballet would still scratch their head at how to time the cooking for Thanksgiving day. Your oven and stove top are the main stage, with every single performer, from the principle dancers (your turkey) to the corps (your side dishes) all raring to dance into frame. So let’s shake it up a little, and offload some of your cooking elsewhere—your grill.
Now, sure—if it’s snowing or raining, you might not be particularly game to spend time standing around your barbecue, but it’s a safe and fun way to get out of the heat of the kitchen and keep your range free for the stuff that really needs it, like your pies.
Don’t be intimidated by your grill. I know it looks different, but it’s still just a heat source, and you can control it as such. I once baked a three-layer cake for 50 people on a cheap grocery-store-bought barbecue, so don’t sweat it. (I will be taking no follow-up questions). Some grills, like mine, even have a side burner that you can use as a regular stovetop burner. Here are some ways to use your barbecue grill to offload some of your holiday dishes.
The main event
Hear me out—a spatchcocked turkey would be a refreshing take on Thanksgiving. Just imagine it: the grill marks, the self-basted meat. Even within grilling, there’s a whole bunch of variations. You can add a few minutes of hot smoke at various points to get a nice light smokiness, or go whole-hog and cold smoke the entire bird. I can find no reason within theoretical physics that a beer-can turkey wouldn’t work, if you had the right tallboy. If your grill has a rotisserie, a roasted bird over the grill would make a perfectly moist offering at the table.
The side show
Of course, you could grill your vegetable sides. Brussels sprouts on the grill would be delicious, with a slight char. Broccoli cooks easily, and you could certainly shift from whipped or mashed potatoes to grilled potatoes, even sweet potatoes. Slice your sweet potatoes into thick planks and treat them with olive oil, garlic and salt and pepper, then grill them to perfection. Parboil baby potatoes inside, even in the microwave, then grill them on the barbecue. You can throw almost anything into a foil packet and sauté it on the grill, whether that’s mushrooms in butter and garlic, or asparagus with sea salt and lemon juice.
As a dish warmer
If you’ve made whole casserole dishes ahead, whether that’s mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, vegetables, or trays of stuffing, you can literally take the entire (oven-safe) tray and put it right on the grill to reheat. Those large tin foil pans that you can buy in the store this time of year are perfect for this, so it doesn’t need to be fancy.
To make this work, you want to use indirect heat and turn the grill into an oven. Turn one burner on, but leave the rest off. In a charcoal grill, move all the hot coals to one side. Place the pans on the opposite side of the grill from the heat, and shut the lid. This will prevent the bottom of the pans from burning. Leave the pans on long enough to reheat through and then remove them. The only thing a grill can’t do is crisp the top of your dishes.
Just remember, if this is part of the plan, to be sure you have enough charcoal or propane for the day, and a good pair of boots so you don’t slip and fall going back and forth to the grill.
