By nature, grilling is inherently a healthy way to prepare food. The other great thing is you can grill almost anything. Here are some of our favorite healthy grilling ideas.
Grilled salad
You read that right, you can grill your salad! Simply take hearts of romaine and split them in half longwise so you have a long flat surface to put in contact with your grill. Brush the freshly cut side with olive oil and add a little salt and pepper. Place the oiled side down on a medium heat grill and let it cook for a few minutes. Keep an eye on it because it can burn quickly. Once it’s done take it off and give it a few sprinkles of red wine vinegar and parmesan cheese.
Grilled chicken, shrimp, beef, etc
Keeping any meat healthy is about seasoning it before the grill and not dousing it in sauces after. No matter what your cooking ability is you can do this with no need for store bought marinades. Mix together a ¼ cup of both olive oil and vinegar, experiment with your vinegars since there are a ton of options out there. For seasoning always start with salt, you want to cook with salt to help bring out the juiciness instead of adding it on at the table. The other seasonings depend on the flavors you are going for. Here is a handy guide to what goes best together:
- Italian: basil, parsley, oregano
- Mediterranean: oregano, rosemary, lemon
- Mexican: cumin, chili powder, cilantro
Garlic goes great in all of these. When it comes to herbs and garlic, fresh is always better. Once you have your seasoning mix picked add it to the oil and vinegar and let your protein marinade in it for at least an hour. Just toss on the grill until cooked to your likeness.
Veggies
We suggest a grill pan [link to product] for one of these to put over your grill grates so no vegetables fall through. Season up the veggie of your choice – pretty much all vegetables tastes great grilled. A mix of soy sauce, olive oil, and pepper is a good choice just don’t add salt since the soy sauce already is pretty salty. Put them on the grill until they have a nice char and serve.
Fruit
Lots of different fruits work on the grill but pineapple and peaches are our favorites. For peaches, cut in half and remove the pit. Grill cut side down and keep an eye on them since they have natural sugars they can go from delicious to burned very quickly. Once off the grill sprinkle with some honey, brown sugar, or cinnamon and serve with vanilla ice cream. With pineapple, break down the fruit to slices and place on the grill and the same applies to grilling pineapple as to the peaches. Once grilled they also go great with vanilla ice cream.