Barbecue season is now well and truly upon us. Here are three trending ideas that are sure to brighten up your barbecues this summer.

1. Smashburgers

A smashburger is an ultra-thin burger that is cooked super quickly.

You can make smashburgers with any kind of meat, or with veggie and vegan ingredients too.

Take a burger – shop bought or homemade – and place it between two pieces of greaseproof paper. Use a steak tenderiser or rolling pin to smash it down to a thickness of 5 – 10mm.

To cook a smashburger, grill it for one to two minutes on one side. Then flip it over and grill it for a minute or two on the other side. Using a griddle pan makes things easier. Check it’s thoroughly cooked before serving.

The idea of a smashburger is that by cooking it quickly all the flavour and juiciness is kept, whilst the outside is crisp but not burned.

2. Global barbecue flavours

Global flavours on your barbecue are a hot trend this year.

Popular flavours include Mexican, Japanese, Malaysian and Balinese. Korean, which gives an irresistible sweet-but-smoky taste to your food, is a good choice too.

To make Korean barbecue sauce or marinade, mix together soy sauce, sesame oil, white wine vinegar, brown sugar, ginger, finely chopped garlic and spring onions.

You can use Korean barbecue sauce on most meats (spare ribs and pork chops work well), vegetables and tofu.

3. Plank grilling

This one is bound to impress your barbecue guests.

First, you’ll need to source some wooden grilling planks. These are hard to find in the shops, but online retailers such as Amazon have them. 

Grilling planks come in different wood types to impart different flavours to your food. Cedar wood is popular. Cherry, maple and oak are other options.

Soak your grilling planks in water for at least an hour so they don’t burn.

You can barbecue almost any kind of food on a grilling plank. They’re perfect for cooking fish, which is notoriously tricky to cook on a barbecue.

We hope you’ve found these ideas inspiring and that they’ll spice up your barbecues this summer. 

If you know someone who is a big fan of barbecues, please feel free to share this article with them.