How to Grill Any Vegetable

Your first association with grilling might be meaty things like steaks and burgers. Those foods are definitely wonderful, but they're not the only options, of course. Vegetables are excellent on the grill as long as you avoid ending up with vegetables that are charred on the outside and raw on the inside, or so overcooked that they're unrecognizable. Here's how to grill any vegetable with resounding success.

First, cut them up

Like all cooking, grilling is about surface area. The more you have, the quicker your food cooks. Cut your vegetables into even pieces for best results. You don't have to cut them up — a whole ear of corn on the cob is perfect the way it is. But it'll speed things up and they'll cook more evenly. You can also cut them according to how you want to use them, but remember that requires watching the cooking time. Thin zucchini planks or zucchini ribbons only need a tiny amount of time to get charred and cooked through, while sturdier large chunks will take longer. Keep in mind that larger pieces will be easier to move around on the grill with tongs, and smaller pieces might need to be put in a grilling skillet or foil packet to prevent them from falling through the slats and getting lost.

You can also use skewers to grill chopped vegetables together, to maximize your efficiency. Don't worry about mixing them up — it's actually better to keep all of one kind of vegetable on a skewer, since they'll cook at the same rate. (You can always pull them off the skewers and rearrange them later.)

Add oil and seasonings, but go easy on the salt

Give all your vegetable pieces a nice coating of oil before they hit the grill. A good everyday olive oil is a safe bet. Peanut oil or coconut oil will work too, and they'll lend different flavors to your food. You can season your vegetables very lightly, but since salt pulls moisture out of vegetables, too much before grilling will make it harder to get that great grill-marked, charred exterior.

Learn how long to grill vegetables

Use the thermometer built into your grill or a separate thermometer to make sure the grill is as hot as you want it. When grilling vegetables, you don't want it as hot as it can get — more in the medium range. That means roughly 400 to 425 degrees Fahrenheit is usually the sweet spot. Follow this chart to grill vegetables to the perfect temperature.

Learn how to use direct and indirect heat

Understanding how to use direct and indirect heat when grilling is especially important when grilling delicate items like vegetables. Direct heat is what it sounds like: cooking an item directly over the flames. Indirect heat is when you cook something adjacent to the heat source, rather than directly on it. So if you wrap potatoes in foil and put them on the grill to slowly cook to one side of the fire, that's indirect heat. If you are giving cabbage leaves a quick char for a salad, then use direct heat.

A combination of these methods is often a good bet for vegetables that take longer to cook through, like wedges of cabbage or whole carrots. Use the direct heat of the grill to get a good sear on the vegetable, and then move it to indirect heat so it can cook through more gently without scorching.

On charcoal grills, you'll want to set up the grill for cooking with indirect heat. Once your briquettes are going, arrange them on one side of the grill, leaving a spot on the other side open. That spot is where you can put food that you want to get more indirect than direct heat, as it's adjacent to the charcoal rather than directly on top of it.

If you are using a gas grill, simply light all the burners to wait until the grill comes up to the cooking temperature you want. Then turn off one row of burners. Placing your vegetables above the unlit burners, rather than the lit ones, will cook them using indirect heat.

Keep the grill lid handy

Whether you want to keep the grill lid closed or open while you're grilling has to do with what you're cooking. If you're cooking small or delicate vegetables, anything sliced smaller than three-quarters of an inch, keep the cover open. If the vegetables are thicker, you'll want to close the lid to help them cook through.

When you close the lid of a grill, you're essentially creating an oven, where hot air will circulate and help cook the food. That's useful for thicker slabs or big hunks of dense vegetables, like a whole cauliflower, for example. Of course, you can also use both methods: Sear the outside of your larger, thicker vegetables with the lid open, then move it to indirect heat and close the grill cover to allow them to cook all the way through. Thinner vegetables like asparagus won't need as much time to get cooked in the middle, so you can just sear them with direct heat, uncovered, and trust that they'll be done.

Season with salt after cooking

When you're happy with how the vegetables have cooked and have transferred them to a serving platter, now's the time to season them. Sprinkle some salt and crack some black pepper over them, add a squeeze of lemon if you like, or a simple sauce — grilled vegetables don't need much more than that.