How to Cook a Fourth of July BBQ From Start to Finish Allrecipes

It's time for a cookout worth celebrating, packed with juicy burgers, classic hot dogs, summer sides, and a sweet finale served up red, white, and blue. Have you ever heard of freezer coleslaw? Yes, I said freezer, but it's not gonna be served frozen. Preparing it this way makes it ideal for make-ahead situations, and obviously, it's gonna start off really cold, so it's perfect for putting out in that hot summer heat. So to the cabbage, I'm also adding in shredded carrots, a little bit of onion, and bell pepper. All right, I've got my boiling water. Gonna go in with some salt, stir that up. I'm gonna pour it straight over the cabbage. We're gonna let this set for a little while just to let that salt draw out that extra moisture, and then we'll drain it. Meanwhile, we can make the dressing. Now, this part is how I typically do my coleslaw. We're going to make a dressing that's also gonna be hot, and we're gonna pour it over the veggies. So it's a combination of water. It's a really sweet and sour kind of dressing. So for the sour, apple cider vinegar, and plenty of it. I like to add even a little more than the recipe calls for. And then celery seed. This, to me, is the iconic flavor of this kind of coleslaw. So I'm gonna heat this up, and once it gets hot, I'm gonna stir in a bunch of sugar and let that dissolve. All right, so once the sugar dissolves, pour it over our drained cabbage. Now, while we did just pour a bunch of water over, the point is to help draw out the moisture from the other vegetables. So we are gonna drain it. So it sounds contradictory, but we don't want a watery coleslaw. The beauty of this dish is that you can make this one, two, three days in advance. So perfect for cooking for the crowd that you're gonna have. Add it to our freezer bags. When it comes time to serve, you're just gonna thaw it out. Drain it, because it will produce more liquid, especially after it's frozen, and then thaws. And then add it to your serving dish. At that point, if you do wanna add any mayonnaise, you can. Sometimes I like a little, just like a hint of a creaminess to add to it. But since we'll be outside, I'll probably just keep mine vinegar-based. Of course, it's a great side, but it also makes for a great topping to those delicious hot dogs off the grill, which we'll get to later. Done and done, and ready to freeze. When the time comes, got our delicious frozen slaw. I'm gonna let it thaw a bit, but when we go outside, it'll still be icy cold, and then it can sit there for the rest of the day during our cookout, and it'll be perfect to serve. Upon researching the most classic sides to serve at an All-American cookout, the number one answer, potato salad. So of course, I have to include potato salad, and this is a recipe from All Recipes called Perfect Potato Salad, so why not? But I am gonna share with you a little hack to making it really easy to prepare for a crowd. Already got my potatoes boiling, but here's how you do it the easiest, fastest way without having to peel and chop a bunch of potatoes, which is ideal when you're making this for a big crowd. You just take a knife and score the skin of your potato all the way around, and plop it straight into the water. Then as it cooks, the skin is going to loosen from the flesh and we should just be able to peel the peel right off. No peeler required for these potatoes. And I've already got them going right here. And you also wanna make sure that water is heavily salted because we are going to take away the skin, so we wanna be sure enough salt got into the flesh. Now I'm just gonna chop up the veggies going in while those cook. To me, a cookout like this, you want to meet everyone's expectations. This might not be the time to try out new tricks. Now this one does have mayonnaise in it, but of course, I'm breaking out the hack on how to keep it cold when we serve it. Celery and then a little bit of sweet onion. I've also got a few boiled eggs. I'm gonna chop those up too. I love adding fresh herbs here, so you could do some dill. Recipe just calls for parsley. You could also add in chives. I guess add green onions too. All right, you want them to be fork tender or knife tender, like so. And then you just want them to cool off until they're just cool enough to handle but still warm because it's just gonna be easier to peel and cut while they're still slightly warm. Once they're cool enough to handle, just go ahead and kind of just slide the peel off. If it sticks a little bit, you can use a knife to loosen it up, but it does work. Then once they're peeled, they're already tender that you can cut these potatoes with a small paring knife versus breaking out the big chef knife. Cube them up. And I like in my potato salad, especially ones like this, to use a russet potato so that it kind of breaks up. It's almost like mashed potatoes, but then you get your crunch from all the veggies. Ta-da. Now add it all to a bowl. Now I am adding an ingredient that is not in the recipe, even though the recipe is perfect the way it is, perfect potato salad. I can't have potato salad. My mom will not have it if it doesn't have a little sweet relish in it. The recipe also calls to just mix the dressing and then pour it over. I'm just a dump and go kind of girl, you know? It's all going to the same place anyway. Don't be shy with the mayo. Dijon mustard. You could also do yellow mustard if you want. Little apple cider vinegar. And then just salt and pepper and a little cayenne. See, I like when I stir that the potatoes break down even more, almost like mashed potatoes. Taste. Mm, I don't even have to go back in. I'm going ahead and putting it in my serving pan. Very festive. And then it can just be chilling in the fridge until we're ready to serve. Gonna add a little more green to the top. And just like deviled eggs in my house, you can't go without topping it with a little paprika. Gunzo and ready for the party. The butter boil corn on the cob. We're gonna boil the corn on the cob in water, but also with a stick of butter and some milk. That buttery taste gets inside all of these kernels, so perfect for a crowd. We don't have to serve butter on the side. I like to start it all in the pot at the same time. It just makes it easier. Someone showed me the way to tell if your corn is done. You'll see how the kernels are kind of just flat laying here right now. Once they've cooked, they've kind of absorbed that liquid, that butter, that milk, and they're gonna plump up, and then you know your corn is ready to go. So corn in, I'm gonna go in with cold water, some milk, about a cup or so, and now for a stick of butter. I'm also going in with some salt because you gotta get that flavor in there. People like to put butter and salt on the corn when it's done. We'll let the, just like when you're cooking pasta or rice, we need that salt to absorb in while it's cooking. All I have to do, pop it on the stove, bring it to a boil, and let her cook, as the kids say. You wanna be sure when your corn comes up to a simmer that you don't let it get to a rolling boil because then it might begin to hard boil and you'll see it kind of almost explode like a volcano. You don't wanna do that. You just want it to simmer, and you can see how juicy the kernels have gotten. So I'm just going to leave them here. I'll just turn off the heat and let them just stay in their little bath until we're ready to serve. Then I'll just pop them into a casserole dish, sprinkle with a little more salt, and then I'll show you just how juicy it will be. Two American classics, one dish, apple pie, baked beans. This is no joke. One of the best pots of baked beans you're gonna have. I have been convinced, Drew Barrymore, that this dish is a winner. Roll the proof. I love it. I think you do. I love it! This is creating the base flavor. It's got a lot of herbs and spices in it, and it just kind of adds that little kick throughout. These beans, we're starting on the stove just to get everything acquainted with each other, and then I'll put them in the dish to bake, to turn them into baked beans. It's created a little flavor base on the bottom. We're about to lift that up. Now it's just a dump dump situation. In go the beans. You can use whatever baked beans you like. I like to drain off that excess liquid that comes in the can, because we're about to make our own more flavorful sauce. A little barbecue seasoning. This has a lot of salt in it, so I like to add the salt last. Then in with a cup of barbecue sauce, some Worcestershire, little yellow mustard, and some more hot sauce. So we've got a lot of tang, a little bit of heat in here. So now, time to balance it with the sweet. If you're scared, say you're scared. I chopped it up really finely, and then as it cooks, it's also going to cook down even further and kind of just melt into the beans. So I'm gonna give it about a 15, 20 minute head start on the stove, and then I'm just gonna dump it into the casserole dish, and then I'll bake it off just before we head outside to the cookout. Simmered, now ready to bake. They're mostly cooked, so at this point, you're just baking them until you're ready to put them out on the table. See, if you didn't know, you wouldn't know. And then when you bake them in the oven, I'm gonna bake them uncovered. 375, til they're browned around the edges and lovely. When it comes to dessert for an All-American cookout, there is nothing more iconic than the flag cake. I'm doing my own version, which combines my favorite dessert with that treat. I'm making the fruit pizza version because I love that so much. Also love taking shortcuts when it comes to entertaining, especially when you have a menu this big, because nobody's gonna care that you took a shortcut. So for the base of my flag cake, sugar cookie dough. You can do the roll or these pre-portioned. I find this is a little easier since it's already kind of flattened. You can kind of give them a little smash to get them started. But what we're gonna do is put a second piece of parchment on top. Use a rolling pin. So you're just gonna kind of smash and roll them to the edges of the paper. It'll work the easiest if you let your cookie dough set out for about 20 minutes before doing this. You just want it to form one big uniform piece. I also like to add some cooking spray just in case. And then you can just peel off the top layer. And then you can just kind of press out the remaining to go to the edge. Okay, and it's gonna spread out a little when it bakes. So now at this point, it just goes into the oven, 350 degrees for about 12 minutes. To create the base, we're making this frosting. It's also going to be used to make the stripes for our flag. Okay, a block of softened cream cheese, and then a half a stick of softened butter. And I'm just gonna beat that together until it's well combined. All right, then in goes a splash of vanilla. Then a little bit of lemon zest and juice. I just love this bright acidity with the fruit that goes on top. It's just about a teaspoon of lemon juice. Per usual with anything sweet, we like to balance that with a little bit of salt. And then powdered sugar. You're gonna do about a cup and a half of powdered sugar. Not all at once. All right, then I'm going to fold in the Cool Whip. Just gonna do about two thirds of the container. Actually, not fold it in, I'm going to mix it in. Okay, it really lightens it up. You can see how fluffy it got. We're gonna spread most of this all over the base of the cooled cookie. Just barely starting to brown around the edges. That's the way I like it, because I like to have a softer cookie. So at this point, you have to let it cool absolutely completely to where it's almost cold, because we're gonna spread over a cold icing. You don't want it to melt. Cooled, let's make it look like a flag, shall we? Okay, we're gonna take most of the frosting and just put a thin layer over the top. This is going to act as our glue for the fruit. Cover up these wrinkles. I'm used to trying to do that every day. Now for the stars and stripes. You gotta do the stars first, which are going to be blueberries. No, I'm not counting 50. I'm just gonna make a rectangle. The frosting on the bottom is basically the same as like a fruit dip, so that's why this just works so well. Now for the stripes, strawberries. Okay, now I'm going to take some raspberries and I've cut them in half, just to kind of add a little more red to the stripes. Cutie patootie. Now, remember the rest of that frosting? The final step is just to make those white stripes look a little better. So I'm gonna take the rest of the Cool Whip, fold it into the rest of the icing, and then I'm just gonna pipe that on. Nothing more All-American than that for the cookout. I'm really proud of it. This could easily be the centerpiece for your table, just saying. Of course, a hot dog is a hot dog to some people, but I'm gonna show you the best hot dogs. Marinading. So I think for best flavor, I like to score it a little bit, just so the marinade can get in there. So adding a marinade plus the flavor from a charcoal grill. Doesn't get much better. Just add them to a plastic bag. And for the marinade, it's just two ingredients, Italian dressing and a steak marinade. It's as easy as that. 10 out of 10 worth it. Get the air out. And then I love also that they're in this plastic bag, so after we throw them on the grill, we throw the bag away. And all we're left with, delicious hot dogs. I feel like we should all say this next part together. You can't have a party without what? Dip. Chips and dip. And if you do, what do I say? Don't invite me. Sounds so mean, but you know, it's kind of true. So I'm making chips and pickle dip, because pickle is just perfect for a cookout, and it's just the something different you need instead of just pulling out the French onion dip. Although, I have no problem with that. You want about a cup of chopped pickle. And you wanna chop them pretty finely. And the base is a combination of softened cream cheese and sour cream, our two favorite creamy condiments. Okay, we're going in with a little bit of pickle juice. We can adjust the consistency later. Just starting out with a little bit to help mix her up. A little Worcestershire, dried dill, and a little garlic powder. And get our pickles. And then if you want it thinner, you can add in more pickle juice. I think the juice from the pickles is going to release a little bit, so it's gonna thin out as we let it sit. Does that not look divine? At this point, you're just gonna want to refrigerate it until it's ready to serve. But I gotta give her a little taste test. The perfect dip chip is so dangerous in my top three perfect bites of all time. I didn't wanna short anyone on another sweet for our perfect cookout, and nothing is more All-American to me than cherry pie. So we are going to do shortcut cherry hand pies, also in the air fryer. No deep frying required. Pretty much two ingredients. I'm using a store-bought pie crust, and I'm just going to cut out round circles. Wet the edge of your circle, and then that combined with the pastry dough is going to form a little glue. Then just go straight into the middle. That's the pie filling. Obviously, these are little mini hand pies. And just fold the dough over the filling and pinch to seal. Kinda wanna pick it up just so the filling doesn't spill out the edges. Give it a little pinch with your fingers, and then we're gonna take a fork and kinda crimp the edges. Cute. Okay, to give it the iconic pie look, a few slits in the top. Whenever I'm air frying, I like to add a little fat just to mimic what would happen in a deep fryer. It's gotta have a little bit of fat for flavor. So I'm just brushing with a little melted butter and sprinkle with a little sugar. And we're just gonna pop these in the air fryer, 350 degrees, until they're all toasty and browned. About 12 minutes, and we have golden brown, toasty apple pies. Okay, so I'm just gonna keep making and frying, and I'm gonna serve these up on a platter in the coolest way you've ever seen. Pun intended. I look forward to a grilled burger so much, especially in the summer, and we're about to make the best ones possible. So I've got my ground beef. I like a ground round or an 80-20 of ground chuck so that you get that juicy burger. I'm gonna season it a little bit. The usual suspects, salt, pepper. I always like a little garlic powder and a little Worcestershire. And give that a little mix, and then we'll add in the secret ingredient. The secret ingredient you have on hand, I promise. Now, it might not be in your freezer, but it needs to be. Butter makes them better. Once it's really cold, just get a box grater and just grate it in. I like to do it in a couple stages. I like to kind of grate some, mix it, grate it, mix it. You want them to be kind of like little flecks in there. So that way, when the burger cooks on the grill, as it gets hot, that butter kind of melts into the meat. So you'll do about a tablespoon of butter per quarter pound of meat. So I've got two, two and a half pounds right here. So I'm just gonna go ahead in with the whole stick. These are gonna be so much better than that bulk pack of burgers that you might get. They come in the freezer section. And you know how they come like stacked in between pieces of parchment paper? That's what we're gonna do. It makes them very easy to grab and throw on the grill without messing up your hands. You can just cut pieces of parchment paper about the size, a little bit bigger than the patty that you wanna make. Burger, parchment, and you get the idea. This is a great meal prep idea because at this point, if you've bought fresh ground beef, you can now freeze it like this, just like they do when you buy them in bulk. Stack of burgers ready for the grill. That's how you prep the burgers for the cookout. We're gonna serve our burgers with a special touch, so why not make a special sauce? The base, mayonnaise. To whatever your amount of mayonnaise, half the amount of ketchup. And then whatever your amount of ketchup, half the amount of mustard. And you just wanna add in a little more flavoring. I'm going in with some garlic powder and onion powder. Little bit of hot sauce, little bit of vinegar, salt and pepper. That's it. So then just refrigerate it until you're ready to go. Speaking of ready to go, time to go to the grill. Before we serve dinner, here are a couple genius moves that you can break out at your next cookout. First of all, skip the expensive tablecloth and break out the butcher paper. You can create your own custom tablecloth for any occasion. It helps keep you organized because you can label the food, you can decorate it, the kids can have fun with it, but best of all, cleanup will be a breeze at the end. And you can also just have fun with whatever the occasion is. One of my favorite additions to any barbecue or cookout, the bug fan. Just set it, just turn it on, let it go. It keeps the flies away. And then when you go to reach for your food, it doesn't cut you or anything. You get what you need to get. Pull your hand away and it starts right back. Time to fire it up. But first, I've got a hack. A great fire starter are your leftover egg cartons. Put a little charcoal in each cavity and light it up. Going on with the hot dogs first because they last longer at room temperature to me. Get ready for the best hot dog you ever had. Look at them. So we have that marinade, that caramelizing really good. I mean, when was the last time you had a good grilled hot dog? Probably last year on 4th of July. Oh my gosh, they smell so good. All right, now for those butter burgers. Use your parchment and go straight on. When your burgers go on, you can put an indention into the center. That way, they don't puff up too much. You can do it with your thumb beforehand or with a spoon or tongs once they get on the grill. I love a flame broiled burger. Once I get a good crust on the burger, you can move it to a cooler spot on the grill. Final step before taking your burgers off, top them with cheese. I'm doing half with, half without. That's a juicy burger. When you're done grilling and you wanna keep the bugs away, here's a great trick. While the coals are still hot, throw on some fresh rosemary. It's a natural insect repellent. Genius. And it'll keep everything smelling good. Bet you didn't know you needed coffee filters at the cookout. Well, you do, and here's why. They're the perfect vessel for holding your hot dog in its bun. You can eat it straight out of the coffee filter and it keeps your hands clean, keeps the mess all inside. Because when I make my dog, you know it's gonna be sloppy. You know, I really wanted that creamy potato salad served out here, but here's how we keep it cold. Freeze water in a pan the same size or a little bit bigger than your serving dish. Just in a thin layer is all you need. Plop it down, and then set the potato salad right on top. No one has to worry if the potato salad's been sitting out. Look at this setup. We have nailed the all-American cookout. That's an all-American plate right there. For the moment we've been waiting for, the taste test. Start with the controversial baked beans. You don't know it's in there, but you are like, what makes these so special? It's the apple pie, apple pie baked beans. 12 out of 10, perfect potato salad. One of the better potato salads I've ever made. Now, freezer slaw. Let me make sure it's still cold. That's really the test. Mm-hmm, that is crunchy. It is refreshing. It's not doused in dressing. This is a great complement to those other creamy sides. Gotta have two hands for my corn. I will be butter boiling my corn from now on. Speaking of butter, the butter burgers. It's about to get messy. I'm gonna need some napkins. They're juicy. That is an all-American classic burger. The burger sauce, I must say, kinda makes it. But remember, today's the day you get to eat hamburgers and hot dogs all at the same time. I'm telling you right now, I will never not marinate my hot dogs. It's the best hot dog ever. The pickle dip tells you it's a party. And speaking of a party, it's time for refreshments. Of course, the most all-American beverage is lemonade. This is our famous State Fair lemonade. You saw my friend Natalie make this. If you didn't, check it out because it is the best sweet, tart lemonade. But I'm turning it into an adult beverage, blueberry vodka lemonade. A little vodka, blueberry fruit syrup, just a little squeeze, and then top it with lemonade. Give it a stir, add a lemon, and a festive garnish. Yep, it's refreshing, it's tart, it's perfect, and it's just a dadgum good idea. Speaking of good ideas, this is the best way to serve up watermelon at your next cookout. Go ahead, slice it. You can keep it on the board or just put it on a tray. Stick some Popsicle sticks in it. Nobody has the sticky fingers. Just grab and go. One more moment for the star of the show. Happy birthday, America. Gonna grab me the perfect slice. And don't forget those cherry pies. You know what goes great with pie, ice cream, and here's the genius way to serve it up. You can pre-scoop the ice cream, keep it in cupcake liners, and serve it right alongside your favorite treat. Straight from the wrapper, your hands stay clean, and you're not stuck standing there scooping ice cream. A little flag cake. Still one of the best desserts of all time. We gotta do that cherry pie. The perfect little sweet treat right here. I'm sorry, but this looks like a homemade dessert. No one would know it is two ingredients. Mm, that's better than I thought it was gonna be. And I knew it was gonna be good. You know, sometimes what it's all about is just serving up the classics. No need to make things fussy. Keep it easy, keep it simple, keep it absolutely delicious. And now it's time for my friends to come over to help me eat all this. Mm.