In the Summer, Meathead Becomes Veghead

Meathead—the Meathead, who’s one of only 40 living Barbecue Hall of Famers and who’s the creator of the world’s most popular grilling website—has a bit of a secret: He loves vegetables.

Come summer, his and his wife’s garden is bursting with produce, and that’s when Meathead becomes Veghead. And on August 12, he’ll be teaching a small group workshop, where attendees will learn how to give vegetables the Meathead treatment. (It’s capped at 25 participants, so sign up now.)

Can’t make it to the workshop? Read on. On a recent call over Zoom, the two-timebestselling author sat down to talk about using smoke as a seasoning, his favorite summertime treat, and his most controversial recipe.

You benefit from having a wife who is a Master Gardener. Out of all the wonderful things she grows, what do you look forward to most every year?

Boy, that's a tough one. She makes so many fun dishes. We do a recipe for cucumbers, à la the Thai restaurant style. Thai basil and a little sweet-sour. There's a recipe that I use on AmazingRibs.com, of course.

One of my favorites: I take cherry tomatoes when they're really ripe and poke a couple of holes in them, and put them in the smoker at a low temperature and dehydrate them. You know, cherry tomatoes, there's some variations they call grape tomatoes. They're very sweet and tart, just like grapes. And when you dehydrate them, they're like raisins. And you don't want to make them so dry that they get hard. You dehydrate them until they're about the tenderness and chewiness of a raisin, and they're fantastic. Even if they're not smoked, do them in your oven.

It's like sun-dried tomatoes, only you're not going to dry them out until they're kind of leathery (like sun-drieds). Put them in a salad, a focaccia, on pasta. So versatile. Throw them in a Ziploc bag in the freezer. They last all winter. It's a taste of summer. But the smoke really amps them up to a new level. We just have fun. We throw them on everything.

Many a summer night I will have a tomato sandwich. I'll just get some nice bread. I'll slather it with some mayonnaise. Go out and get a big old beefsteak-type tomato, slice it, and throw a couple of slices of basil or maybe chiffonade it a little. Throw it on top, and that's it. That's lunch. And boy, is that ever good.

For people who don't have like a dedicated smoker, who just have a charcoal grill or a gas grill, can they also smoke the cherry tomatoes?

Yeah. It's so easy. You just set up the heat on one side. If you're using charcoal, you push all the charcoal to one side and leave the other side void. And then you put the tomatoes on the void side. You cannot put them over direct heat. Otherwise, they char, they burn, they cook. Over charcoal, that's a really intense infrared energy, and you can't smoke over infrared.

Actually, the smoke tastes better when the wood burns rather than smolders.

Same thing on a gas grill. You just turn one burner on and leave the other side void. It's like the difference between standing in the sun and standing in the shade. Everybody knows there's ultraviolet [light] in the sun, but actually there's a lot more infrared. That's why it's so hot. And infrared is what sears the steak, so you just want to stay away from it unless you're searing something, or if you want a crisp chicken skin. Almost always you cook on the indirect side. That's convection airflow. And it's a lot cooler over there.

And then you throw wood on top of the fire, whether it's a gas grill or a charcoal grill. I like chunks better than chips. You just throw it on there and let it smolder or burn. Actually, the smoke tastes better when the wood burns rather than smolders.

For putting the wood on a gas grill, do you put it under the grate, directly where the flames are?

Yeah, a lot of gas grills have these little metal covers that go over the burner. And that's to keep the drippings from plugging up the holes in the burner. I take them off. To get the wood burning, it's got to really be close to the fire. I go under the grate, on top of the burner, get these little heat deflectors off, if you can, and let it burn. It's not going to mess up your grill. It's not going to void your warranty. It's not going to plug up the holes. But you want the wood to catch fire and burn. You want to see yellow flame from the wood. A lot of people think that it's important to get it smoldering. They want to see a lot of white smoke. But actually, the smoke tastes best when the wood is burning with a yellow flame. And you don't see much smoke. It's called blue smoke. It's almost invisible.

I've seen these smoking baskets for gas grills, but what I'm hearing is those aren't necessary.

You can use them. They do contain the wood and they do contain the ash, but they produce white smoke, which is smoldering smoke. To get smoke, you need both wood and oxygen. And these little containers sometimes restrict the amount of oxygen, so the wood smolders. And people really like that. They see the white smoke. It tastes fine. But blue smoke is better. And blue smoke is when you've got lots of oxygen getting to the wood and it burns. You want to see burning. That yellow flame is what happens when the fire is consuming contaminants and other compounds that can have odd flavors.

What woods do you use for smoking vegetables?

You know, people obsess over what kind of wood. If you ask the top competition chefs, they use whatever wood's handy. You're dealing with an orchestra of flavors here. If you were doing meat, for example, like a pork chop or something, you've got the pork, you've got the rub, you've got the temperature control, which affects flavor. You've got smoke. You've got sauce. All these compounds come together and these are all different instruments in the orchestra. Wood is just one instrument in the orchestra. It's not a major player. There are a couple of woods like hickory and a few others that are very strong flavored, but I stick with fruit woods. Long ago, I stabilized on apple wood. It really doesn't make a huge difference. I can smell the difference in some of the woods, but I can't necessarily taste the difference.

Wood is just one instrument in the orchestra. It's not a major player.

And, say you're using hickory. Okay, what kind of hickory? There's many different kinds, shagbark, pignut, black hickory. Is the wood heartwood or is it from the exterior? Does it have bark on it? Has it been air dried or kiln dried? What is the remaining percentage of water in the wood? I tell people pick one that's easily available and go with it and just stick with it. Once you learn how to control your fire and your temperature and can use the thermometer properly and get the food done properly, once you get your rubs and your spices and your sauces all together and master the rest of the orchestra, then—if you want—you can start switching around the woods and see if you can tell a difference.

Do you have to par-cook tougher cruciferous vegetables?

No, I don't. This is another thing we cook too hot on the grill, and this is one of the reasons I was talking about the two-zone system. Most of the time, you don't want high heat. It's a guy thing, too, in particular. “Give her all she's got, Scotty!”

You want to keep the temperature down on vegetables. People don't realize most vegetables are 80 to 90% water, maybe more. When you ship lettuce from California to Chicago, you're shipping water. You might as well just send a tanker truck. So, you're going to have evaporation while you cook, but if you keep the temperature down you'll have less evaporation and things will be juicier.

So for broccoli, you just put it on the indirect side for a while?

Yeah, I usually use a grill topper. Usually the gap between the grill grates is so big that things fall through, especially asparagus if you get them facing the wrong way. But I'll cut the broccoli into florets, and I absolutely keep the stems. If it's a big long stem I'll slice it into coins, they're delicious. Throw it on top of the grill topper, there's a variety of them. There's some that look like a mesh, there's some that are stainless steel with holes drilled in them, but I'll put a light coat of oil on the grill topper or oil the veggies and just throw them on there. There's some that look like this frying pan. They have curved sides like a saucier. And those are nice because you can flip things, you know, like you would with a frying pan. Flick your wrist. They're great for small things, like mushrooms.

I'm not a big fan of charring food. Charring is the process of turning food into carbon. And carbon in general isn't very flavorful, but veggies do tend to have a lot of sugar in them, especially things like carrots. And so I will occasionally allow some char into my broccoli or my carrots or something along those lines. When it comes to cauliflower, you can just cut the head in half or quarters. Or something I like to do is cut steaks or slabs out of it, you've got to go crosswise. You end up with a bunch of crumbly little bits left over, which we use in stir-fries and other things. But it's kind of fun to make a cauliflower steak and put a sauce on it.

Obviously smoking and grilling are two different things. Do both work well with pretty much any vegetable, or are there vegetables that are better suited to one or the other?

You have to think of smoke like a spice; it's just not on your spice rack. But just like rosemary is marvelous, it doesn't go with everything. Same thing with smoke. But it is pretty versatile. A lot of things do benefit from smoke. I'm trying to think of something I don't care to smoke. I'm not a huge fan of smoking my steaks or my beef. I love to get a great dark sear, get that Maillard reaction, get the crust on there. I love salt and I love herbs on my beef. But I don't smoke them.

Now that I think about it, though, the exception, of course, is brisket. It's brisket and short ribs, beef ribs. They're really good smoked. The big difference is they're cooked past well done—150℉ or so is well done. Brisket is cooked up over 200℉, way past well done. These short ribs and barbecue ribs, they call them dino ribs, they're marvelous, but they're cooked way up above 190℉, 200℉. Most beef is optimum in the 130℉ to 135℉ range, like a prime rib or a ribeye steak. So you're cooking them to a different temperature, and it's a different flavor profile.

A lot of people think that with grilled and smoked vegetables, everything needs to be served hot, hot, hot. But some of them are good at room temperature.

Yeah, especially if you've got limited space on your grill top, if you're doing steaks and asparagus, throw the asparagus on before the steaks and you can grill them and bring them in and serve them at room temp and they're marvelous. I drizzle balsamic on. You can either buy balsamic tradizionale, which is a syrup, but it's like a hundred bucks for four ounces and that's ridiculous. But you can take the balsamic in the grocery store, which is not the same. It's made by a different process but it's still fun. You can simmer it down to a syrup. You have to watch it while you're doing this because it will go from syrup to candy, it'll solidify. But if you make a syrup out of it—I just put it in a jar and i keep it next to the stove—it's really good on asparagus with some shaved Parm.

What about potatoes?

Potatoes are great on the grill, but they take forever. So it's a good idea to parboil or microwave the potato to get it started. Then you can slice them into coins or quarter. But I do sweet potatoes. I cut them lengthwise and then lengthwise again and make spikes out of them. Then sprinkle a spice rub all over them with a little sugar in it and grill those. And sweet potatoes grill up pretty nicely without having to be parboiled. They're as good as any sweet potato fries you'll get in a restaurant.

What about corn?

You gotta grill corn. Corn is one of the more controversial topics I've written about. Everybody has their own favorite way to do corn. Some people insist on boiling it, some people do it in the microwave, some people say it's got to be on the grill. When you go put it on the grill some people say leave the husks on, some people say pull the husks back and get the fine hairs out of there and put the husks back, some say soak it in sugar water. I wrote my recipe, it's on the website, and I really adore this technique. But every time I share it, people chime in and say, “you're doing it all wrong.” I get more controversy out of that than I do anything, except maybe beer can chicken, which I debunked long ago, but people still believe in it.

My technique for corn is really simple. I pull off all the husks and the hairs, and I put the grill on medium hot. I do it on the gas grill, and I will melt some butter with roughly an equal amount of olive oil and throw in tarragon. I do this like an hour before I start cooking it, because I want the butter and the oil to extract flavor from the tarragon. Tarragon just goes great with corn. I throw the corn on the grill, and I paint it with this tarragon butter, and I roll it around until it's brown, not black, and I just absolutely love it that way.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest.

And if you're looking for more Milk Street, check out our livestream cooking classes with our favorite chefs, home cooks and friends for global recipes, cooking methods and more.

Claire Lower

Claire Lower is the Digital Editor for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street, with over a decade of experience as a food writer and recipe developer. Claire began writing about food (and drinks) during the blogging boom in the late 2000s, eventually leaving her job as a lab technician to pursue writing full-time. After freelancing for publications such as Serious Eats, Yahoo Food, xoJane and Cherry Bombe Magazine, she eventually landed at Lifehacker, where she served as the Senior Food Editor for nearly eight years. Claire lives in Portland, Oregon with a very friendly dog and very mean cat. When not in the kitchen (or at her laptop), you can find her deadlifting at the gym, fly fishing or trying to master figure drawing at her local art studio.