Cajun Ranch Potato Salad and Easy BBQ Ideas

BBQ season is here! Hosting a barbecue is one of the easiest ways to entertain in your home. It is a more relaxed gathering and since the party can spill over in to your backyard, you can host more people than you can at a formal indoor party. To make your next barbecue even simpler to prepare for, I am sharing my quick and easy BBQ ideas.

We broke out the grill and had our first barbecue last weekend. I always like to do our first test run of the season with just our immediate family. It gives us a chance to make sure we have everything we need for the grill and that everything is in good working order. We did a quick inventory and inspection of what we had on hand. Then we made a run to Walmart to pickup the food, Kingsford Charcoal Briquets, Glad Press’n Seal, and a new basting brush. Everything went smoothly in our trial run, so we will be ready to open the backyard to guests very soon!

12 Quick and Easy BBQ Ideas

Skip the burgers and choose chicken or steak. While it is easy to grill hamburgers, there is a lot of prep involved in preparing all the toppings. The toppings also take up a lot of room on your buffet. If you cook chicken or steak, you do not have to prepare lots of toppings.

To ensure your meat is moist, choose cuts with a little more fat in them. If you are concerned that your grilled meats may end up dry, then grill cuts of meat with a higher fat content in it to ensure a juicy final product. Choose chicken thighs over chicken breasts and choose ribeye steaks over sirloin.

Marinate your meat overnight. While most recipes say to marinate your meat for 2 hours, you can marinate them for much longer. I like to prep my meats by trimming excess fat and placing them in the marinade the night before, because it reduces my stress on the day of the party.

Don’t scrimp on the Kingsford briquets! If you want to ensure that your meat cooks evenly, then you need an even distribution of briquets beneath the meat. If you are not sure how many briquets you need to achieve this, start by evenly spreading the unlit briquets on the bottom of your grill to determine the quantity that you need, then stack them into a pyramid before lighting them.

Grill over an even layer of Kingsford briquets to avoid “hot spots” and “cold spots”. Once your briquets are covered in ash (about 15 minutes) and you are ready to begin grilling, use a BBQ tool to spread the briquets out evenly. This will allow your meat to cook at a more consistent heat and be done at approximately the same time.

Prep your vegetables the night before. The messier the vegetable is to prepare the more important it is to prep it the day before the barbecue. This minimizes the mess you make in the kitchen right before guest arrive. I especially like to clean my corn the night before and then place it in a dish covered with Glad Press’n Seal to keep it fresh.

Make side dishes ahead of time. If you enjoy cold salads, such as my Cajun Ranch Potato Salad (recipe below) with your barbecue, you can make them the night before. This not only reduces stress on the day of the party, it helps keep your kitchen cool.

Place the cold salads in their serving dish and cover with Glad Press’n Seal before refrigerating. Then when you are ready to serve, you can pull them out and they are ready to go. You don’t have to waste time transferring them to the serving dish. Refrigerating your cold salads in their serving dish also means that you have less dishes to wash. I use Glad Press’n Seal because it is BPA free, easily creates a tight seal,  and adheres well to a variety of containers.

Use your slow cooker to keep side dishes warm. Do you want to serve a hot side dish such as baked beans? Place them in a slow cooker instead of the oven. You can allow guests to serve themselves directly from the slow cooker. This will help keep your kitchen cool and keep the beans warm for the entire time you have the food set out to serve.

Make forgiving side dishes. The cooking time when grilling can vary depending on the thickness of the cut of meat and your coal placement, so it is nice to have forgiving side dishes like cold salads, slow cooker baked beans, and corn on the cob that will not be negatively impacted by a little variation in the cooking time or sitting and waiting time..

Make it easy for guests to grab their own drinks. Fill an ice-chest with water bottles, juice boxes, and cans of soda. Place a recycling bin beside the ice chest, so they can place their empties in there instead of in the trash.

Serve s’mores for dessert. This is not only a tasty treat, it is a fun activity for your guests. Kingsford Original Briquets have a long burn time, so not only can you use them to cook your dinner, you can use them to make dessert. All you need is graham crackers, marshmallows, and plain chocolate bars. The guests can make roast their own marshmallows and then build their own s’mores. No forks or plates are required to serve s’mores for dessert!

Cajun Ranch Potato Salad Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds of potatoes, scrubbed and cut in bite size pieces
• 1/2 cup diced red onion
• 1/3 cup sliced celery
• 1/2 cup diced red pepper
• 3/4 cup Hidden Valley Ranch dressing
• 1 tablespoon Cajun seasoning mix

Directions:

1. Place potato in a large pot of water. Cook over a high flame until it reaches a boil, then lower flame to a gently boil and cook for 15 minutes or until the potato pieces are fork tender.
2. Rinse potatoes in a colander under cool water.
3. Place the potatoes in a large bowl. Add onion, celery, red pepper, Ranch dressing, and Cajun seasoning mix. Stir well to combine the ingredients.
4. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Printable Recipe for Cajun Ranch Potato Salad

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5 from 1 vote

Cajun Ranch Potato Salad

Course Salad

Prep Time 2 hours hours 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 2 hours hours 30 minutes minutes

Servings 8

Author Alea

Ingredients

• ▢ 2 pounds of potatoes scrubbed and cut in bite size pieces
• ▢ 1/2 cup diced red onion
• ▢ 1/3 cup sliced celery
• ▢ 1/2 cup diced red pepper
• ▢ 3/4 cup Hidden Valley Ranch dressing
• ▢ 1 tablespoon Cajun seasoning mix

Instructions

• Place potato in a large pot of water. Cook over a high flame until it reaches a boil, then lower flame to a gently boil and cook for 15 minutes or until the potato pieces are fork tender.
• Rinse potatoes in a colander under cool water.
• Place the potatoes in a large bowl. Add onion, celery, red pepper, Ranch dressing, and Cajun seasoning mix. Stir well to combine the ingredients.
• Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

A summer barbecue doesn’t need to be hard! In fact, the simpler you keep things, the more time you will have to spend with your guests. Don’t forget, you can keep your party shopping  easy by doing it all in one trip to Walmart. You will find everything you need at Walmart, from ingredients, to Glad and Kingsford Charcoal, to throw the perfect summer BBQ.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Kingsford Charcoal and Glad . The opinions and text are all mine.