Tips For Grilling Skewers

Skewers are a mandatory grilling food. Whether you are making the classics like beef, peppers, onions, and mushrooms or shaking it up with Mini Cheese Burger Kabobs, they are a great way to make a personalized meal that pleases everyone.

That being said, sometimes there are some frustrations with skewers. Things finish cooking at different times, they spin around on the skewers, the wooden skewers can burn and sometimes they feel like more of a hassle than they are worth.

In this blog, we’re going to give you some of our favorite skewer grilling hacks so you can grill kabobs and skewers with ease.

1. Soak Wooden Skewers

Most people know this one. If you are using wooden skewers, you need to soak them in water for at least 30 minutes prior to loading them up with food. This prevents them from burning ensuring your food doesn’t fall off.

2. Consider Metal Skewers

If you always seem to forget to soak your wooden skewers, invest in some metal skewers. They will last longer and you don’t have to worry about them burning. We recommend using the square or twisted skewers to prevent food from sliding off them mid-cook.

3. Use Two Parallel Skewers

Food spinning around or sliding off the skewers is one of the more frustrating parts of grilling kabobs of almost any variety. Thankfully, there is an easy fix. Instead of just using one skewer to load your food on, use two parallel skewers. This will keep your food in place and prevent it from sliding and spinning. This is a particularly useful trick with shrimp!

4. Together or Far Apart

If you are using wooden skewers, you want to make sure the pieces of food are close together. Don’t let any space show. If you are using metal skewers, you can (and should) leave some small spaces between the food.

5. Meat Separate from Fruit and Veggies

Show of hands for everyone who has burnt the veggies while waiting for the meat to cook? We know…us too. Instead of trying to make the skewers with alternating meat and veggies, make one skewer of meat and one skewer of fruit and veggies. This will allow you to make sure that everything cooks for the proper amount of time, nothing gets burnt and you don’t have to stress about getting the food on the table.

6. Marinade is a Must

Salt, pepper and basic spices are great but what your skewers really need is marinade. You want to make sure that you are getting as much flavor as possible into and onto the meats and veggies before they hit the grill so you don’t have to rely on sauces after grilling.

7. Lay the Skewers Diagonally Across the Grates

We admit, we’ve been doing this wrong for a while. When you lay your skewers down on the grill, lay them diagonally across the grates, not in the same direction as the grates. Keep them there for about half the cooking time and then rotate them 180 degrees for optimal grill marks before you flip them.

What are your favorite skewer tricks?