Tips From Bobby Flay To Master The Grill This Summer

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There's no better time for grilling than summer, and there's no better person to dole out grilling advice than celeb chef and TV personality Bobby Flay. Since opening his first restaurant, Mesa Grill, in 1991, Flay has won countless cooking competitions and multiple James Beard awards, and he's even cooked for former U.S. President Barack Obama. Known for his boyish charm and New York flair, Flay undoubtedly knows his way around a kitchen — whether it's in a restaurant or on his own patio.

As the season for backyard barbecues and flame-charred burgers dawns once more, we thought it appropriate to gather some of chef Flay's most helpful bits of grilling guidance. These come from his endless catalog of interviews and how-to cooking shows, from "BBQ Brawl" to "Boy Meets Grill" to "Grill It! with Bobby Flay." Whether you're wondering how to prevent fish from sticking to the grate or how to keep grilled corn cobs from drying out prematurely, we have a Bobby Flay-approved tip for you.

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Knowing when to raise or lower your grill lid can be tricky, especially when you're cooking multiple dishes at once. Fortunately for novice grill masters, Bobby Flay has a simple rule of thumb to help you determine if your lid should be open or closed.

As part of his 10 Commandments of Grilling, which he shared with FN Dish in 2014 to promote his then-upcoming series "Barbecue Addiction: Bobby's Basics," Flay recommended that chefs base the decision on how long their dish will take to cook. "[L]eave the lid off for ingredients that cook quickly like shrimp and vegetables," Flay wrote, "and put the lid on for longer-grilling items like poultry and steak." For the latter application, Flay advised home chefs to "use the grill lid like an oven" to prevent overcooking.

With this tip in mind, you may want to reconsider tossing multiple ingredients on the grill if they call for vastly different cooking times. For example, if you want to grill up some watermelon (which we highly recommend), it's probably unwise to do so if you're in the middle of an hours-long brisket-smoking session. Since watermelon only takes a couple of minutes per side on the grill, raising and lowering the lid to place your slices, flip them, and remove them may disrupt the brisket's smoking process.

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Just because Bobby Flay is a classically trained pro chef doesn't mean he makes cooking complicated. Take burgers, for instance. Flay knows plenty about this backyard cookout staple (he even owns a restaurant called Bobby's Burgers with multiple Las Vegas locations), and some of his most useful advice on the topic is to keep the ingredients nice and simple.

In an episode of "Grill It! with Bobby Flay," the chef demonstrated how to make turkey burgers topped with goat cheese and Meyer lemon sauce. While forming the patties out of plain ground turkey, Flay explained his philosophy behind burger ingredients. "What I like to do with my burgers is I just like to keep them actually nice and pure," he said. "Just the ground turkey, some salt and pepper, a little bit of canola oil or vegetable oil on the outside, and then we let 'em grill."

This advice extends to traditional beef burgers, too. In Flay's "Perfect Burger" recipe on the Food Network website, he limits the patties' seasonings to just salt and pepper. What he leaves off is the oil, likely because beef usually has a higher fat content than turkey and doesn't need the help.

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It's a classic conundrum: You're cooking up some veggies on the grill, but as you try to flip them over for the second half of their sear, the slices fall right through the grate and onto the coals. What's the best way to prevent this frustrating food waste? Bobby Flay has a surprisingly straightforward solution.

In a 2014 piece for FN Dish, Flay named "Size Matters" as one of his 10 Commandments of Grilling, writing, "Many people ask me how to prevent food from falling through the grates, and my answer is simple: Cut things in bigger pieces!" For veggies specifically, he elaborated, "Keep [them] whole or in larger sections so they're easier to manage on the grill. You can always cut them smaller after they're grilled."

Flay reiterated this advice when he appeared on "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon" in 2024. "People always say to me, 'I love grilling vegetables, but they always fall through the grill,'" the chef told Fallon while sharing rapid-fire grilling tips. "Cut 'em bigger," he concluded. "That's it."

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If you're relatively new to grilling, you may be tempted to heat each element of your meal separately so you don't have to keep track of overlapping cooking times. While there's nothing inherently wrong with this approach, especially if you're still honing your skills, expert Bobby Flay uses the grill to multitask so every part of the meal is ready at the same time.

When making grilled chicken cordon bleu in an episode of "Grill It! with Bobby Flay," for example, the chef tossed two halves of a lemon on the grill along with the dish's main protein, saying, "I love when you grill citrus. It gives [the food] that nice roasted citrus flavor, and I'm gonna make a vinaigrette out of this." Similarly, in an episode of his show "Bobby Flay's Barbecue Addiction," he warmed a few corn tortillas on the grill alongside a large chunk of fish, which he eventually made into fish tacos.

Even while making turkey burgers on "Grill It! with Bobby Flay," he added the buns to the grill alongside the patties, telling his co-host, "Gotta do it, don't you think?" Just keep in mind that items like these won't take as long on the grill as a large piece of meat, so don't add them until late in the cooking process.

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There are plenty of inventive gadgets and gifts out there for the barbecue lovers in your life, from tool sets to indoor grill pans, but one essential item that Bobby Flay recommends is a chimney starter. "It's the best $20 investment you'll ever make," the chef told Delish in 2017. "The thing people are most concerned about with charcoal grills is that they can't get it lit well."

A chimney starter — like this $19 Weber Rapidfire Compact Chimney Starter available on Amazon — is made from a large metal tube featuring a handle and a series of small holes. A grate on the inside keeps the coals off the bottom of your grill, and the airflow from the holes helps keep the fire inside burning.

To use a chimney starter, just fill the tube about halfway with charcoal, stick a few pieces of newspaper beneath the grate, and light the paper. After just a few minutes, the charcoal should be glowing, at which point you can pour the chimney's contents into your grill over unlit coals. This Flay-approved gadget can help keep your cooking apparatus lit without the flames taking on the chemical-heavy scent of lighter fluid.

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Corn is a perfect veggie for backyard barbecues, and there are plenty of amazing ways to make it on the grill, from Italian-style with red pepper flakes and Parmesan to black bean and corn burgers. If you're making whole ears on the grill, however, you may want to heed Bobby Flay's advice and give them a quick bath beforehand.

Flay shared this tip when he made grilled corn on the cob with dill butter for an episode of "Boy Meets Grill." The chef explained, "One of the most important things is that you soak the corn in some water. Just some plain water, you know, tap water is fine." Flay demonstrated the process by removing the silk strands from each ear of corn before placing them in a large pot of water for "maybe 15 to 20 minutes." (He also recommended leaving a few leaves of the husk on to "protect the kernels.") According to Flay, soaking the corn keeps it "nice and moist" during cooking, maximizing the charred flavor and bringing out the corn's natural sweetness.

When describing the same tip for TODAY Food in 2023, Flay suggested dipping the corn in hot water for just 90 seconds before putting it on an already heated grill. He explained that this method provides "a nice smokiness on the outside of the corn, and it kind of transfers to the corn itself."

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We've already addressed why Bobby Flay likes to use skin-on, all-dark meat when grilling chicken (hint: it helps maximize flavor and moisture), but the celeb chef also recommends that you use low heat when cooking this summertime staple. While sharing some grilling tips on "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon" in 2024, Flay quizzed the host about the best temperature for cooking skin-on chicken. "If you want crispy skin," the chef asked, "high heat, or what do you think?" When Fallon replied, "High heat, crank it," Flay was quick to correct him. "Wrong. It's low heat."

The Food Network star explained that low heat helps the chicken fat render more slowly than high heat, thus giving the skin both the time and means to develop a nice outer crust. "It's something people don't really get," Flay concluded.

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Bobby Flay has plenty of tips and tricks for maximizing your burger-grilling success. One that he's shared more than a few times is to put a dent in each patty with your thumb to help it maintain its shape.

In an episode of "Bobby Flay's Barbecue Addiction," the celeb chef demonstrated this tip while shaping a classic burger patty. "What I like to do is take my thumb — you've seen me do this before — and just make a well in the middle of the burger," he said. Flay described this as "faking out the burger" because it mitigates the plumping that occurs during cooking. "What I don't want to do," he explained, "is then walk over there and take the back of my spatula and push [the patty] down to the shape that I want because I'm gonna lose all the juices. So we're gonna preempt that." Your hamburgers will contract as they cook no matter what, but with the help of Flay's thumb-well method, the center of each patty will remain relatively flat, creating an ideal surface for piling on veggies and other toppings.

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Grilling isn't always about scorching your food until it develops a thick, dark char. Sometimes a gentler approach can heat your food all the way through while helping it retain its moisture and flavor. Bobby Flay addressed this in his 10 Commandments of Grilling, which he shared with FN Dish in 2014. "Set up your grill with two zones," the chef wrote, "one for direct heat, and the other for indirect heat. Use the direct heat to sear meats and veggies, and move them to the cool side to allow the food to finish grilling without overcooking."

Flay put this tip into practice when making grilled chicken cordon bleu for an episode of "Grill It! with Bobby Flay." He first put the pounded, seasoned chicken directly over the grill's flames, specifying, "High heat. We just want to get a nice sort of even sear on top of the chicken breast." When the time came to flip the paper-thin chicken, Flay relocated each piece to a cooler part of the grill, saying, "As you can see, I have it on the indirect heat, okay? I started on the direct heat, got a nice sear, now I'm gonna let it cook through." To create two separate heat zones in your charcoal grill, simply arrange your coals in an even layer covering only one half of the grate.

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There are plenty of mistakes everyone makes with burgers (like buying beef with the wrong fat ratio), but one error that Bobby Flay wants home cooks to amend is flipping their burgers multiple times. When speaking with "TODAY" in 2023, Flay emphasized the importance of letting the grill do the work. "I think most of the time, people get afraid of burning things and they flip things too quickly," the chef explained. "If you flip and turn and flip and turn, you're never gonna give the grill or whatever you're cooking on a chance to actually form a crust." When one of the hosts asked how many times a burger should be flipped, Flay held up a single finger and said, "One. ... One flip, let the grill do its job. You get it nice and crusty, you flip it over — you turn it, and then you finish it."

Flay shared this same insight with Delish in 2017. "There's a common misconception that you need to always be at the grill to flip everything," he told the outlet. "In fact, you should leave it alone ... if you keep flipping it, you're going to get a grey burger or steak — because it will steam as opposed to searing and getting nice and crispy."

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Like vegetables, shrimp can be challenging to cook on the grill due to their small size. Not only are they tricky to grab and flip with tongs, but if you're not careful, they can slip right through the grate and into the fire. Fortunately, Bobby Flay has a simple tip for keeping them in check.

In an episode of "Boy Meets Grill," the pro chef demonstrated his recipe for Gambas al Ajillo (or grilled shrimp with garlic), and when the time came to put the shellfish over the flames, he shared a simple bit of guidance. "Whenever I'm cooking shrimp on the grill, I like to put them on skewers so we don't have to chase each individual shrimp around the grill," Flay said. Grilling skewers should be available at your local supermarket, but if not, you can grab some on Amazon, like these 8-inch bamboo skewers from the Fu Store or, if you're looking for something a little longer, these 13-inch stainless steel skewers from OXO.

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The grill is a divisive piece of cooking equipment. There are countless varieties on the market, and each one requires a specific type of fuel, whether it's classic charcoal, propane gas, or hardwood pellets. Charcoal and gas dominate this debate, and while both types have their die-hard fans, Bobby Flay will tell you that charcoal wins every time.

When speaking with Delish in 2017, Flay recommended that home chefs go with charcoal, explaining, "If you have the time and conviction, charcoal is better. It's purer; it's the old-school way to do it." That said, the Food Network star isn't totally turned off by electric gas grills — he even told People in 2017 that he owns both types. "It's totally fine," he told Delish, for folks to spring for the more convenient gas option, but he also shared with the outlet that "you can flavor the food more with charcoal."

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Marinades can be a great way to flavor meat and other dishes prior to cooking, while glazes add saucy flavor and texture after the fact. You should never reuse your marinade as a glaze, though, as raw meat can impart harmful bacteria or other pathogens the moment you dip it into the mixture. Fortunately, Bobby Flay has a simple and safe multitasking hack: Split your marinade between two bowls.

In an episode of "BBQ Brawl," Flay showed viewers how to make a double-duty grilling sauce. After combining honey, apple cider vinegar, red chili powder, and crushed garlic in a bowl (along with a few pinches of salt and pepper), the chef explained, "Just to make sure that we don't have any cross-contamination, we're gonna take half of [the mixture] and pour it in a separate bowl before we use it as a marinade." He went on to describe how he planned to use the reserved sauce, saying, "We'll brush the glaze on the chicken as it cooks or after it comes off the grill, and there you go."

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Fish is among the trickiest meats to grill, as it tends to break apart and stick to the grate if not handled properly. Luckily for seafood fans, Bobby Flay has two tips for successfully grilling this item: Opt for fish steaks over smaller, more fragile cuts, and keep the fish on the grill longer to prevent sticking.

The first tip comes from Flay's 2024 appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon." While sharing some cooking tips with Fallon and the audience, Flay explained, "If you want to grill a piece of fish and you're not very experienced ... pick some fish that's, like, a steak fish — tuna, swordfish — so it won't break on the grill." Compared to more delicate types like tilapia, these fish are likely to remain intact.

His second tip comes from an episode of "Bobby Flay's Barbecue Addiction." While grilling a large piece of fish for tacos, the chef said, "The longer this halibut sits on that hot grill, the easier it will come away from the grate itself." While both of these methods may require some practice, they're sure to elevate your fish-grilling game in the long run.