When it’s warm and sunny, cooking outside can make for a relaxed and joyful gatheringBarbecue season is upon us – and you don't need to be a culinary master to serve up great food. Fri Jun 12 2026 - 05:29 • 3 MIN READWhen the sun is out and the living is easy, thoughts naturally turn to eating outside. That of course means firing up the barbecue, as long as you haven’t run out of charcoal or gas or neglected to clean it again. But how can you make your barbecue food interesting without adding angst and losing the benefit of these lazy days? Start by following a straightforward recipe that works. Irish Times columnist Mark Moriarty, a leader in the field of stress-free, flavourful cooking, suggests trying skirt steak to ease yourself through barbecue season. He says the flavour is as good as any prime cut, while it will particularly benefit “from the hard and fast charring of open flames and extreme heat”. His recipe for barbecue skirt steak with charred chilli chimichurri is designed to make life simple, while barbecue monkfish tail with marinated heritage tomatoes and basil will please those not so keen on meat-heavy dishes. The latter, he advises, works best if started on the pan and finished on the coals.Mark Moriarty's barbecue skirt steak with charred chilli chimichurri. Photograph: Harry Weir If you’re catering for a crowd but want to be mindful of budgets (who doesn’t?), you could try Moriarty’s recipe for barbecue piri piri chicken thighs with coleslaw, or his Greek-style halloumi skewers, which he says represent “more an assembly job than an expression of culinary artistry”. They are also perfect for time-poor hosts.Mark Moriarty's Greek-style halloumi skewers. Photograph: Harry Weir Looking further into our irishtimes.com archive, we find three great recipes – crushed pork and pineapple burger with chilli mayo and shredded slaw, smoked hummus and grilled veggie flatbread and, for dessert, grilled peaches with honey thyme mascarpone cream from chef Nico Reynolds, who combines Irish and Caribbean influences with asado charcoal grilling.Nico Reynolds's pork and pineapple burger “When you’re lighting a fire and cooking with charcoal, you start to think of it like salt and pepper. Gas is not the same: cooking over charcoal is like a seasoning. It becomes one of the main ingredients in your dish,” says Reynolds. For more barbecue tips, there are few better sources than Andy Noonan, founder of the annual Big Grill Festival in Herbert Park in Dublin. Here, as well as providing a series of very accessible recipes, he recommends serving dishes family-style so fuss can be removed from a gathering. He also advises having drinks ready to pour and having all the following to hand: a charcoal barbecue with a lid, good-quality lumpwood charcoal (even better – hardwood burned down into embers), a long sturdy set of tongs, an ash rake, heat-resistant gloves and a digital meat thermometer.Chef Gráinne O’Keefe’s barbecue tips are also top class, with these including tempering ingredients, adding fat where it doesn’t naturally exist in quantity and, literally, fanning the flames. “Oxygen is the key for a barbecue to maintain a steady temperature. If you find your coals are getting a little cool, fan the flames a little to get the heat back,” says O’Keefe.She also emphasises the importance of resting (not the chef, the food). This gives the juices time to travel to the centre and cook through slowly, she says. For the barbecue purists, she has this 2020 recipe for the ultimate beef burger, which comes with crispy onion rings and rarebit cheese sauce. To achieve best results, she says the barbecue needs to be “clean and very hot”.[ Barbecues: best places to cook out around the countryOpens in new window ]IN THIS SECTION