The Best Foods To Grill For Beginners, According To Robert Irvine

Robert Irvine is the brawny, bespectacled Englishman you may have seen on shows like the dearly departed "Restaurant: Impossible" and "Worst Cooks in America." His resume is dazzling even by the standards of celebrity chefs. A member of the Royal Navy who cooked on Queen Elizabeth's royal yacht, he's worked in the White House kitchen, opened a restaurant in Las Vegas (located in the now-defunct Tropicana), and regularly visits American troops to offer cooking advice. He's come under fire for embellishing his record in the past — notably claiming that he had been knighted and that the Queen had given him a castle in Scotland, neither of which were true — but at this point his skill as a chef is not in doubt. So it would do you some good to take his advice as to what the best meats to grill are for beginners. Surprising no one, it's hamburgers and hot dogs.

In an interview with Tasting Table, Irvine gave plenty of pointers for anyone looking to cook with a gas grill — but this piece of advice works for both gas and charcoal. On the subject of the grillmaster's best friend, Irvine had this to say: "Hot dogs are practically impossible to screw up on account of the fact that they're fully cooked already; you're just heating them up." This isn't to say that they're foolproof, of course — you can still burn hot dogs. But so long as you start them off easy on a low temperature, you should be able to get just the right amount of char.

So you've managed to grill some hot dogs without turning them into scorched tubes of meat. Does that mean you should march to the butcher, buy the priciest piece of prime rib you can find, and fire that baby up? Not so fast. Once you're confident in your hot dog cooking ability, Irvine suggests you can then move on to hamburgers, which are tasty, relatively cheap, and still fairly forgiving. 

"If they're too rare, you can put them back on," Irvine said. "If they're overcooked, well, at least it wasn't a very expensive mistake." You probably have a different definition of the word "expensive" than a celebrity chef like Irvine, but it's true that hamburgers are affordable compared to steak or lamb chops. That means the stakes (if not the steaks) will be a good deal lower ahead of dinnertime. While you're getting ready to follow Irvine's advice, you might want to check out our guide for the highest and lowest quality hot dogs at the grocery store, as well as our ranking of every possible burger topping.

Static Media owns and operates Tasting Table and The Takeout.