If you own a grill, chances are at some point this summer you’re going to make burgers. You’ll probably make hot dogs as well. As far as summer food goes, those two are canon. But if you plan on making regular grilling a part of how you make dinner — including regular ol’ dinner on a Tuesday night — burgers and hot dogs won’t take you very far. Grilled chicken, however, will. So will snappy grilled shrimp that cooks in minutes, lemony, flame-teased asparagus, blistered corn on the cob, and a mahogany-tinged pork tenderloin seasoned with a fast-and-fancy dry rub.

These five foods will feed you, your family, and your friends over and over again this summer, which is why we believe they’re the first batch of recipes you should learn how to grill. Make them often enough and you’ll start changing the recipes to better suit your needs. Maybe you’ll add some heat to the yogurt marinade we use for grilled shrimp, or perhaps you prefer the sweetness of oranges to lemons when grilling the asparagus. The point is, after you learn how to grill chicken you can master it.

Our cooking lessons for grilled chicken, grilled shrimp, grilled pork tenderloin, grilled asparagus, and grilled corn on the cob are designed and tested (and tested again) to work just as they are — and you can count on them to be delicious. But they’re also waiting for you to riff on them. So consider them to be, as Jacques Pepin says, “a point of departure.”

We’re excited to see where you arrive.

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