You have to try these balsamic marinated grilled vegetables. They’re tender and perfectly cooked, ideal for family meals or outdoor cookouts. With straightforward preparation, a flavorful marinade, and short grilling times, they’re a great weeknight side dish option. Your family will love these tasty grilled veggies!
Simple grilled veggies are great – grilled zucchini and grilled asparagus are some of my favorite veggies to grill.
But sometimes you want something a little different, and that’s where these marinated grilled veggies come in.
They use a super easy 4-ingredient balsamic marinade that adds a great slightly sweet and tangy flavor to the veggies.
If you follow these steps, you’ll have delicious, perfectly grilled veggies that your family will gobble up – mine certainly does.
Grab these ingredients
(Note: the full ingredients list, including measurements, is provided in the recipe card at the bottom of this post.)
For the balsamic veggie marinade
- Balsamic vinegar – I used an aged balsamic as it’s less bitter and gives a little better flavor than a regular balsamic, but whether it’s aged or not the marinade still tastes great on veggies.
- Oil – use a mild, high heat oil since you’ll be putting the veggies on the grill. I like to use avocado oil.
- Kosher salt – I used Diamond Crystal kosher salt in this recipe. It is less salty by volume than many other salts, so if you are using a different type of salt (kosher or otherwise), you’ll want to use this salt conversion chart from Epicurious to determine how much salt to use.
- Pepper – freshly ground black pepper is great, but you could also switch it up with white or pink pepper.
For the veggies
You can use whatever type of veggies you’d like, but these are the ones I used for this recipe.
- Asparagus – I used the typical green asparagus, but white would also work.
- Bell pepper – use whatever color you like best. Red, orange, and yellow will be sweeter while green will be a bit peppery.
- Zucchini – you can use a small or medium sized zucchini. I would not use a super large or wide zucchini as the inside may get mushy on the grill.
- Onion – red onions are great on the grill, but a white or yellow onion also works.
- Mushrooms – I find cremini mushrooms to be best in this marinade as they have a hint of flavor on their own that white mushrooms don’t.
How to grill vegetables
This recipe is pretty straight forward and hardly takes any time on the grill. It does require a little prep work to get the veggies ready to marinade, but the short marinating time helps make up for it.
Prepping the veggies
Marinating the veggies
Grilling the veggies
What to serve with grilled vegetables
These balsamic grilled veggies are a great side dish and could go with any number of other dishes! Try them out with one of the following options.
- Chicken, like these 4 ingredient marinated chicken thighs;
- Pork, such as some grilled pork tenderloin;
- Flank steak, like this dry rubbed flank steak;
- Skirt steak, such as this Traeger smoked skirt steak;
- Hamburgers, like these grilled gluten free burgers;
- A starch, such as a red skin potato salad with bacon;
- Some fruit, like this fruit salad for a crowd; or
- A side salad, like this spinach blueberry salad.
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Balsamic Marinated Grilled Vegetables
Equipment
- 2 9×13 dishes (or plastic ziploc bags)
- Toothpicks
- 1 liquid measuring cup
- 1 Small whisk
- 1 Tongs
Ingredients
The marinade
- 4 oz mild high heat oil like avocado oil
- 2 oz balsamic vinegar
- 2 tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt
- ½ tsp ground black pepper
The veggies
- 1 lb asparagus
- 1 zucchini
- 1 bell pepper
- 1 red onion
- 8 oz mushrooms
Instructions
- First prep the vegetables. Make sure they’re clean and dried off, if necessary. Particularly for the mushrooms you’ll likely need to wipe off any dirt and grime with a paper towel. Take out one or two large rectangular dishes or a plastic ziploc bag to put the prepped veggies into for marinating.
- Starting with the asparagus, take the stiff, woody ends off of them. You can either bend them until they snap off, or cut the off with a sharp knife on the cutting board. Set them in the dish when done.
- For the onion, peel the papery outside layers off, then cut it into roughly half inch slices with a sharp knife on a cutting board. Slide a toothpick into each slice until it reaches the middle to help keep the onion layers together, then place the onion slices in a dish as well.
- To prep the bell pepper first you’ll need to remove the tops. Make an incision less than half an inch down from the top of the pepper and carefully cut all the way around until the top of the pepper comes off (kind of like a hat). Slice each bell pepper in half from top to bottom and remove any seeds with your fingers and discard them. Place them in a dish as well.
- For the zucchini, cut a bit of the ends off then you can either cut it in half or quarters lengthwise (so you have long pieces). If you have a thinner zucchini you may want halves; for a thicker zucchini I would definitely recommend quarters. Place the zucchini in a dish.
- The mushrooms require very little prep. You can remove the stems if you like – they do tend to soak in more of the marinade that way – but it’s not necessary. Place them in a dish as well.
- Now you need to make the marinade and cover the vegetables in it. First make sure they’re in a single layer in the dish or plastic ziploc bag. Again, you may need more than one dish or bag to do this.
- Make the marinade by pouring the balsamic vinegar and oil into a measuring cup, then add the kosher salt and ground black pepper into it. Stir with a whisk until it’s combined. If it doesn’t want to combine try pouring it into a container with a lid and shaking it.
- Next pour the marinade over the veggies. Use your hands to help coat all of the veggies in the marinade; you will likely need to flip the onion slices and bell peppers several times to get them completely coated.
- If using a dish, cover with a lid or piece of plastic wrap, or if using a plastic bag just squeeze out as much air as you can and seal the bag. Marinate the veggies in the fridge for 30 minutes to 1 hour, removing them 10 minutes before placing them on the grill to let them warm slightly – meaning they’d only be in the fridge for 20 to 50 minutes.
- When the marinated veggies are on the counter warming slightly, go ahead and preheat your grill to between 375 and 400 degrees F. Once the grill comes to temperature, use tongs to place the veggies directly on the grill grates and close the lid. Keep the marinade the veggies were in to either brush or drizzle on the grilled veggies once they’re done.
- The different veggies will have different grilling times, as outlined below. They’re ordered from shortest to longest total cooking time.
- Zucchini: 2 to 3 minutes on the first side, then another 2 to 3 minutes on the second side.
- Asparagus: 2 to 3 minutes on the first side, then another 2 to 3 minutes on the second side (same as zucchini).
- Bell Peppers: 4 minutes on the first side, then another 2 to 4 minutes on the second side.
- Mushrooms: 4 minutes on the first side, then another 3 to 4 minutes on the second size.
- Onions: 5 minutes on the first side, then another 4 to 7 minutes on the second side.
- When the veggies are done cooking, set them on a platter and drizzle or brush any leftover marinade on top, if desired, then serve!
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