How to Grill Delicious Shish Kabobs Your First Time

We had been eagerly anticipating grilling shish kabobs ever since we grilled our first delicious veggies! We had checked out the grilled Shish Kabob recipe on our grilling site on the Grilling Recipes Page. So today we got serious, and started preparations for this wonderful and tasty meal on a skewer.

We had lots of bell peppers from our garden "vine in a pot" just off our deck, so we began by cutting out the seeds and stems and sectioning the peppers. Since the objective was to "skewer" the food, we cut the peppers into semi-large chunks, about a square inch or bigger in size. Next we sectioned our Vidalia onions, being careful to keep the pieces fairly large, again close to a square inch in size. Finally we turned to our Denver Chuck steak strips; they were somewhat small already, so they were perfect for cutting into square inch sized pieces for our shish kabob skewers.

Now the magic began! We coated each piece of pepper, onion, and steak by dipping and swirling them in a small cup with a layer of Olive Oil. Then we carefully began to skewer alternate chunks of pepper, onion, and steak. Our anticipation grew wildly as we saw the pepper slices lovingly curl around the onion and steak chunks as each metal skewer filled to its maximum capacity. We waited until each skewer was complete before we sprinkled on that favorite grilling standby, our Paula Dean Seasoning. We wanted that "just right" smaller amount of flavorful seasoning on our Olive Oil coated skewers, so the natural flavors of the meat and vegetables would not be overpowered by the seasoning.

We heated up our gas grill to between 350 and 400 degrees, and placed the beautiful skewers directly on the grill. "What can we do with our extra pieces for which we don't have skewers", we thought. "It would be a shame to waste them." This was where that flat grill pan with the tiny holes came in very handy! "So that's what it's for," we decided; "it's for grilling small pieces that we don't want to fall through the grill bars."

We should have turned the enticing skewers after about 5 minutes in order to evenly brown and crunch the meat and veggies-grilling 5 minutes on a side seems to be the best rule of thumb on the kabob skewers. However, we waited a little too long, forgetting to turn those delicious creations until closer to the 10 minute mark; so we had those delightful darkened edges on our veggie chunks, which most grillers find so delicious.

We pulled those exquisite shish kabobs off our grill like they were the most valuable treasures imaginable! Wrapped in a large piece of aluminum foil to keep warm, we ran to the table with them. We burned our fingers on the hot metal skewers and the hot juicy chunks of tender steak, onion, and pepper as we immediately sat devouring them. Audible sounds of "Yummm" and "Ohhh, soo good" abounded during our feast.

Note: "Paula Dean" Seasoning is just a combination of 4 parts salt, 1 part pepper, and 1 part garlic powder. Credit goes to that master chef Paula Dean, for a most versatile dry spice seasoning that works so well on everything from steaks, pork, and chicken to potatoes and other veggies. With so many different meats and veggies that grill well, we can have a delectable smorgasbord of tempting possibilities from the grill. See our Grilling Recipes Page