10 Brilliant Autumn BBQ Ideas to Keep You Cooking Outdoors

Autumn can still be a great time for a BBQ. In fact, once the evenings become cooler and the food gets a little heartier, cooking outside can take on a completely different appeal.

Rather than packing the barbecue away as soon as summer ends, this is a good opportunity to make a little more of your garden. Create some shelter with a pergola, gazebo or covered outdoor cooking area, add warm outdoor lighting and make the seating area more inviting with cushions and blankets. An outdoor heater or fire pit, positioned safely away from the cooking area, can help create a cosy space that you’ll actually want to use as the temperature drops.

You don’t need to undertake a complete garden makeover either. Even moving your outdoor furniture to a more sheltered spot and adding a few lights can help you enjoy the garden for longer.

And if it becomes too chilly to sit outside all evening, use the barbecue as an extension of the kitchen. Cook outside, enjoy the unmistakable smoky flavour that comes from the grill, then take everything indoors to eat.

The food can change with the season too. Autumn is perfect for moving away from lighter summer dishes and towards sticky sausages, smoky chicken, charred seasonal vegetables, bubbling cheese, steaming baked potatoes and warm desserts.

So, before you put the barbecue away for winter, here are 10 autumn BBQ ideas that prove outdoor cooking doesn’t have to end when summer does.

1. Sticky Maple and Mustard Sausages

Let’s start with something almost impossible to get wrong.

Good sausages are particularly well suited to an autumn barbecue because they’re substantial, relatively inexpensive and don’t require hours of preparation.

Cook them slowly over a medium heat rather than putting them directly over the hottest part of the barbecue. During the final few minutes, brush them with a mixture of wholegrain mustard and maple syrup or honey.

The sugars will begin to caramelise over the heat, giving you a wonderfully sticky coating, while the mustard adds enough sharpness to stop everything becoming overly sweet.

Serve them in crusty rolls with caramelised onions, or bring them indoors and serve with buttery mash and onion gravy if the weather has taken a turn.

2. BBQ Baked Potatoes With Proper Toppings

A jacket potato cooked on the barbecue takes considerably longer than one thrown into the microwave, but you get something completely different for your patience.

Rub large potatoes with a little oil and sea salt, wrap them in foil and cook over indirect heat until completely tender. Depending on their size and the temperature of your barbecue, they’ll generally need around 45–60 minutes, but always check the centres are completely soft before serving.

Then comes the important part.

Try mature cheddar and spring onion, garlic mushrooms, chilli, pulled chicken, sour cream and chives or leftover barbecue meat.

Set several toppings out in bowls and let everyone build their own. It’s an easy way to feed a group without spending the entire evening assembling individual plates.

3. Smoky Chicken Thighs With Garlic and Herbs

Chicken thighs are much more forgiving on a barbecue than chicken breasts, which makes them ideal when you’re simultaneously trying to cook, talk to people and remember where you put your drink.

Marinate boneless chicken thighs in olive oil, crushed garlic, lemon zest, thyme, smoked paprika, salt and black pepper.

Cook them thoroughly over the barbecue until nicely charred on the outside and completely cooked through. Using a digital food thermometer is the easiest way to check — the thickest part should reach 75°C.

The combination of smoke, garlic and herbs feels suitably autumnal, while a squeeze of fresh lemon at the end keeps everything from becoming too heavy.

Pile the chicken into warm flatbreads with rocket, pickled onions and garlicky yoghurt for an easy dinner.

4. Charred Halloumi, Squash and Red Onion Skewers

An autumn BBQ certainly doesn’t need to revolve entirely around meat.

Butternut squash, red onion and halloumi make brilliant seasonal skewers. The squash benefits from being partially cooked first so that it becomes tender at roughly the same time as everything else.

Toss chunks of squash and red onion with olive oil, smoked paprika, thyme and black pepper before threading them onto skewers with cubes of halloumi.

Grill until the vegetables are tender and lightly charred and the halloumi has developed those lovely golden edges.

Finish with fresh lemon juice or a little hot honey if you like the combination of sweet, salty and spicy flavours.

5. Steak With Garlic and Rosemary Mushrooms

Steak and mushrooms aren’t exactly revolutionary, but that’s partly why they work so well.

Large flat or portobello mushrooms are excellent cooked directly on the barbecue. Brush them with olive oil and season generously with garlic, rosemary, salt and black pepper.

Cook them alongside your steak until the mushrooms are tender and smoky and the steak is cooked to your liking.

Rather than automatically adding a cold summer salad, serve everything with roasted new potatoes, grilled tenderstem broccoli or charred greens.

It immediately turns a familiar BBQ dinner into something much more suited to a cool autumn evening.

6. BBQ Corn With Chilli, Lime and Parmesan

Corn deserves to survive the transition from summer into autumn.

Cook whole corn cobs over the barbecue until tender and lightly charred in places, turning them regularly so that they cook evenly.

Once they’re ready, brush them with melted butter before adding chilli flakes, finely grated Parmesan and plenty of fresh lime.

The combination is smoky, salty, spicy and sharp and makes a brilliant side dish for chicken, sausages or steak.

If you’re cooking for people who aren’t keen on heat, simply leave the chilli off and put some on the table for everyone else.

7. Warm BBQ Camembert With Garlic and Rosemary

This is where autumn barbecuing starts getting particularly good.

Remove all plastic packaging from a whole Camembert and place the cheese in a suitable heatproof dish. Score the top, then tuck thin slices of garlic and small sprigs of rosemary into the surface.

Place it over indirect heat and close the barbecue lid, cooking until the cheese is completely hot and molten in the centre.

Serve immediately with chunks of crusty bread for dipping.

Apple wedges, grapes or a spoonful of chutney work particularly well alongside it.

It’s essentially the barbecue equivalent of sitting beside a fire in a jumper.

8. Foil-Packet Autumn Vegetables

Foil packets are one of the easiest ways to cook vegetables on a barbecue, particularly when you’re dealing with smaller pieces that might otherwise disappear through the grill.

Combine sliced mushrooms, peppers, courgette, red onion and partially cooked squash with olive oil, garlic and herbs.

Divide everything between double layers of foil, seal the parcels securely and cook them on the barbecue until the vegetables are tender.

Open them carefully because plenty of hot steam will have accumulated inside.

Finish with crumbled feta, grated Parmesan or fresh herbs before serving.

The parcels can also be assembled before guests arrive, which makes them particularly useful when you’re entertaining.

9. BBQ Apples With Oat Crumble

Barbecue pudding is criminally underrated.

Halve and core eating apples before placing them cut-side up in a foil tray or individual foil parcels.

Fill the centres with a simple mixture of oats, brown sugar, butter and chopped nuts, then cook them over indirect heat with the barbecue lid closed until the apples are soft and the topping is golden.

Serve them warm with vanilla ice cream, custard or crème fraîche.

It’s simple, seasonal and considerably easier than trying to produce an elaborate pudding while you’re entertaining outside.

10. Toasted S’mores With Dark Chocolate

If the barbecue is still warm after dinner, you’ve already got everything you need to make another dessert.

Carefully toast marshmallows over the residual heat until golden before sandwiching them between biscuits with squares of dark or milk chocolate.

The warmth from the marshmallow will start melting the chocolate as you eat.

They’re sticky, messy and completely lacking in sophistication. That’s rather the point.

For a more autumnal version, try using ginger biscuits instead of traditional digestives.

What Should You Serve at an Autumn BBQ?

One of the easiest ways to make an autumn barbecue feel appropriate for the season is to rethink the side dishes.

Cold pasta salad and bowls of lettuce make perfect sense on a warm July afternoon. When the temperature drops, warmer and more substantial accompaniments become much more appealing.

Try serving your autumn BBQ with:

• Buttery new potatoes with fresh herbs
• Warm potato salad with mustard dressing
• Charred seasonal vegetables
• Macaroni cheese
• Crusty bread with garlic butter
• Braised red cabbage
• Corn on the cob
• Roasted squash
• Warm flatbreads
• Apple and cabbage slaw

Not everything needs to be cooked on the barbecue. Making one or two substantial sides in the kitchen can make entertaining much easier while still allowing the grill to be the main event.

How to Create a Cosy Autumn BBQ Area

The food is only half of the equation when you’re barbecuing later in the year.

If you want people to stay outside rather than making a dash for the kitchen as soon as they’ve finished eating, make the seating area somewhere they genuinely want to spend time.

Shelter can make an enormous difference. Depending on your garden, that could mean a pergola, gazebo or covered seating area, always ensuring that the barbecue itself is used with appropriate ventilation and according to its manufacturer’s instructions.

Add outdoor lighting so you’re not plunged into darkness halfway through dinner. Solar lights, festoon lighting and outdoor lamps can all make a patio feel much warmer and more inviting.

Keep blankets within reach and add weather-resistant cushions to outdoor furniture. If you use a suitable outdoor heater or fire pit, position it safely and follow the manufacturer’s instructions.

You can also bring some of the season into the garden with pots of autumn plants, lanterns and a few simple table decorations.

It doesn’t need to become an elaborate outdoor room. The aim is simply to make your garden comfortable enough that you continue using it when summer has gone.

Can You BBQ in Cold Weather?

Absolutely. A barbecue can be used well beyond summer, although cooking may take longer as the outside temperature drops.

Allow the barbecue enough time to reach the correct cooking temperature and keep the lid closed as much as possible if your model has one. Opening it constantly allows valuable heat to escape.

A digital food thermometer is particularly useful when cooking meat because appearance alone isn’t a reliable indication that food has reached a safe internal temperature.

And if the weather becomes genuinely miserable, there is nothing wrong with cooking outside and eating inside.

Never Bring a BBQ Indoors

However cold or wet it becomes, never move a barbecue into your house, garage, tent, conservatory, shed or another enclosed or partially enclosed space.

Barbecues can produce carbon monoxide, an invisible and potentially fatal gas.

If the weather makes outdoor cooking unsafe or impractical, abandon the barbecue and finish dinner using your indoor kitchen instead.

A bit of drizzle might be part of the British BBQ experience. Carbon monoxide poisoning most definitely isn’t.

What Drinks Work With an Autumn BBQ?

The drinks can change with the season just as much as the food.

Sparkling apple drinks work beautifully with smoky food, while warmed apple juice infused with orange peel and cloves makes an easy alcohol-free option when the evening turns chilly.

You could also serve hot chocolate towards the end of the evening, particularly if toasted marshmallows or BBQ apples are on the menu.

For something simple, even pots of tea or freshly brewed coffee can be surprisingly welcome when everyone has been sitting outdoors for a couple of hours.

There is no rule saying a barbecue requires an ice-cold drink simply because you’re cooking outside.

Make the Most of Your Garden This Autumn

An autumn BBQ isn’t really about pretending summer hasn’t ended.

It’s about making the most of a different season.

The garden becomes cosier, the food gets heartier and standing beside a warm grill on a crisp evening can actually be considerably more appealing than cooking over one during a heatwave.

With a little shelter, some good lighting and a few blankets, you can continue enjoying your outdoor space long after traditional BBQ season has finished.

And the menu can evolve with it.

Swap summer salads for baked potatoes, squash and warm sides. Cook smoky chicken, sticky sausages and melting cheese. Then leave enough heat in the barbecue for apples or toasted marshmallows afterwards.

So don’t wheel the barbecue into the shed just yet.

Autumn can still be a great time for a BBQ — and these ten ideas are a very good excuse to light it one more time.

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