12 Side Dish Recipes to Round Out Your Labor Day Feast

When you're planning a cookout, you might have a tendency to focus on the mains—whether you're grilling up burgers, brats, or anything else, side dishes can quickly become an afterthought. But if you're so busy with the entrées that all you serve them with are mayo-drenched coleslaw and potato salad from the deli counter, then you're missing out on what could be a highlight of your Labor Day. There are tons of sides you can cook up on the grill, from asparagus and cauliflower to potato salad and elotes. Or if you're short on grill space, watermelon salad or panzanella with a Southeast Asian twist? Keep reading for 13 side dishes to round out your Labor Day feast.

On the Grill

Simple Grilled Asparagus

Grilling is one of our favorite methods for cooking asparagus—all you have to do is toss it with olive oil, salt, and pepper and cook on the hottest part of the fire until it's charred but still a little crisp in the center. A homemade aioli for dipping turns this simple side into something special.

Grilled Whole Cauliflower

This burnished grilled whole cauliflower slathered in a savory teriyaki sauce has big entrée energy, but works just as well as a side. Brushing the teriyaki glaze over the entire cauliflower head in stages is what helps give the veggie a burnished, lightly charred appearance.

Simple Grilled-Potato Salad With Grilled-Lemon Vinaigrette

Potato salad is a cookout staple, but it usually doesn't look like this. We eschew the typical boiled spuds and mayonnaise-based dressing in favor of crispy grilled potatoes tossed in a grilled-lemon vinaigrette. Grilling the lemons brings out their natural sweetness, giving the dressing a surprising depth.

Elotes (Grilled Mexican Street Corn)

There are plenty of ways to flavor grilled corn, but if you're only going to use one recipe, then this should be it. Elotes is a classic Mexican street food made by slathering grilled corn with a creamy sauce consisting of mayo, sour cream, Cotija, chili powder, garlic, cilantro, and lime. I promise that you'll never look at corn the same way again.

Grilled Cabbage With Spicy Thai Dressing

As an alternative to coleslaw, try grilled cabbage instead. The vegetable takes on a nutty, sweet flavor when you char it over an open flame. Here we serve it with a spicy Thai-style dressing made with lime juice, fish sauce, brown sugar, and garlic, but also check out our recipes with ginger and miso, yogurt and mint, and blue cheese dressings.

Grilled Radicchio With Cherry Gastrique

Bitter radicchio works wonderfully on the grill—the intense heat brings out some of its sweetness, while deepening its bitter taste. To tame that bitterness, we serve it with a sweet-and-sour cherry gastrique, which also adds some vibrancy to the dish (the radicchio loses its color as it grills).

Off the Grill

Tangy and Creamy Macaroni Salad

While deli macaroni salad can sometimes give us the ick, this upgraded version has a depth and tanginess that makes it stand out in a crowd. Sour cream, Dijon mustard, Worcestershire, and hot sauce keep the dressing interesting, while celery, shallots, and scallions lend a crunchy texture.

Classic Caprese Salad

Labor Day means that we're at the the tail end of tomato season, and few dishes celebrate the last tomatoes of the year better than Caprese. This summery salad only calls for a few ingredients—olive oil, basil, mozzarella, and salt—so it's worth seeking out the best quality products possible.

Watermelon, Feta, and Mint Salad

We can't talk about feta, mint, and fruit without talking about this classic salad. As with caprese, the salad's simplicity means you need to find the best ingredients. Look for small watermelons that feel heavy for their size (the farmers market is your best option) and use creamy, slightly funky sheep's-milk feta instead of the more common cow's-milk variety.

The Ultimate Greek Salad

Just like a Caprese, a Greek salad is a study in not messing with simplicity. Fresh, ripe tomatoes, crisp cucumbers, red onions, a big pinch of Greek oregano, red wine vinegar, pitted olives, and good olive oil are all you need. Of course, we lightly pickle the red onions, just to round off their sharp bite, but that's about as fussy as this recipe gets.

Banh Mi Panzanella

You could do worse than to serve a traditional panzanella at your cookout, but I'm partial to this Vietnamese-inspired version. To recreate the flavors of a banh mi, we mix the bread with marinated tofu, fresh and pickled vegetables, and two different sauces: hoisin-honey sauce and chili mayo.

Blistered-Tomato Pasta Salad With Basil

We have a variety of pasta salad recipes in our archives, but this one is both the easiest and the most summery. We treat it like a warm pasta dish, cooking the tomatoes with garlic until they burst and form a sauce. The noodles will firm up as they cool, so boil them a few minutes past al dente.