The sun is shining. The office is closed. The barbecue is open. July 4th is coming.

The 4th provides a full day of luxurious free time and a celebration that revolves around food. We’ve fine-tuned the Blue Apron box that week to give you the option of turning your three meals into an all-day barbecue. All you need: a picnic blanket, a grill, and friends to share your cookout with.

(Note that you can also nix the party and the grill and make each meal as usual, indoors and one at a time!)

To meat-eaters, we’re sending out three incredible grillable dinners, each made up of food that can also be enjoyed as finger food, like kebobs and sliders.

First up, we’ve got Beef & Summer Squash Skewers with Blue Cheese Potato Salad, gloriously tender beef and slightly smoky squash with perfectly patriotic BLUE cheese potato salad.

Second on the list are bite-sized Pulled BBQ Chicken Sliders with Mexican Grilled Corn & Homemade Pickles. Have you ever had Mexican grilled corn? Inspired by a street snack, you’ll love the combination of crunchy kernels and creamy cheese.

Finally, throw shrimp on the grill in our outdoor version of a classic finger food–Grilled Shrimp Cocktail with Grilled Asparagus & Eggplant.

 

We love throwing vegetables on the grill, and vegetarians are getting festive BBQ’d dinners, too. We grill both the filling and the tortilla in these Mini Summer Squash Tacos with Guacamole.


Next on the list are these delicate, crunchy Sweet Corn Fritters with Remoulade Sauce and Pea Tendril Salad. These are so gourmet and tasty you won’t believe you made them yourself. (We almost didn’t believe it.) These are actually made inside, on the stove, but you can make them in advance, pack them up, and then head out to the barbecue.


And finally! Mushroom Sliders with Rosemary Garlic Aioli & Dijon Spinach-Potato Salad. We couldn’t resist sticking these adorable red, white & blue flags into the sliders before we served them.

There you have it! We hope you’ll join us in some patriotic cookout fun. Here are a few more pictures of us testing and developing these recipes for you, if you’d like to keep ogling the delicious BBQ fun and planning for your own outdoor cooking adventure…