Kitchen Tips In the Kitchen The Ultimate BBQ Showdown Grab your wet wipes! We pitted 64 recipes against each other in the battle for the ultimate BBQ plate—and we need your votes. By Ariel Knutson Ariel Knutson Arie is the Senior Editorial Director, Features & Community for Allrecipes. Before joining Dotdash Meredith in 2021, Arie spent eight years working at Kitchn where she launched and led their news and features program. In addition to editing, Arie has worked as a freelance writer, recipe developer, social media editor, and was once the maître d' at a three-star Michelin restaurant in New York. She's also a graduate of the culinary techniques program at the International Culinary Center. As an editor, Arie is passionate about the food and cooking stories that center people, place, and culture. She's currently working on perfecting her cardamom bun recipe, and will never say no to a scoop of ice cream. Allrecipes' editorial guidelines Updated on May 29, 2024 In This Article View All In This Article How to Vote Meet the Competitors How We Chose the Recipes How the Bracket Works Our Ultimate BBQ Plate Winners Are... One plate. Four sections. Sixty-four BBQ recipes to choose from. Welcome to Allrecipes' The Ultimate BBQ Showdown. We hope you came hungry and highly opinionated! With summer just around the corner, the Allrecipes editorial team has been dreaming up all of the things we want to eat: the sauciest ribs, the creamiest potato salad, and a peach cobbler that would make your grandmother cry with joy. In short, we want all of the BBQ food you'd find at a backyard feast—and we want YOU, dear reader, in on the action. Inspired by our good friends at Serious Eats and their annual Starch Madness tournament (can you believe a BURGER won a SANDWICH competition this year?!), the Allrecipes team wants to tackle BBQ. But instead of finding the singular best recipe like you normally do in a NCAA-style tournament, we're searching for the ultimate BBQ plate. Because you don't just pick one recipe when you're at a cookout, you get a little of everything: the meats, the hot sides, the cold sides, the sweets. Now your turn: Let's build that perfect BBQ plate with votes! How to Vote The battle for the ultimate BBQ plate will begin on May 16th, 2024 and voting will take place on this page (above!) and on Allrecipes' Instagram stories (@allrecipes). Because we are but wee mortals, voting will only happen on business days—no weekends, and nothing to see here on Memorial Day itself. Each day's matchups will be posted at 12 p.m. ET and will be open for voting for 23 hours. From there, votes will be tallied, hearts will be broken, and the recipes with the most votes will move on to the next round. And so on, and so on. The very last round of voting will be on Tuesday, May 28th, and the ultimate BBQ plate will be announced on Wednesday, May 29th. You can vote once a day on both Instagram stories and on this page: Just click on your favorite recipe and then click submit. Easy-peasy, right? Even though we can't give you a physical I VOTED sticker for doing your not-quite-civic duty, know that we are doing so in spirit. Meet the Competitors We've divided our ultimate BBQ plate into four sections or regions: The Meats, The Hot Sides, The Cold Sides, and The Sweets. Scroll through below to meet your recipe competitors! The Meats Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Yummy Honey Chicken Kabobs Lisa's Favorite Carne Asada Marinade Juiciest Hamburgers Ever Prize-Winning Baby Back Ribs Santa Maria Grilled Tri-Tip Beef Beer Brats Grilled Chicken Marinade Beer Can Chicken Cheesy Bacon Ultimate Dogs Grilled Beef Tenderloin with Herb-Garlic-Pepper Coating Grilled Pork Loin Chops Smash Burgers Charcoal-Grilled Ribeye Steak Grill Master Chicken Wings Yeah, I-Lived-in-Texas, Smoked Brisket 1 of 6 The Hot Sides Best Fried Green Tomatoes Mom's Favorite Baked Mac and Cheese Baked Beans Kickin' Collard Greens Grilled Corn on the Cob Chef John's Buttermilk Biscuits Grilled Sweet Potatoes Balsamic Grilled Zucchini Grilled Asparagus Quick and Easy Grilled Potatoes Golden Sweet Cornbread Vicki's Hush Puppies Green Beans with Bacon Authentic Louisiana Red Beans and Rice Squash Casserole Fried Okra 1 of 6 The Cold Sides Old-Fashioned Potato Salad Broccoli Salad Pasta Salad with Homemade Dressing Black Bean and Corn Salad Dad's Creamy Cucumber Salad Watermelon Salad Best Vinegar Coleslaw Southern Pimento Cheese Deviled Eggs Southern Coleslaw Perfect Summer Fruit Salad Cucumber Tomato Salad Three Bean Salad Classic Macaroni Salad Elote Salad Authentic German Potato Salad 1 of 6 The Sweets The Best Banana Pudding Fresh Southern Peach Cobbler Key Lime Pie Strawberry Pretzel Salad Homemade Blueberry Pie Best No-Bake Cherry Cheesecake Ice Cream Sandwich Cake Tres Leches (Milk Cake) Jello Poke Cake Easy Chocolate Icebox Cake Cherry Pie Blackberry Cobbler Strawberry Shortcake The Best Lemon Bars Peach Pie the Old Fashioned Two Crust Way S'mores Brownies 1 of 6 How We Chose the Recipes Allrecipes/ Adrienne Battistella With BBQ styles being so different from one part of the country to another, we called in an expert to help us narrow the field: Allrecipes Allstar Dakari Akorede. Dakari grew up grilling with his dad, and eventually became the "Grill Man" in college for his fraternity. The first tailgate he ever threw was for more than 700 people (!) and involved hundreds of pounds of beef, pork, and chicken. Currently, he works as a pit master and teaches barbecue classes online. So yeah, you can say he knows a thing or two about BBQ. We asked Dakari to help us select recipes that the average cook could make at home, but still feel proud to bring it to a potluck, placing them in the four categories above: The Meats, The Cold Sides, The Hot Sides, and The Sweets. Our editorial team selected the most popular BBQ recipes that fall into these four categories, and Dakari made the final call. Featured Recipe Refreshing Watermelon Salad 121 Ratings Dotdash Meredith How the Bracket Works If you're wondering hmmmm Allrecipes, this bracket kind of looks like what NCAA does for March Madness, you would be correct. You might also be thinking ummmm Allrecipes, I just looked at my calendar and it's currently May and not March. And once again, you'd be correct. You're so smart! In the name of finding the perfect BBQ plate, we're breaking all of the rules by hosting a bracket-style competition right before the start of summer, aka the start of BBQ season. The NBA playoffs are still going on in May sooooo maybe that's the tie-in? Yeah, let's roll with that. Sports! So, welcome to May Madness! Like the NCAA's March Madness bracket, our 64 competitors—er, recipes—are divided into four categories: The Meats, The Cold Sides, The Hot Sides, and The Sweets. The 16 recipes in each region aren’t literally seeded (because every recipe is a winner in our hearts), but rather organized to play similar recipes in the first round: Peach pie will go up against peach cobbler, fried green tomatoes will go up against fried okra, etc. From there, it’s single elimination all the way to the championship. Lastly, this bracket-style tournament is different from March Madness because we're trying to find the ultimate BBQ plate—four recipes in total—instead of just one winning recipe. Here's how the voting days will shake out based on the bracket: Thursday, May 16th: The Meats (Round 1)Friday, May 17th: Hot Sides (Round 1)Monday, May 20th: Cold Sides (Round 1)Tuesday, May 21st: The Sweets (Round 1)Wednesday, May 22nd: The Meats + Hot Sides (Round 2)Thursday, May 23rd: Cold Sides + The Sweets (Round 2)Friday, May 24th: All Categories (Round 3)Tuesday, May 28th: All Categories (Round 4)Wednesday, May 29th: Winner Reveal Featured Recipe Slow Cooker Pulled Pork 5,142 Ratings Voting Recap Round 1: To start us off on this journey, The Meats category was pretty predictable. There were no major upsets—pulled pork beat out brisket by over 80 votes; smash burgers won against cheeseburgers by over 100 votes; and beer brats were victorious over cheese bacon ultimate dogs by less than 30 votes. In the Hot Sides category, there were a couple of upsets, including biscuits winning over cornbread (HOW!), and grilled asparagus winning over grilled zucchini. Mac and cheese absolutely dominated the first round of this tournament and received over 1,100 votes more than squash casserole. For the Cold Sides category, our editorial team was disturbed to learn that our readers preferred deviled eggs over pimento cheese for their BBQ spread (but you do you). And our old-fashioned potato salad beat out our German potato salad by a large margin (over 1000 votes). Finally, in The Sweets category, I was personally shocked that pie wasn't as popular with our readers. Blackberry Cobbler won against blueberry pie; peach pie lost to peach cobbler; and no-bake cherry cheesecake took the W against cherry pie. Luckily, key lime pie was able to sneak past lemon bars by less than 100 votes. Round 2: While we were sad to leave some of our favorite BBQ recipes behind in Round 1, things got even more heated with Round 2. In The Meats category, smash burgers beat ribs by 200 votes, and pulled pork, ribeye steak, and grilled chicken wings also advanced to the next round. For the Hot Sides category, grilled asparagus reigned supreme against fried green tomatoes; buttermilk biscuits won against baked beans; and mac and cheese crushed grilled potatoes (no surprise there). There were more surprises in Round 2 for the Cold Sides category—broccoli salad beat out coleslaw by just 11 votes; and our perfect fruit salad took the W against pasta salad. Pasta! Over fruit! I never thought it was possible. Lastly, The Sweets category was mostly predictable this round: Banana pudding, peach cobbler, key lime pie, and strawberry shortcake are going into Round 3. Round 3: We said goodbye to some great recipes in Round 2, and it didn't get any better in Round 3. Smash burgers advanced to the finals against pulled pork; mac and cheese had a slam dunk against buttermilk biscuits; our perfect fruit salad beat broccoli salad; and in the most shocking event of them all—banana pudding LOST to strawberry shortcake by over 400 votes. Round 4: This is it—the final day of voting! I was sure that our mac and cheese would reign supreme, but corn and the cob took the throne by over 200 votes. Steak (!!!) beat smash burgers by less than 100 votes. Our potato salad absolutely crushed fruit salad by more than 500 votes (did fruit ever have a chance against potatoes??? no.) And lastly, strawberry shortcake was able to secure the win over peach cobbler with over 100 votes. Our Ultimate BBQ Plate Winners Are... You came, you ate, you voted. And after a fierce two weeks of competition, you whittled down the original list of 64 recipes to four cookout must-haves. Here is your perfect BBQ plate! Happy summer eating to us all. Charcoal-Grilled Ribeye Steak Grilled Corn on the Cob Old-Fashioned Potato Salad Strawberry Shortcake Dotdash Meredith Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Tell us why! Other Submit