If you were to ask me where I spend the most time at our new house, I’d say outside. We moved in April, which means that it’s been warm weather pretty much since we moved. That equals lots of time outside, which includes meal times too!

Since it’s hot outside, we try to keep it cool inside. One of the best ways that I’ve found to keep your house cool is to not cook. Ok, so that doesn’t exactly work with a 6 person household and I love to cook anyways so we just look for alternatives to heating up the house by cooking on the stove or oven.

What’s everyone’s favorite way to cook in the Summer? Grilling, of course!

I grill everything, really. In addition to our family favorites of hamburgers, we grill pork chops, steaks, and another favorite Bar-B-Q grilled chicken. Last week, that’s exactly what I decided to serve and I couldn’t help but share our new favorite grilled side with you too – so you can have a DIY Grilled Potato Skins Bar for your next BBQ too!

The idea of grilling potato skins came out of a need for a side that would work perfectly on the grill that the whole family would love. Sure, you can grill whole “baked” potatoes, but I wanted something that would cook faster – in about the same amount of time as our chicken breasts.

Potatoes on the grill couldn’t be simpler. I simply cut them in half length-wise and leave all the potato in the skins. Sure, if they were true potato skins we’d scoop out some of that potato, but y’all, it’s too delicious to do that!

I rub both sides of the potatoes with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, then wrap them each in a small square of aluminum foil. Just about 12 minutes on each side and you should have perfectly golden potato skins hot off your grill!

To bring these potato skins up a notch, I declare it’s a DIY Grilled Potato Skins Bar kind of night. Everyone loves being able to completely customize their potato skins and bringing in our favorite toppings make it even more fun – even for a week day dinner.

And because I always like to have something green available for our plates, I add a delicious Strawberry Side Salad [which is literally just organic lettuce from the produce section with mixed in fresh strawberries] with a Strawberry Balsamic Dressing.

It’s simple, yet the perfect summer salad, especially to compliment grilled dinners!

There’s just something about a grilled meal. Not only are you saving the heat from cooking for the outdoors, having a meal fully prepared altogether on the grill is just fun and delicious. Your family will thank you for adding a DIY Grilled Potato Skins Bar to your next BBQ, I guarantee it!