4th of July Meal: Grilled Hot Dogs, Honey Mustard Potato Salad, and Berry Cake

The older I get, the more I love the Fourth of July. (Maybe it’s because as a kid, I was only interested in the promised pyrotechnics: fireworks, sparklers, making out on the Ferris wheel at the county fair with my seventh-grade crush.) When the calendar turns from June to July, it triggers a kind of happy Pavlovian reaction in me. Make way for hot dogs and corn on the cob, neighborhood parades and John Philip Sousa marches, mini-flags in one hand and melting cones in the other!

Speaking of hot dogs, Ali Slagle has figured out how to grill hot dogs that retain their juicy crunch and don’t turn into dry husks. “Instead of placing the hot dogs perpendicular to the grates,” Ali writes, “place them between the rotating rods like those in the display cases at a ballpark or convenience store. This configuration exposes more meat to the flame, which helps grill the hot dogs faster and keeps them from rolling.” Pair your hot dogs with Eric Kim’s delicious hot dog pink lemonade or, for something equally acidic but with a bit more punch, Robert Simonson’s Daiquiri.

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Grilled hot dogs

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We have lots of great recipes for your Fourth of July feasts at New York Times Cooking. If you’re craving potato salad, here’s Eric’s new recipe honey mustard potato saladwhose flavor was inspired by these honey mustard pretzel nuggets from the snack aisle. There’s also Melissa Clark’s vegan lemon and mint potato salad (a reader favorite) and Kenji López-Alt’s umami-rich Japanese Potato Salad with MentaikoThese are all side dishes made with premium potatoes.

Or maybe your salad needs are more pasta-based? Melissa’s classic pasta saladas she rightly notes, has everything you want in one bowl: lots of ripe tomatoes, chunks of mozzarella, sliced ​​olives, salami, and lots of fresh green herbs, all tossed in a red wine vinaigrette with garlic and oregano. Eric’s new recipe angel hair pasta salad is light and bouncy, tossed in a simple mayonnaise-vinegar dressing with lots of crunchy vegetables. And every time I make Ham El-Waylly corn and miso pasta saladI eat at least two servings, it’s really good.

It’s not the Fourth of July without pickles, whether they’re served sliced ​​on burgers and hot dogs or in a giant open jar next to potato chips. Ali’s New Pickle tzatziki with dill pickles This is an easy dip and full of marinated tang; I would happily take some too grilled chicken through her. More pickle power from Ali Slagle: crushed pickle salad, Green Bean Salad with Dill Pickles and FetaAnd vegan avocado ranch dressing (which uses dill pickle brine).

And then: flag cake. Or, for those of us who want to put more berries on a cake than the Old Glory design allows, there’s the jubilant Yossy Arefi berry and cream cake. The recipe calls for mixing your choice of raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries on top of a sour cream cake topped with a super-light cream cheese frosting. Serve your delicious cake well before sunset so you have plenty of time to find a good spot in the park for the fireworks. (I always love fireworks.)