Noah Galuten is a James Beard Award–winning chef and cookbook author who has written about vegetables, barbecue, and pantry cooking—and whose Substack, I’m Legally Required to Feed You, is essentially a dispatches-from-the-trenches account of what happens when a serious food person has to feed two actual children every single day. His new cookbook, Grill Time! (out May 26th), is built around a deceptively simple premise: the grill isn’t a weekend hobby. It’s a weeknight tool. About 40% of the recipes are vegetable-forward, there’s a whole section on grilling for meal prep, and there are things called “Dad Hacks” that are useful whether or not you are one. We talked to Noah about easy entry points, the mental load of feeding a family, and why the lone-guy-with-a-steak image of grilling needs to go.
What’s the one thing people are most wrong about when it comes to grilling?
I think that grilling is so much easier than people realize. It really makes clean up such a breeze. The ability to cook multiple ingredients at the same time, then it’s just a quick brushing and your “kitchen” is clean. Even a charcoal grill takes about as much time as it takes to preheat an oven, and you get to stand outside and enjoy a little sun.
A lot of people—and honestly, a lot of moms—think of the grill as someone else’s domain. What’s the thing that’s keeping people off the grill who shouldn’t be?
A lot of cooking is this way, to be honest. If you didn’t grow up watching it or doing it, it can seem really complicated until you dive in and wrap your head around it. To some people, cooking with a wok or baking blueberry muffins is really intimidating. But think about how many stereotypical dads are only capable of grilling or making breakfast. It’s definitely not because they’re hard to do. A lot of people expect my cookbook to be a big Father’s Day gift item, and I really hope it is. But I also really hope that busy moms or frankly any women who want to sit outside with their friends and cook an easier, faster, better meal will be able to have a great time doing it with my book.
What’s the smallest, lowest-stakes thing someone could grill this weekend that would make them feel like they actually know what they’re doing?
It’s spring! So just lightly oil some asparagus, season it with salt and pepper, then throw it on a grill. Cover it with grated English white cheddar and a squeeze of lemon and everyone will be very happy.
You’ve said grilling is actually one of the best things you can do for vegetables. Make the case—what does fire do to a vegetable that nothing else can?
A little bit of char can do wonders to a vegetable – and creating that in a pan on the stove, or under a broiler, can be a real pain and cause smoke and mess that sticks to the walls of your house. A sweet pepper, an ear of corn, a shallot, or some broccolini – they all taste great with a kiss from a flame.
Is there a vegetable that completely transformed for your kids once you started grilling it?
Cabbage! It’s actually not in the cookbook but there’s a recipe on my Substack for Charred Cabbage with Tahini Dressing that has become a huge staple in our house. Grilled Cauliflower with Tahini-Yogurt, which is in the cookbook, is another fun one because it operates as a hot-and-cold finger food that you get to swipe through this nutty, bright yogurt sauce and it goes over very well.
You make a real argument for the grill as a meal prep tool, not just a weekend thing. What does that actually look like on a Tuesday night?
When I fire up a grill, that often means throwing a few extras on that can go into salads, lunches, rice bowls or pasta salads the next day. If I’m going to marinate 3 chicken breasts, I may as well marinate 5 and throw them into tomorrow’s lunch. Some grilled vegetables, leftover and tossed into a kitchen sink salad is always a great option for a quick desk lunch.
You talk about “Dad Hacks” in the book. What’s the one that feels almost too obvious in retrospect but genuinely changed how you cook for your family?
I like to think about my grill as an extension of my kitchen. A big one for me is putting rice in a rice cooker, turning it on and then going outside to cook on the grill. Then you have beautiful, hot steamed rice that will hold for as long as you need, and you have a perfect simple starch that goes with whatever you’re cooking outside. I even do a “Kabob Plate Rice” in the book that involves grilling a bunch of vegetables, then chopping them up and folding them into the rice – essentially doing what I do with a Lebanese combo plate at a restaurant, chopping everything up and mashing it into my rice.
Your Substack is called “I’m Legally Required to Feed You,” which is very funny and also kind of honest about the stakes of feeding kids. How has having kids changed your actual cooking philosophy—not just what you make, but how you think about food?
Having kids is like holding up a mirror to your own flaws. So much of my self-worth in my life has been derived from my ability to make food for people and have them enjoy it (and even pay me for it!). Getting rejected by a 3-year-old hurts way more than it should, and no amount of recipe adjusting will stop that from ever happening. For me, I really had to (and continue to have to) learn how be more at peace with myself. I really don’t want my kids to feel the weight and pressure around food that I often put on myself.
There’s a version of the “dad who grills” that’s basically a cameo—shows up for the fun part, disappears before the dishes. How do you make the case that what you’re doing in this book is something different?
I really believe in the value of modeling positive masculinity. This dad who sits alone outside drinking brown spirits while grilling a steak and ignoring his family is not something I’m interested in supporting. The grill is just another place to cook, but a key role of a parent – no matter the gender – is to feed their family. We feed them with the food we cook, but also the way that we act and the way we treat them as well as ourselves. It is so important to remember that when you are trying to take care of your family, that you are a member of your family, and you need to be taken care of too. We are all in this together, and a quiet sufferer is not doing their family any favors.
You co-host Food Parents with your friend Lesley, and the show pairs a dad’s perspective with a mom’s. Do you find you’re coming at the feeding-your-family challenge from fundamentally different places, or is it more universal than people assume?
I love Lesley. We are longtime friends and really enjoy disagreeing about things. I’d like to think it’s less gendered and more philosophical, but I’m sure it’s a lot of both things. The premise we always land on though, is that when it comes to parenting, you can fundamentally disagree and both be right.
Want a taste of what you’ll find in Grill Time? Check out one of our fave recipes.
Charred Cauliflower with Tahini-Yogurt Sauce
In my previous cookbook I had a recipe that I just adored, in which charred vegetables got laid over chili powder–spiced drained yogurt, making a hot, creamy, acidic, beautifully balanced dish. This 2.0 version doesn’t require any thickening thanks to the tahini, which eats up all of that excess liquid, while adding a delicious nutty undertone. You can easily substitute any vegetable here, but there is something especially wonderful about the balance of yogurt, sesame, and cauliflower. This is one of those recipes that accidentally turns into an appetizer, since everyone keeps walking by and swiping bite after bite with their hands (or asking Mom to do it for them).
Serves 4
INGREDIENTS
• 1/2 cup whole-milk yogurt
• 1 tablespoon tahini
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for coating and drizzling
• 1 garlic clove, grated or finely chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
• Salt
• 1 large head cauliflower
• Flaky salt
METHOD
In a small bowl, whisk together the yogurt, tahini, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, and smoked paprika, until well combined. Season to taste with salt. Leave the yogurt mixture out, covered, for up to an hour or two, or store for up to 4 days in the refrigerator. Allow it to come to room temperature before using.
Preheat the grill to medium-high heat, then clean and oil the grates well.
Meanwhile, cut the cauliflower head in half, straight through the core and the stem. Discard any leaves, then tear or cut the cauliflower into large florets. Cut the large bunches of florets down through their stems to keep them intact, into pieces that are roughly 2 inches wide (you don’t want them so small that they will fall through the grates of the grill). Add the florets to a large bowl and toss them with a hefty pinch of salt and just enough olive oil to barely coat them.
Grill until the florets are starting to blacken at the edges, about 4 minutes. Turn them to blacken another side, continuing until they are just tender and have bits of blackening all over, 10 to 12 minutes total.
Once cooked, return the cauliflower to the bowl. Spread the tahini-yogurt across a serving plate, then lay the charred cauliflower on top in a single layer. Drizzle it with more olive oil and flaky salt and serve immediately.
From Grill Time! © 2026 by Noah Galuten. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
