Great marinade for summer grilling.

I’m a Leo, which means that I thrive in the warm sunshine. I love spending as much time outdoors as I can. So on gorgeous summer days, I move my cooking outside.

Ahead of the holiday weekend, I wanted to share a simple, flexible, adaptable marinade recipe for grilled meats of all kinds. It’s simple, with just a few ingredients. It’s flexible, so it’s great for chicken, seafood or lamb and would also work for vegetables like zucchini. And it’s adaptable, because you can swap ingredients to suit your taste and what you have on hand. I’ve given ranges in quantity for the ingredients, because measurement doesn’t matter—you can’t mess this up, I promise. This recipe makes enough marinade for 1 to 1 1/2 pounds of meat.

easy grilling marinade

1 to 3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
about 1 tsp. of grated fresh ginger (optional)
1 Tbsp. each of your favorite minced fresh herbs (see Note)
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
few threads of saffron
1 to 2 Tbsp. minced lemon or preserved lemon
1/4 to 1/3 cup olive oil
salt and pepper

Toss all ingredients in a bowl large enough to hold whatever you’re marinating, and stir well. Add meat or vegetables and stir to coat. This isn’t a very liquid-y marinade; it’s closer to a wet rub. Cover and refrigerate until you’re ready to grill; you can let this sit for an hour or several.

Note: Try these different flavor combinations—

• Parsley, cilantro and ginger makes a Moroccan-style marinade
• Parsley and oregano takes this to Greece
• Mint or rosemary would be well-suited to lamb instead of cilantro
• Take it Latin American by omitting the ginger and swapping in a bit of minced chipotle and some of the adobo sauce, and/or cumin