Updated on July 1st, 2024
Get ready to fire up your grill and celebrate Independence Day with a mouthwatering menu that’s sure to be a hit at your backyard bash. This menu features easy recipes with traditional flavors. It’s ideal for casual gatherings of friends and family who appreciate down-to-earth favorites like grilled burgers and creamy potato salad.
The menu includes two main dishes, two side dishes, one appetizer, and one dessert — everything you need for the perfect star-spangled spread to enjoy under fireworks.
4th of July menu
Here are the dishes I selected for this backyard barbecue:
- Fresh salsa (a Chili’s knockoff) to serve with chips and veggies
- Barbecue burgers
- BBQ chicken burgers
- Potato salad
- Lemon poppy seed fruit salad
- Butterscotch cookies
An overview of each recipe is below.
Chili’s knockoff salsa
This salsa uses canned tomatoes, green chiles, and jalapeños — so it comes together fast. Add all ingredients to a blender or food processor and whip it up. It’s the perfect no-stress appetizer to serve at your 4th of July party. Serve with tortilla chips and, optionally, veggie sticks for a pre-dinner treat everyone will love.
You can serve this salsa right away, but the flavors develop over time. For that reason, I’d recommend you make it in the morning and refrigerate until guests arrive.
Barbecue burgers
Ground beef burgers topped with cheese, homemade onion rings, and crispy bacon could soon be your signature dish. There’s no way these aren’t satisfying and savory, especially paired with a cold lemonade or beer.
The recipe includes the process for dredging onions in flour and frying them. Trust me on this: The added flavor is worth the effort. Alternatively, if you’re short on time, you could prepare frozen onion rings instead.
The rest of the prep is straightforward. Cook up some bacon, season the patties with salt and pepper, grill them, add cheese, and stack ingredients to serve.
BBQ chicken burgers
BBQ ground chicken burgers are a fabulous alternative to the traditional beef burger. This recipe uses ground chicken seasoned with red onion, garlic, tomato paste, sugar, Worcestershire, and hot sauce — which means tons of rich flavor that deepens when cooked over charcoal or flame.
Top these burgers with the sweet cabbage-relish slaw in the recipe for an amazingly delicious result.
Classic potato salad
Not much beats a classic potato salad with mayo, bacon, and hard-boiled eggs. This recipe is as simple and delicious as potato salad gets. You cook the potatoes, bacon, and eggs, then mix them in a large bowl with mayonnaise, chopped onion, chopped celery, plus salt and pepper to taste.
Nothing fancy here and that’s just the way potato salad should be.
Lemon poppy seed fruit salad
With all these rich flavors, this menu needs a light and refreshing angle. Lemon poppy seed fruit salad delivers. It’s a sweet and refreshing blend of strawberries, kiwi, and pineapple, dressed with lemon, sugar, and poppy seeds. It’s delightful.
Butterscotch cookies
Wrap up your July 4th celebration with sweet and satisfying butterscotch cookies. They’re made with butter, sugar, egg, and flour — the usual cookie dough ingredients — plus rice cereal and butterscotch chips. The puffed rice cereal adds a wonderful crunch alongside that lovely, caramel-y butterscotch flavor.
