I can personally attest that God has a twisted sense of humor. Sure, I could cite things like the platypus, male pattern baldness, or the game of golf as prime examples, but I will go a step further. God gave me an absolute, over-the-edge, off-the-chain, full-blown, seafood addiction and then stuck me smack dab in the middle of the country, about as far away from good seafood as one can possibly be. Sure the catfish, bass and crappie here in the midwest are fantastic, but I can only do so much fried fish. So when I was able to procure 4 dozen FAT Maryland oysters recently, I decided to indulge my addiction. I made two different char grilled oyster recipes and would’ve done a tutorial on slurping them raw (with all sorts of different accoutrement options), but they were so large that nobody wanted to do them raw. But the big ones are PERFECT for grilling, so away we go with Oysters Picante.

Let’s begin with getting the right equipment. A nice oyster shucking knife is a necessity. A shucking glove is not a necessity, but if you’ve ever slipped with the seemingly dull shucking blade, you will wish like hell that you had bought the glove:

A shucking glove and two shucking knives — Make sure you get your gear

I know this because I ordered a dozen at Hooters one time and was delivered a bucket of unshucked oysters. I’d always gotten them shucked whenever I had ordered oysters anywhere else. I had no idea what I was doing, so I got after it and learned a quick and painful lesson about those “dull” shucking knives. With enough force behind it, even a dull shucking knife can rip through skin. Let us help you here and save you some searching. Here’s a link to a glove that has amazing ratings and is less than $10. And here are a pair of also highly rated shucking knives that are less than $10/knife.

Let’s cover the ingredients and then get to having a shucking good time!

Oysters Picante Ingredients:

3 dozen of your preferred oysters, shucked
2 sticks of salted butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp cajun seasoning
6-10 squirts of your favorite hot sauce
1 lemon, sliced in half (a lime would work too)
1 cup of freshly grated cheese (we used asiago but parmesan or romano would work just as well)

Butter, garlic, lemons, lime, hot sauce, cajun seasoning, and cheese — The picante butter ingredients

To shuck the oysters, realize that the two spots you need to pop are near the hinge in the back and then the flat part where the two sides of the shells come together. Start off by getting that shucking knife into the the hinge near the back:

Shucking an oyster — Time to get at those tasty bivalves!

Then once you pop this section (and you will know when it pops) slide the knife around and pop where the two sides of the shell come together and pop that by simply twisting the wrist and making the blade go sideways:

Finish the shucking of oysters by bringing the knife blade the rest of the way around

And once it is open, use the knife to separate the meat from the bottom shell to make it easy to eat later:

Shucked oyster — Awww, shucks!!! (see what I did there?)

Now let’s mix up the picante part of this Oysters Picante recipe. So we will mix up most of the rest of the ingredients and get these bad boys on the grill.

Drop the butter, garlic, cajun seasoning, and hot sauce in a small pot and melt and blend through:

Hit it with that hot sauce — Mmmmmmm hot sauce!

And if you are wondering how we came up with the name. Well, picante means spicy and these had a little kick. And when you add the adjective after the noun, it really makes it seem like we have our shit together. Boom! Oysters Picante.

How to Grill Oysters

Now let’s get the oysters on the grill. We went with medium high heat:

Just shy of three dozen oysters — Just shy of three dozen. I’ll wait while you count.

Back to the recipe. Simply stir up the butter concoction and drizzle some over each oyster. Now you might picture it simply pouring on like this:

Pouring butter onto the oysters — Not quite like pouring jet fuel on an open flame

But in reality it is likely to be more like this:

**So this is your official disclaimer. Be careful when pouring the butter as this stuff flames up hard. I got two blisters shooting this with our videographer**

Once the oysters begin to bubble (boil in their shells), if they were small oysters, they would be just about done:

These were monsters, so I had some more time which was perfect for me to apply a pinch of cheese to every “erster” shell.

Adding asiago to each oyster — Normally cheese and seafood are a huge no-no, but not in this case

Then hit them with a little lemon to add some acidity:

With as huge as they were, I let them bubble for a couple minutes before removing them from the grill and plating.

And here we have a nice little appetizer:

A half dozen char grilled oysters — I ate three platters of these, so technically a light snack

How big were they?

If they aren’t done enough for your liking, place them back on the grill for 60 seconds.

These were absolutely magnificent. We only had a handful of people here and we destroyed ALL of these in short order. I could eat these twice a week if I could afford it.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below or shoot me an email.

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Print Recipe

Oysters Picante

Char grilled oysters topped with butter, garlic, cajun seasoning, hot sauce, grated cheese and a little lemon

Prep Time30

Cook Time10

Total Time40

Course: Appetizer, Finger Food

Cuisine: American, American Fare, Finger Food, Grilling, Oysters, Seafood

Keyword: #Grilled, Appetizer, Char Grilled, Char Grilled Oysters, Gas Grill, Grill, Grilled Oysters, grilled seafood, Grilling, Oysters, Picante, seafood

Servings: people

Ingredients

36 oysters shucked
16 tbsp salted butter (2 stick)
2 clove garlic minced
1 tbsp Cajun seasoning
6-10 dash your favorite hot sauce
1 lemon sliced in half (a lime would work too)
1 cup Asiago cheese freshly grated (We used Asiago but Parmesan or Romano would work just as well)

Instructions

Shuck all the oysters and spark up the grill to medium high
While the grill heats up, place the butter, garlic, cajun seasoning, and hot sauce in a pot
Melt the butter and stir to combine
Once the grill is hot, place all the oysters on the grill
Stir and drizzle the butter concoction onto each shell
Sprinkle a pinch of the freshly grated cheese on each one
Drizzle with a few drops of lemon juice on each
After they boil in their shells for about 30 seconds for small ones, they are done. For these, we boiled them for about 2 minutes
If they aren't done enough for your liking, place them back on the grill for 60 seconds

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Scott Thomas

Scott Thomas, the Original Grillin’ Fool, was sent off to college with a suitcase and a grill where he overcooked, undercooked and burned every piece of meat he could find. After thousands of failures, and quite a few successes, nearly two decades later he started a website to show step by step, picture by picture, foolproof instructions on how to make great things out of doors so that others don’t have to repeat the mistakes he’s made on the grill.