Best Tri Tip Sides

How to Pick Sides for Tri Tip

Tri tip is a beefy cut with a heavy seasoned crust, and it sheds a lot of juice when you slice it. Good sides work with both of those facts. Something with acid and crunch, a dressed salad or a fresh salsa, cuts through the crust and resets your palate between bites. Something starchy, bread or beans or potatoes, soaks up the juice that would otherwise stay on the board. Add one green thing so the plate isn’t all brown and you’re covered.

Two sides plus the tri tip is the right amount for most meals. Three if you’re feeding a crowd and want variety. More than that and the plate gets cluttered. Sides also change how much meat you need, and the tri tip serving calculator will size the roast for your head count. For what to pour alongside the spread, see our guide to the best wine and beer pairings for tri tip. And if the centerpiece isn’t settled yet, start with our BBQ tri tip recipes and build the plate from there.

Tri Tip Side Dishes at a Glance

Fresh Sides That Cut the Richness

A Santa Maria green salad is the simplest answer: crisp lettuce, a tangy dressing, and nothing that competes with the beef. Dress it at the table so it stays crisp next to warm meat.

A grilled Caesar salad gives you the same acid with a little char on the romaine, which ties it to the crust on the tri tip. The halved hearts take about two minutes over the hot side of the grill.

Cowboy caviar is black beans, black-eyed peas, corn, peppers, and onion in a lime dressing. It works as a side and as a topping, and it holds for hours, so it is the fresh side to make for a crowd.

Pico de gallo is the fastest acid you can put on the table: tomato, onion, chile, lime. Spoon it straight onto the sliced beef.

Coleslaw does the same job with more crunch. A vinegar slaw sits better next to tri tip than a heavy mayo one.

Starches That Catch the Juices

Grilled garlic bread is the most useful side on the plate. It toasts in a minute or two over the coals, and its real job is to soak up the juice that runs off the sliced tri tip.

Pinquito beans are small, firm, and savory, slow-cooked with bacon and a little salsa. They taste better the day after you make them, which makes them the easiest side to have ready before the fire is lit.

Smoked mac and cheese is the heavy hitter. It shares the smoker or the cool side of the grill with the tri tip, so it picks up the same smoke. Serve it with a sharp salad to keep the plate balanced.

Roasted or baked potatoes, cornbread, and Spanish rice all do the starch job well too. For more BBQ side dishes like coleslaw, baked beans, cornbread, and mac and cheese, see the recipes on BBQ Junkie.

Sides That Cook on the Same Fire

The trick to a relaxed cook is matching each side to a phase of the tri tip, so nothing fights for grill space. All of it assumes a two-zone fire, one hot side and one cool side, which is how most tri tip gets cooked anyway, especially with the reverse sear.

• While the tri tip cooks indirect: smoked mac and cheese goes on the cool side next to the beef, lid closed. It needs about 45 minutes, roughly the time the roast takes to come up to temperature.
• During the 10 to 15 minute rest: the hot side is free, so the quick sides go on. Start the corn for elote first, since it needs about 10 minutes, then the broccolini, halved romaine for the Caesar, and finally the garlic bread, which takes a minute or two. Everything comes off as you start slicing.
• Not on the grill at all: beans, salsas, cowboy caviar, and slaw. Make them ahead so the grates stay free for the beef.

Make-Ahead Sides for a Crowd

Feeding a crowd is mostly a scheduling problem. Spread the work out and the day of the cook is just the fire.

• The day before: pinquito beans and salsa roja. Both improve overnight in the fridge.
• The morning of: cowboy caviar, pico de gallo, slaw, and the salad greens washed and dried. Mix the guacamole last, close to serving.
• At the grill: garlic bread and the grilled vegetables, timed to the rest.
• At the table: dress the salad.

For a big group, size the meat first with the serving calculator, then plan two or three sides and scale each to about half a cup per guest.

Sides by How You Cook the Tri Tip

• Smoked tri tip: lean toward lighter, sharper sides. The smoke already adds weight, so a green salad and pico do more than mac and cheese.
• Santa Maria style tri tip: the traditional plate, below.
• Carne asada tri tip: rice, pinquito or pinto beans, guacamole, pico de gallo, and warm tortillas.
• Korean BBQ tri tip: steamed rice and something pickled or crunchy. The lime in cowboy caviar does the same job.
• Tri tip sandwiches: slaw on the side, beans in a cup.

The Santa Maria Plate

On the Central Coast, tri tip comes with a set plate: sliced beef, a scoop of pinquito beans, a pile of salsa roja, a green salad, and a piece of grilled garlic bread on the same plate, there to soak up the bean juice and the meat drippings. For the history behind this tradition or the simplest way to eat it all, piled on a roll, see the tri tip sandwich. New to the cut? Our BBQ tri tip guide starts from the beginning: the cut, the fire, the cook.

Want a sauce beyond salsa roja? See our guide to sauces for tri tip. Cooked too much? Here is how to reheat tri tip without drying it out.