The best asparagus for grilling is the thick stuff: juicy centers, deeply charred edges, and a fast homemade mayo with yuzu and togarashi.

Globalization and modern farming have made truly seasonal vegetables a thing of the past, but even if you can get asparagus year-round, there’s still a good reason to find it during the peak of its short spring season: It’s just so much better. The big, fat asparagus you’ll find this time of year at the farmer’s market or produce stand is sweet, juicy, and packed with flavor.

When you grill big, fat spears hard over high heat, the outside chars and blisters while the inside stays juicy and sweet. It’s more like biting into a really good snap pea than a stalk vegetable. You get crunch, moisture, sweetness, smoke, and char all in one bite.

Asparagus is also one of the fastest vegetables to prep. You’ve probably heard the advice about snapping the woody ends where they naturally break. But I’ve found that depending on how you bend the stalk, you can end up wasting a lot of good, edible stuff by using that method. Instead, I just line them up and use a knife, aiming for the area where the lighter, paler, woodier-looking stalk starts to look tender. It’s faster and less wasteful.

For really thick asparagus, peeling is worth the extra minute or two. The outer skin can get stringy, especially near the base, and a quick pass with a Y-peeler gives you a more tender final texture while still keeping the spears substantial.

The asparagus alone would already be great with just a splash of olive oil and a squeeze of lemon, but the thing that really ties this together is the mayo, and if you’ve got a hand blender, you can make it fresh in just about two minutes.

This version gets flavored with yuzu juice and shichimi togarashi for a sort of Japanese-inspired citrusy heat. The yuzu adds floral acidity, the shichimi brings chile, sesame, and citrus peel notes, and a little extra virgin olive oil folded in at the end rounds everything out. The whole thing feels fancy enough for a dinner party but easy enough to throw together while something else cooks on the grill. 

Recipe: Grilled Asparagus with Yuzu and Togarashi Mayo

Every recipe I publish here is personally tested, tasted, and approved.

What I love about this recipe:

Thick asparagus gets juicy and sweet instead of limp and stringy

The mayo takes about two minutes start to finish

Great alongside grilled meat, fish, or just crusty bread and wine

Yield: 4 servingsActive Time: 20 minutesTotal Time: 25 minutesNotes: Look for the fattest asparagus you can find.

Ingredients

For the Asparagus

2 pounds (900g) thick asparagus, preferably large spears

2 tablespoons (30ml) extra-virgin olive oil

Kosher salt

MSG (optional)

Freshly ground black pepper (optional)

For the Yuzu-Togarashi Mayo

1 large egg

1 tablespoon (15ml) fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon (15ml) yuzu juice, plus more to taste

1 teaspoon (5ml) Dijon mustard

1 small garlic clove

1 teaspoon shichimi togarashi

3/4 cup (180ml) neutral oil, such as canola

2 tablespoons (30ml) extra-virgin olive oil

Kosher salt

MSG (optional)

Method

For the Asparagus: Trim the asparagus by lining the spears up and slicing off the woody bottoms where the stalks transition from pale and fibrous to greener and more tender-looking, usually about 1 to 2 inches (2.5 to 5cm) from the base. If using especially thick asparagus, peel the lower portions of the stalks with a Y-peeler, leaving the tips intact.

For the Mayo: In a tall container just wide enough to fit the head of an immersion blender, combine the egg, lemon juice, yuzu juice, Dijon mustard, garlic, and shichimi togarashi. Pour in the neutral oil.

Place the immersion blender head all the way at the bottom of the container and blend without moving it at first. As the mayonnaise begins to form, slowly tilt and lift the blender until all the oil is fully incorporated and the mayo is thick and emulsified.

Stir in the extra-virgin olive oil by hand. Season the mayo to taste with salt, MSG, and additional yuzu juice if desired. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Preheat a grill to high heat. Toss the asparagus with the olive oil and season with salt and MSG.

Arrange the asparagus perpendicular to the grill grates and cook, covered, until lightly charred on the first side, about 2 minutes. Flip and continue cooking until charred but still juicy and crisp-tender, about 1 to 2 minutes longer.

Transfer the asparagus to a serving platter and serve immediately with the yuzu-togarashi mayo alongside for dipping.

Why Thick Asparagus Is Better

It may seem like younger, thinner asparagus should be more tender. But in practice, the opposite is usually true especially when asparagus is fresh and in season.

Thin asparagus overcooks extremely quickly. By the time you get good browning or char on the outside, the inside is often already limp. Thick asparagus gives you a much wider window. You can blister and char the exterior over high heat while the interior stays juicy and crisp-tender.

Peeling also matters more with thick asparagus because the outer skin develops more fibrous structure as the stalk grows. Removing that layer leaves you with a spear that eats cleanly all the way through instead of leaving strings caught in your teeth.

And what about purple asparagus? Have you noticed that purple asparagus turns mostly green when you cook it? That’s because the pigments responsible for the purple hue are heat-sensitive anthocyanins. As they break down during cooking, the underlying chlorophyll becomes more visible, turning the spears green.

Mayo Science

Traditional mayonnaise relies on slowly drizzling oil into egg yolks to create a stable emulsion. The immersion blender method flips that process around.

By keeping the blender head at the bottom of the container, the vortex created by the spinning blade gradually pulls oil downward in a thin stream. That slow incorporation creates tiny droplets of oil suspended throughout the water phase from the lemon juice and egg, producing a thick, stable emulsion with almost no effort. 

One other useful trick: blend neutral oil first, then stir in extra-virgin olive oil afterward. Aggressively blending extra-virgin olive oil can shear and oxidize some of the compounds responsible for its flavor, increasing bitterness. Folding it in after the emulsion forms preserves the fruity, peppery flavor without introducing harshness.