9 Vintage Cookout Sides Virginians Still Bring to Every Summer Potluck

Your backyard folding table starts sagging before Aunt Wilma even sets down her dish.

She’s carried the same foil-covered deviled-egg plate to every cookout for thirty summers straight, and she still guards the last two eggs like they’re the crown jewels.

These are the vintage cookout sides Virginians still bring to every summer potluck.

1. Pimento Cheese

Pimento cheese covers a lot of ground at a cookout, working as a dip, a sandwich filling, and a dare to stop at one scoop.

Some folks call it the caviar of the South, which sounds fancy until you watch someone spread it on a saltine with a plastic knife.

The base never changes: Sharp cheddar, mayonnaise, and diced pimentos, whipped into something orange and glorious.

Every family swears by a secret add-in, whether that’s grated onion, a shot of hot sauce, or a spoon of pickle relish.

When the crackers run out, people just start scooping it with a Route 11 potato chip.

It works cold from the fridge or melted over a burger, and Virginians do both.

People empty that bowl first.

2. Tomato Pie

Nothing says summer quite like a tomato pie built from tomatoes still warm off the vine.

In the counties around Richmond, the prize tomatoes come from Hanover, and people will argue those beat anything else grown in the Commonwealth.

You layer thick slices into a pie crust, pile on a blend of cheese and mayonnaise, and bake it until the top turns golden and bubbly.

It sounds strange to anybody who didn’t grow up eating it.

Then they try it.

It slices cleaner after it rests a few minutes, so the filling sets instead of sliding off the plate.

The pie only works from about July to September because a pale winter tomato has no business anywhere near it.

3. Crab Dip

Down in Tidewater, a cookout without crab dip barely counts as a cookout.

Hampton Roads pulls its blue crab straight from the Chesapeake Bay.

Cooks fold the meat into cream cheese with a heavy shake of Old Bay.

Someone always bakes it until the top bubbles, then lifts it out too hot to touch.

Everybody burns their mouth anyway.

Nobody around the bay has the patience to let it cool.

Good lump crab means somebody either paid up for it or spent an afternoon picking it by hand off the Eastern Shore.

You scoop it with a butter cracker or a torn hunk of bread, and you circle back for a third helping before the bowl is half gone.

4. Coleslaw

Coleslaw belongs beside the barbecue at every cookout, and many people pile it right on the sandwich.

Out in Brunswick stew country and across the Southside, the pork comes pulled and tangy with vinegar.

A good coleslaw cuts the richness of the meat, so one bite carries crunch, tang, and smoke all at once.

Virginians break into two camps, creamy versus vinegar, and the argument never settles.

The vinegar dressing holds up better in the heat than the creamy kind.

Pick a side.

While the pork finishes on the smoker, somebody passes a can of Hubs peanuts around to hold everybody over.

5. Potato Salad

Potato salad is the side that tells you whether a cookout was run right.

From the Shenandoah Valley down to Tidewater, cooks set it out right next to the pulled-pork barbecue.

Everyone has choked down a bad batch, gray and gluey, left sitting too long in the July sun.

So people remember the good version, and they invite that cook back every single year.

The trick is dressing the potatoes while they’re still warm, so they soak up the flavor before they cool.

Whether to add mustard splits families down the middle.

Boiled egg, a little celery for crunch, and sweet pickle or dill depending on whose kitchen it came out of.

Keep it on ice.

6. Deviled Eggs

Deviled eggs travel to every potluck on their own special plate, the kind molded with a dozen little egg-shaped wells.

The filling is mashed yolk, mayonnaise, a little mustard, and a dusting of paprika across the top.

Some cooks pipe them with a fancy tip, and most just use a spoon and a steady hand.

The plate matters more than the technique because somebody handed it down through the family.

A sprinkle of Old Bay instead of paprika marks a cook raised near the water.

The plate comes back clean.

Set a dozen out at noon, and you'll be lucky to find a single egg by the time the burgers are ready.

7. Succotash

Cooks make succotash when the garden corn and the butter beans come in at the same time.

The name comes from a Narragansett word, and Native cooks paired corn and beans long before anyone fired up a backyard grill.

You want Silver Queen corn cut fresh off the cob, lima or butter beans, a knob of butter, salt, and pepper.

Some cooks stir in a diced tomato or a little bacon for good measure.

Keep it simple.

It only tastes right in the dead middle of August, when the cook picked everything in it that morning.

8. Ambrosia

Somebody always brings ambrosia, the sweet and jiggly holdover, to a Virginia cookout.

Southern cooks have been spooning it up since at least 1867, back when it was nothing but oranges and fresh-grated coconut.

The modern bowl piles on mini marshmallows, canned mandarin oranges, pineapple, and a cloud of whipped topping.

Purists insist it's a salad.

The kids vote dessert.

Some families still fold in sour cream or a handful of pecans, just like they always have.

It sits chilling in the cooler all afternoon, so the flavors have time to blend before the lid comes off.

9. Spoonbread

Spoonbread is the one side you eat with a spoon, and the Commonwealth has claimed it for generations.

It's a softer take on cornbread, closer to a savory pudding than to anything you'd ever slice.

Cornmeal, milk, butter, and eggs bake up into something you scoop straight from the dish onto your plate.

It never travels as neatly as a bowl of coleslaw, so the cook carries it in still warm and steaming.

It's worth the fuss.