She’s an experienced product tester and recipe creator, trained in classic culinary arts and culinary nutrition. She has worked in test kitchens for small kitchen appliance brands and national magazines, including Family Circle and Ladies’ Home Journal. The Cuisinart Petit Gourmet Portable Gas Grill stands out from the crowd thanks to its unique design, which converts from a freestanding model into a tabletop model portable bbq in seconds. If you don’t want to shell out for our best overall option, this is a more affordable choice that also stood up to rigorous testing. This roundup was originally written by Camryn Rabideau, product tester and grill expert for The Spruce Eats. She’s done firsthand testing of the Weber Q2200, which took the overall spot on this list, as well as the Masterbuilt Bluetooth Digital Electric Smoker and more.
The porcelain-coated cast-iron grill grate is quite non-stick, with even delicate fish filets releasing pretty easily. The only part about using the Nomad that I didn’t love was emptying it. Because it needs to be emptied while completely open, it was hard to lift when attempting to dump the ash into a bin. On its website Nomad suggests using a shop vac to get all the spent charcoal out.
The grill has no lid for cooking, as the top consists of a storage compartment and cutting board. As such, you’re grilling with direct heat and should keep that in mind when meal planning. The Venture, with its picnic basket appearance, is a good entry-level grill for the uninitiated and a value model for more experienced grillers. It’s a model intended for direct-heat cooking, as there’s no lid to control humidity for “low and slow” cooking. The burner packs 9,000 BTUs under enameled cast iron, providing adequate heat for small-group cooking.
We found the u-shaped burner of the Camp Chef weber charcoal grill to be one of the best single burners in our review. The large surface of the Cuisinart All Foods Roll-Away gives the cook multiple heat zones to work with while grilling. The infrared burner of the Solaire Everywhere heats the entire grill surface to about the same temperature.
They said the two-part grate was a little more annoying to deal with than the one-part grate on older Weber Q models, but it made up for it in ease of cleaning. They also noted that the burner tubes needed to be wiped down occasionally to make sure the grill weber q would light effectively, especially if it’s only used occasionally. But, they said, investing in the bonnet cover and the collapsable cart were both well worth it. And they liked that the propane canisters can be bought at any hardware store for about $6.
A grill that rocks and wobbles will provide significant challenges when you attempt to cook on it. As a rule of thumb, a grill with thicker construction will retain and spread heat better than one with thin walls and bottoms, with some exceptions. The Everdure CUBE, for example, has thinner construction but is specifically designed to distribute heat evenly. In our tests, steak and chicken cooked quickly and got nice char marks without any flare-ups. Ash falls through the coal holder holes onto the bottom of the grill for a neat grilling experience, and the stainless grill grate is small and easy to wash in your sink once you get home. This roundup was put together by The Spruce Eats commerce writer Jason Horn, who’s been writing about food and drinks for almost 20 years, and grilling for a lot longer than that.
Plus we have a collection of the best vegetarian barbecue recipes and best vegan barbecue recipes so nobody feels left out of the picnic. Portable barbecues are a convenient middle ground between hefty grills and disposable trays. Here’s our pick of the best travel, bucket and tabletop BBQs, tried and tested. If those cons have you second-guessing yourself, you may want to look at our best portable pellet grill for another option.
The Everdure Cube by Heston Blumenthal is a cute little charcoal grill that’s easy to carry and comes in a number of color options. It’s easy to handle the grill even when lit because of the cool-touch handles. Ultimately, I found food fell in between the bars of the grate too easily and the grill itself was too small to be useful. If you’re looking to cook a whole lot of food at once, you can’t top the Camp Chef Portable Pellet. Between the main grill and the upper shelf, this model offers 500 square inches of cooking space. If you like the idea of grilling large hunks of meat on one shelf while roasting veggies on the other, this is the grill for you.
Portable grills come outfitted with wheels to make them easier to transport or are light and compact enough for one person to carry. At 20 pounds, the Char-Broil Grill2Go is 10 pounds lighter than the Weber Q 1200, even though it has a larger, 17¼-by-11¾-inch grilling grate. With its much larger 21½-by-15-inch cooking grate, you can fit up to 10 large burger patties, two cut-up chickens, or 16 large bratwurst links at a time.
Grills equipped with an accessible coupling for 1-pound liquid-propane canisters are a must. One-pound canisters are lightweight, inexpensive, and available at most hardware stores. Lugging around a 20-pound propane cylinder (which actually weighs 35 pounds when full) isn’t our idea of portability. If you wind up wanting to use a larger tank, you can purchase an adapter with a Type 1 connector for a 20-pound refillable propane tank. We immediately ruled out collapsible models because they’re made from thin steel and probably not durable enough for regular use. Portable kamado grills are gaining popularity, but we think their 12- to 14-inch grilling surfaces are too small to justify the high price.