The 7 Best Portable Grills of 2023 Tested by Food & Wine

This barbecue is light as a feather and easily portable, but pretty solid and durable too. It’s really easy to pack away – the coal sits in a small bowl inside the base of the barbecue so all you have to do is remove this, throw away the remains and give it a quick wipe. Once in the box, it would easily fit under patio furniture or could be stored in a small cupboard. Whether you’ve got a courtyard garden or just a small balcony, you should be able to enjoy summer in style. At 64.8cm wide and 47.6cm deep, this rectangular barbecue works really well if you’ve got limited outdoor space but still want to enjoy al fresco cooking and entertaining in the warmer months.

Despite its portability, the Traveler has plenty of cooking space, with 320 square inches (enough for about 15 burgers at a time), plus a small prep table attached to the side. That whole grate has just a single burner to heat it up, but it was able to reach 660 degrees in testing, hot enough to get a good sear on larger pieces of meat. The unit is designed to use camping-style 1-pound propane tanks, but it does include an adapter hose to accommodate the standard 20-pound cylinders, too. After testing this in our Lab and on an apartment patio, the Weber Q 1400 Electric Grill is one of the best tabletop electric grills around.

Some foods such as burgers need to be formed into a more cylindrical or elongated shape to fit inside. The slender device is perfect for cooking hot dogs, most veggies, fish and chicken pieces which slide in with ease. For its Portable Charcoal Grill, Masterbuilt employed a simple version of technology it developed for its larger 560 Digital Charcoal Grill.

portable bbq

Gas (propane) grills are better for people who want to grill more than once a week and can sacrifice a little heat and the classic taste of charcoal for convenience. The NOMAD has few frills, but a design that keeps heat in and dissipates what heat does transfer to the exterior justifies much of the cost while making it a safer grill all around. It has side dampers to adjust airflow and regulate the temperature when it’s closed. The built-in thermometer skewed about 30 degrees lower than our test probes, but the heat retention was very good overall. He’s been grilling since being put in charge of the hot dogs at a family party when he was probably 7 years old, and he’s been writing professionally about food and drinks for nearly two decades. He lives in Los Angeles, where it’s feasible to grill just about every day of the year.

Click below to see all the benefits, take a free 30 day trial, and help keep this site alive. We tested pint-sized barbecues and scored them on weber genesis 2 ease of assembly, portability, heat retention and durability. Portable barbecues make life easier for the space-constrained and gardenless.

The Cuisinart portable grill also runs on any small propane tank you can find at camping or hardware stores. The simple design on this Weber charcoal portable grill features a Tuck-N-Carry lid that double locks in place and duals as a lid holder. It’s important to keep in mind that, despite the flat surface, this griddle is heated by a single propane-fueled burner, which means it gets much hotter in the middle than it does on the sides. While that isn’t ideal if you want to cover the full surface with burgers, it does allow you to move foods around on the grill as you cook to keep them from burning. All in all, it’s a really fun alternative to the average grill if you’re looking to go beyond barbecue. Miniature grills might be easier to manage, but offset flames can still lead to lopsided sizzling.

Steaks are prepared very, very nicely, but other foods are nearly impossible to cook well. It’s big enough to roast a chicken, sear a couple of large steaks at a time, or fit about six 12-inch skewers. weber q But if you’re doing meat and veggies for a family of four, you’re going to be cooking in batches. Most meats need to rest when they’re done cooking anyway, giving you time to do your veggies.