Do you love cooking and grilling food but don’t have the space for an outdoor gas grill? Or is the coming winter limiting your grilled BBQ experiences? If this is your struggle, you’ll love cooking on a smokeless indoor grill!
Grilling is virtually impossible if you live in a condo and you’re limited when the fall-winter seasons arrive. Luckily, a smokeless indoor grill allows you to cook and grill your favorite food wherever and whenever you want. To help you find the best smokeless indoor grill for you, keep reading!
Backyard Boss Top 5 Best Smokeless Indoor Grill in 2021
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Maxi-Matic Smokeless Indoor Electric BBQ Grill With Glass Lid |
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Why You Can Trust Us
As grill enthusiasts ourselves, we are deeply aware of the struggle of finding a reliable BBQ grill for our home. With such a saturated market, we also understood the need for an unbiased and trustworthy list of only top-quality indoor grills.
It is why we conducted our search using a rigorous process that combined our personal experience, extensive research, unbiased feedback, and thorough trials to find only the best smokeless indoor grills.
We also included some information at the end that can guide you in choosing the perfect outdoor grill for your needs, with our sources linked.
Best With Lid
The Hamilton Beach Electric Indoor Searing Grill has a convenient window in its lid hood to preserve the heat while cooking your food.
- 200ºF – 450ºF grilling
- Nonstick ceramic grill plate
- Good for searing
- Large drip tray
- Lid hood with window
- Teflon peels from abrasive use
- Short power cord
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Why We Like It: The Hamilton Beach indoor grill helps keep an eye on your food while creating a gorgeous sear on your meal.
It is a plug-in smokeless electric grill with a large special drip tray and a nonstick ceramic grill plate that leaves restaurant-quality sears on your grilled meat and veggies. The Hamilton Beach Electric Indoor Searing Grill can heat up anywhere between 200ºF to 450ºF and has a lid hood design with a window to trap heat, minimize smoke, and keep your food within view.
Who Should Buy It: This is a fantastic indoor grill if you love leaving a sear on your meals.
Best Family-Sized
This has a spacious design that’s great for cooking and grilling an entire meal for your family.
- Non-stick domed grill
- Indoor/ outdoor design
- Five heat settings
- Includes temperature probe and grill stand
- Can cook 15 servings at a time
- Large size
- Short power cord
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Why We Like It: This George Foreman grill is an indoor/outdoor electric unit that can cook up full meals for large families.
Whether it's pancakes for breakfast or chicken breast for lunch, this smokeless electric grill has your back. It comes with a domed non-stick grill design with five heat settings to perfectly grill various meals with room for up to 15 servings at a time. The George Foreman comes with a stand for easy set-up wherever you want and has a temperature probe for precise temperature control and cooking.
Who Should Buy It: The George Foreman grill comes at the perfect size for large families and heavy eaters who enjoy cooking and grilling their meals.
Best Budget-Friendly
For a great cooking experience, this BBQ grill helps you eat yummy grilled food without eating up your budget.
- 195ºF – 445ºF grill
- Lightweight design
- Non-stick round grill plate with glass lid and drip pan
- Circular heating for higher efficiency
- Non-stick coat needs improvement
- Tricky temperature controls
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Why We Like It: The Maxi-Matic smokeless indoor grill performs amazingly despite being one of the most budget-friendly options you can find.
It has a lightweight design and is equipped with a PFOA-free non-stick round grill plate that can be easily cleaned in the dishwasher or with a damp cloth. It also has a slightly domed glass lid and uses a circular heating element for a more even heat distribution ranging from 195ºF – 445ºF.
Who Should Buy It: This compact grill would be a smart choice for beginner grilling and cooking enthusiasts.
Best With Rotisserie
This multi-purpose indoor BBQ grill helps you easily cook all kinds of meals and leaves perfect grill marks on your grilled food.
- Infrared heating with a 90-minute timer
- 5-in-1 grill design
- Stainless steel construction
- Includes extra accessories
- No lid
- Difficult to clean
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Why We Like It: ChefWave’s smokeless electric grill doubles as a rotisserie and comes with various accessories that help you cook all kinds of fun grilled meals.
This 5-in-1 stainless steel grill uses infrared technology for heating. Like most grills, this has a non-stick grill plate and drip tray but also comes with rotisserie forks, kebab skewers, a fish basket, and around fries cage. For effortless cooking and authentic grill marks, the Chefwave Smokeless Indoor Electric Grill & Rotisserie also has a 90-minute timer feature for longer grilling times.
Who Should Buy It: This is ideal for those who like to experiment with recipes, cooking options, and techniques.
Best Stove Top
For a delightful indoor grilling experience, this stovetop BBQ grill has a simple yet ingenious design that gives you a fuss-free grilling and cooking time on your stove.
- Extra-heavy gauge grill plate
- Aluminum drip tray
- Teflon-coated grill parts
- Gas-stove compatible
- Dishwasher safe
- Difficult without handles
- Slides off unlevel grilling surface
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Why We Like It: Unlike other indoor grills on this list, the TECHEF grill pan is designed for your gas stovetop.
It has a durable Teflon-coated grill plate and an aluminum drip tray that evenly and reliably cooks your food. To minimize smoke, simply place water in your drip tray! It’s a dishwasher-safe pan that’s great for BBQ and is low-maintenance, space-saving, and uses things you already have instead of adding another appliance to your kitchen.
Who Should Buy It: Those who prefer having a stovetop accessory rather than a whole electric grill unit would enjoy this post.
Difference Between Indoor and Outdoor Grill
Image Credit: Pam Menegakis via Unsplash
Indoor and outdoor grills share many qualities but have enough differences to be distinct. An outdoor grill is your standard charcoal or gas grill unit that gives your food a delicious smoky flavor and sits in a spacious plot of your backyard for a barbecue with family and friends. However, charcoal grills tend to be expensive, large, high maintenance, and generate intense heat. Also, since they're powered by fire, you need good weather.
On the other hand, an indoor grill is a compact, versatile, smokeless unit often powered by electricity. With this, you can cook anywhere and at any time without worrying about setting off your smoke detectors! You might lose the authentic smoky grill flavor, but that can be remedied using liquid smoke. However, it might take you longer to cook a full meal. They also come with a temperature limit and can’t go as hot or run as long as a fire-heated regular grill.
If you want something space-saving, affordable, convenient, and accessible no matter the weather, indoor smokeless grills are for you.
What to Keep in Mind Before Picking a Smokeless Indoor Grill
Image Credit: David Blaine via Creative Commons
Where you settle on an indoor portable grill, you first need to consider a few factors that can affect your enjoyment of a grill.
Design and Construction
The design and construction of a grill give you an idea of its durability and limits. The materials used, size, and even the grill plate non-stick coating all affect how much you’ll enjoy the grill. Make sure that it’s the right size for your home and that its construction is something you can comfortably handle and clean.
Grill Accessories
Grill accessories widen the possibilities of the types of food you can cook on a grill. Some can come with a simple non-stick coating grill plate and a drip tray, while others include bonus equipment like rotisserie forks, kebab sticks, or temperature probes. The more versatile and innovative your accessories, the more adventurous you can be while cooking your grilled meals.
Heating Element
The heating element refers to how your indoor grill uses electricity to generate heat. Most indoor grills use electricity to generate heat, but some smokeless grill pans can be ignited by gas burners and stovetops. It affects the maximum temperature an indoor grill can reach, and knowing how your grill’s heating element works and its temperature settings will help you plan your meals better.
Maintenance
Grill maintenance is one of the most important considerations because if you can’t take care of it, it won’t last long. Grill maintenance includes cleaning and storage for your grill. If you can’t handwash or thoroughly wipe down a unit with a damp cloth, something dishwasher safe might be more appropriate for your needs.
FAQ
Image Credit: Daniel Hooper via Unsplash
In case you’re left still wondering how indoor grills work, here are some frequently asked questions answered for you.
Is indoor grilling healthy?
Indoor grilling comes with many benefits — including that it’s healthier than other traditional grill and cooking mediums! With smokeless electric indoor grilling, you don’t use additional oils or reheating frozen food, and your meat’s natural fat will drip and collect in a tray. It also minimizes fire hazards and eliminates the risk of inhaling harmful barbecue smoke.
How to grill indoors?
When you grill indoors, you need to set it up on a level cooking surface, closely follow its usage instructions, and cook near a hood or by an open window. Additionally, don’t forget to preheat your smokeless grill to have the best sear on your food, and always check if your removable drip tray needs to be emptied.
Are indoor grills completely smokeless?
Indoor grills still make some smoke, but it’s considerably less than traditional cooking methods. It also isn’t noticeable enough to set off your smoke alarm. Moreover, oiling your grill plate before cooking helps lend further control over your smoke output without increasing your food’s oil content.
How We Picked
To ensure that we only recommend the best smokeless indoor grills, we turned to a tried-and-tested process that gives us an unbiased look at all our options.
We started with a market analysis of smokeless indoor grills available and used our gathered data to approach experts and home grillers for their opinions and experiences. After getting their recommendations, we took our shortlisted grills and tested them for a complete understanding of each design.
In the end, this search led us to five amazing smokeless indoor grills that help you whip up delicious grilled meals within the comforts of your home.
Our Top Pick of the Best Smokeless Indoor Grill
Carefully researching every product on this list makes us confident that they belong in kitchens all across the country.
That said, we have an undeniable soft spot for the Hamilton Beach Electric Indoor Searing Grill thanks its user-friendly design, ceramic grill plate, and convenient lid hood. With this smokeless grill, you'd be able to jump right into cooking a grilled meal without any fuss.
However, we understand that it’s not the best choice for everyone. Even if that’s the case, no matter which smokeless grill on this list you land on and choose for your cooking needs, you’ll be in good hands.