Credit:
Reviewed / Kyle Looney
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Credit:
Reviewed / Kyle Looney
Reviewed's mission is to help you buy the best stuff and get the most out of what you already own. Our team of product experts thoroughly vet every product we recommend to help you cut through the clutter and find what you need.
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This is a grill that offers enough space to cook for a small crowd and packs up compact enough to disappear once your meal is done. Read More
The Jumbo Joe, with its 240-square-inch cooking surface, allowed us to cook in quantities that rival a full-sized grill. Read More
If you’re looking for a portable pellet grill that delivers quality flavor, you won’t be disappointed by the Traeger Ranger. Read More
The Weber Q 1200, the Traveler is large enough to cook for five to six people but compact enough to fit in the trunk of a car. Read More
Our previous winner, the Cuisinart Petit Gourmet, did a fantastic job overall. We loved its lightweight, small profile, and how easy it was to transport. Read More
Unlike a full-sized grill, portable grills take up little space and are easy to move around. They’re also a great option for anyone who only wants to grill while camping tailgating.
While their compact size makes them less than ideal for cooking large cuts of meat, small grills are perfect for cooking up burgers, brats, and chicken over high or low temperatures.
We selected six gas grills, nine charcoal models, and three pellet grills. We subject each one to a grueling series of tests before coming to the conclusion that the Weber Q-1200 (available at Amazon) is the best portable grill you can buy. It’s compact, powerful for its size, and easy to use and clean.
That said, if you think that lugging around a heavy bag of briquettes and the mess that comes with cooking over charcoal is a small price to pay for smoky, delicious flavor, the Weber Jumbo Joe (Available at Amazon) is our best portable charcoal grill. It cooks just as well as its full-sized counterpart.
Finally, for those that enjoy the ease of use, precise control, and smokey flavor that cooking or smoking with a pellet grill can provide, we recommend the Traeger Ranger Pellet Grill ( Available at Amazon).
The Weber Q 1200 is a well-made, versatile portable gas grill.
Weber's Jumbo Joe Charcoal Grill is almost as functional as their full-sized models.
The Traeger Ranger is the best portable pellet grill around.
Large cooking surface
Comes with a built-in stand
Folds down for easy transport
Heavy
Can’t be used with indirect heat
Sturdy design that's easy to transport
Even heating
Lid design keeps smoke out of griller's face
Takes longer to cook chicken than similar models
Portable cart is easy to lower for transport
Sturdy design that features pull-out side tables
Eight-burger capacity rivals full-sized grills
Griddle-like design makes for uneven heating
Difficult to clean
Lightweight
Lid locks shut for easy transport
Infrared grates get too hot, even on low
Grates are difficult to clean
Easy to transport
Large cooking surface area
Two temperature-controlled cooking zones
Doesn’t have a lid
Can’t be used with indirect heat
Not compatible with propane hose adapters
Bigger than most portable charcoal grills
Cooks effectively with direct and indirect heat
Bundle includes everything you need
No handles on grill
No adjustable vents
The stand is relatively short
Can be used as a fire pit or portable grill
Includes a battery-powered fan
Easy to transport
Small grilling surface
Grates are difficult to clean
Holds even heat exceptionally well
Simple to clean
Does well infusing smoky flavor
Maxes out at four burgers at a time
Too heavy (30 lbs.) to transport easily
Doesn't come with a lid
Plenty of coal space for direct and indirect heat
Folding makes it easy to store and wheel
Large cooking surface area
Lid is heavy and doesn't feel secure
Bottom vents are difficult to access
Ash catches are difficult to clean
Excellent temperature control
Too heavy (76 lbs.) to be portable
Maxes out at 4 burgers at a time
More expensive than others of a similar size
Vents positioned well
No locking or carrying features
Difficult to clean
Maxes out at six burgers at a time
Superior portability and sturdy design
Easy to set up
Cooks well at high heat
No way to control heat
With no catcher, ashes fly around
Sturdy
Easy to clean
Coal drawer sticks
Difficult to rake coals
Difficult to see inside the grill
Easy to store and transport
Small grilling area
No adjustable vents
Ashes are hard to remove
Large cooking surface area
Maintains consistent temperatures
No handles
Heavy
Sear door isn’t well designed
Can be used on 12-volt or plugged directly into a car battery
Maintains consistent temperatures
Noisy
Doesn’t have handles or wheels
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This crop of portable grills kept us cooking for days.
Hi, I’m Lindsay Mattison, a trained professional chef, and outdoor enthusiast. During the summertime, you’ll find me outside grilling burgers on the patio, cooking a pork shoulder on the smoker, or building a yakitori grill on my fire pit. If I can cook it outside, I will!
One thing I’ve learned over the years is the importance of having a reliable grill; it’s key to building confidence in your grilling game. I’d love to help you find the right one for you!
Using my training and years of grilling experience as a starting point, I spent hours researching the latest, greatest, and most popular portable grills available online and in stores.
Using price, quality, and brand reputation to narrow the field, I chose several highly-rated portable grills available from popular shopping outlets like Amazon, Home Depot, and Lowes to call in for testing. After receiving the test candidates, I set about building each one.
After assembling each of the grills, my goal is to assess the size of each grill’s cooking surface, as well as its weight and shape, fuel type (gas, charcoal, or pellets), ease of transport, and overall performance.
Since most people use their grills to sear burgers and steaks, I start off by testing each grill at the highest possible temperature. I turn the propane burners to high, distributing hot coals across the entire grilling area for charcoal grills. Then, I crank the pellet grill’s dial to its hottest setting.
If the grill had a lid, I covered it to let the temperature build. Then, I grilled burgers on the uncovered grill, spaced 2 inches apart, cooking them for 5 minutes a side. When the timer expired, I measured the internal temperature of each burger using a probe thermometer in hopes that they were all within 5 to 10 degrees of each other.
I then assessed the char pattern and grill marks of each burger to see how the grill grate’s material contributed to the test. Stainless steel grates tend to be easier to clean. They don’t transfer heat as well as cast-iron grates, which create better grill marks.
For the gas grills, we also place slices of white bread over the entire surface to map out the heating pattern. Grills with even heating really shine here, creating predictable patterns without noticeable hot or cold spots.
In the eternal debate over whether a gas, charcoal, or pellet grill is better for outdoor cooking, there is no wrong answer.
When cooking food on the grill instead of inside, it captures that beautiful char and smokey flavor from cooking over open flames. You likely already have strong opinions on the topic of gas versus charcoal. Perhaps you may already be a pellet grill proponent. We’re not here to change your mind.
If you’re still on the fence on the subject, here are the pros and cons of using each type of grill. Hopefully, they help you choose the right one for you. Let’s talk about gas grills, first.
Gas grills are more convenient than charcoal grills, especially when it comes to travel. It’s much easier to lug around a one-pound propane canister instead of a huge bag of charcoal or pellets! They’re also significantly easier to clean (no ash!), and they heat up more quickly.
Gas grills come with electric starters or a spark wheel to ignite their gas burners. This helps you get cooking faster than charcoal. It’s also easier to control the heat while you’re grilling with gas than it is when using charcoal.
To adjust the heat up and down, simply twist a knob instead of fiddling around with hot coals. It is a bummer when you run out of propane, though, so you always want to double-check before heading into the woods.
Charcoal grills, on the other hand, are significantly less expensive than their gas counterparts. Many people prefer the flavor of cooking over a charcoal grill. Briquettes they use for fuel infuse smokey elements into the food.
The coals created by burning those briquettes can burn hotter than propane. This can be a pro or a con. You’ll get a serious sear on your food if that’s what you’re going for. But it’s also easy to burn your food cooking at temps over 700° F.
Finally, there are pellet grills. Pellet grills tend to cost more than gas or charcoal grills. This is because they use onboard computers with expensive components to fuel the fire.
A pellet grill employs an electric-powered auger to move wood pellets to a firebox. Here, they ignite, creating the fire that heats the grill.
This creates set-it-and-forget-it functionality. You don’t need to fiddle with dials or vents to reach the temperature you want. It also means you’ll need access to an electrical outlet, so keep that in mind before picking up a portable pellet grill.
Pellet grills usually operate at low temperatures to smoke meat. They can also work at higher temperatures. Pellet grills also often have heat deflector plates that prevent direct searing and grill marks.
While these appliances are “grills,” they heat your food using a coil instead of flames. That makes them closer to an electric griddle than a grill.
If you want to grill indoors, we’d suggest you use your oven’s broiler, a cast-iron griddle pan, or an indoor grill. In order to use an electric grill, you need an accessible power outlet (a feature that not all decks or patios have), or a high-powered extension cord (a hassle to use and a trip hazard.)
Gas grills have a BTU—British Thermal Units—rating to measure the amount of heat each grill can produce. Grill manufacturers are pumping out grills with higher and higher BTU counts.
Consumers rely on these numbers as a measure of the grill’s performance. So, what’s the deal? Do the BTUs actually matter?
I’m going to go ahead and say no. Our top two gas grill picks have fewer BTUs per square inch of cooking space than the competition. They still provide even cooking, and offer a more enjoyable cooking experience.
BTUs don’t necessarily give you a good measure of how the grill’s design will affect the cooked food. It’s also important to keep in mind that higher BTU grills burn through propane faster. If the lid doesn’t fit tightly onto the grill, all that heat won’t remain inside anyway.
BTUs are simply an indication of how much heat your grill can produce, not how hot it will actually get inside your grill. So, look at the number if you like, but don’t put too much stock into it.
When it comes to charcoal, you get full control of how much heat your charcoal grill produces. It takes a little practice to get the hang of it, but it’s all about controlling the airflow.
You’ll learn to allow oxygen in by opening up the bottom vents, fueling the coals, and creating intense heat. Close ‘em up to choke off the oxygen and lower the temps. Portable grills with a lid also have top vents to give you some control of the heat. They also change the flavor of the food by venting the hot exhaust or keeping the smoke inside the dome.
You can also control the heat by managing your coal bed and rearranging its placement inside the grill. If your portable grill is large enough to make a two-zone fire, you can move the food off of the flames to a cooler area. Here, they can cook over indirect heat.
The other thing about charcoal grills is that most of them have flimsy wire grates as opposed to heavy cast-iron grates. Before you bemoan the loss of grill marks, know that they’re entirely overrated. Sure, they look great, but wire grates are better for cooking.
They give your food better overall browning, crusting your burgers and steaks with extra flavor. Plus, the wire grates are lightweight and easy to move around when you want to rearrange the coals underneath.
Pellet grills consume wood pellets similar to the ones used to fuel indoor pellet stoves. Pellet fuel comprises compressed sawdust in small cubes. The ones for pellet grills comprise 100% hardwood or contain food-grade oils to add flavor.
To use the grill, the pellets load into a hopper on the side of the grill. An electric-powered auger transfers the pellets to the fire pot inside the grill. The ignited wood pellets produce flames until the grill reaches the set temperature.
Once it comes to temperature, the auger’s rotation slow. It drops fewer pellets into the pot to maintain the heat. The grill’s heat deflector plate acts as a physical barrier to keep the food from exposing to flames.
The barrier also keeps cooking grease from creating flare-ups. The grill’s internal fans disperse the heat and smoke created by the burning pellet fuel around the grill. This surrounds your food and heats the inside of the grill similar to a convection oven.
At low temperatures, the pellets will smoke without creating a large fire. This infuses smoky flavors into the food, similar to what you’ll find when grilling over wood or charcoal. When set to higher temperatures, it makes less smoke, and the fire pot focuses on creating heat. Since the heat deflector plate prevents direct heat, the food crisps up like it would in a high-temperature oven.
There are several ways to start a charcoal fire, but using lighter fluid should be last on the list. I don’t know about you, but I can totally taste the lighter fluid in the finished product. No, thank you!
You can stack your coals in a pyramid and use a starter cube to ignite the pile or use a chimney starter, like the Weber 7429. Simply place some wadded-up newspaper underneath the chimney, add your coals, and light the newspaper on fire. They’ll be ready to dump into the grill base about 15 to 20 minutes later when the coals in the middle glow bright red and the ones on top become white and ashy.
Using a chimney is also a good way to know how many briquettes you need. A full chimney will produce temperatures in excess of 550°F. For cooler grilling temps, fire a half chimney (about 400°F) or a quarter chimney (about 300°F).
Lindsay is a professional chef, recipe developer, writer, and developmental editor. After years of working in restaurant kitchens, she turned to writing to share her passion for local, organic, and seasonal ingredients with home cooks and food enthusiasts.
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