Grill vs griddle: which is best for summer entertaining?
Grills and griddles can both cook various foods, from burgers and steaks to vegetables. But despite their similarities, grills and griddles have plenty of differences that might make you favor one over another for the best grill for you.
I consulted three outdoor cooking experts to get their take on the grill vs. griddle debate. This article combines our research with expert opinions to compare how each scores on food variety, ease of use, ongoing maintenance, and price.
Before you can choose between a grill and a griddle, you need to understand the fundamental differences between the two.
A grill has open grates and cooks food using direct heat, leading to that distinct charred flavor associated with summer cookouts.
'Grills allow you to have this wonderful smoky charred flavor that brings both proteins and vegetables up another level,' explains Shannon Snell, head pitmaster for Sonny's BBQ.
Meanwhile, griddles have a flat, solid surface and distribute heat more evenly, making them ideal for cooking a wide range of foods. 'Griddles offer a consistent cooking surface for multiple items simultaneously without food falling through grates, making them versatile for diverse menus,' says Daniel P. Craig, founder and editor in chief at Kitchen Deets.
Even among grills and griddles, there are differences to consider. When you buy a grill, you can choose between gas, charcoal, and pellet grills, while griddles come as standalone or grill-top versions. You can get a basic appliance that does its job and nothing more, or a more complex (and expensive) one with multiple heat zones, storage bins, and accessories for holding drinks, paper towels, and cooking utensils.
Some of the top grill brands include Weber, Blackstone, Traeger, and BroilKing. Traeger, Blackstone, and Weber are also known for their griddles.
Other griddle brands include Pit Boss, Halo, and Royal Gourmet.
Your choice between a grill and a griddle may come down to the types of foods you want to cook. Both appliances can cook a wide range of foods, but there are some subtle differences to keep in mind during your search.
You can cook typical barbecue foods like burgers, steaks, hot dogs, and kebabs on either a grill or a griddle, though grills have the edge.
'Grills provide excellent smoke flavor and distinctive char marks, creating better caramelization on proteins,' explains Craig. 'Griddles lack that smoky flavor, can't achieve the same char, and typically require more cooking oil.'
A griddle can also cook these items, but more evenly and without the hallmarks of grilled food. If you love the taste of a freshly grilled burger, a griddle might not be the best choice.
However, you can cook an entire breakfast on a griddle, including bacon, eggs, pancakes, and hash browns—something you couldn't do on a grill. Griddles are also ideal for more delicate foods like flaky fish and shrimp, as well as a variety of vegetables and even popcorn.
This flat-top from Weber is one of the best grills we've tested. We gave it a perfect 5-star rating in our Weber Slate 36 review because of its consistently excellent cooking performance, pre-seasoned griddle top and roomy capacity. We even called it "the only griddle you'll ever need."
'Griddles provide full-contact flat surface cooking opportunities,' explains Danielle 'Diva Q' Bennett, world champion pitmaster and Traeger ambassador. 'Stir fries, vegetables, and smash burgers all benefit from the direct contact. The juices and the fat stay within the area of the food.'
Here are some of the best foods to cook on a grill and a griddle:
Grill
Griddle
Burgers
Steaks
Kebabs
Ribs
Pork chops
Turkey and chicken breast
Dense vegetables and fruits
Breakfast items (pancakes, eggs, and bacon)
Smash burgers
Stir-fry
Rice
Delicate fish and shrimp
Ground beef
Ground sausage
Winner: Griddles can cook more varied foods than grills, making them ideal for summer entertaining.
There's a learning curve with both outdoor cooking appliances.
Griddles have a more consistent cooking temperature, while grills may have hot and cool spots. You'll also need to learn the proper temperatures for cooking your chosen food, which can take time to get right. Novice chefs might find it easier to use a grill than a griddle.
Foods can stick to grill grates if they're not oiled properly. Because griddles have a flat, seasoned surface, it's less likely (though not impossible) that foods will stick. It's also easier to overcook food on a grill, especially if you're cooking a thinner piece of food at a high heat.
You'll need to monitor the grill closely while cooking to ensure you don't accidentally burn the food. And flipping foods can be challenging, as there's a chance it will fall between the grates.
Because griddles retain juices and fats, your finished dish might be greasier than if you grilled it. Learning to manage excess grease can take time—you might need to occasionally wipe away grease with a paper towel to prevent the food from becoming too greasy.
Winner: Grills tend to be more beginner-friendly than griddles.
Both grills and griddles require frequent cleaning and routine maintenance to keep them in good shape. However, griddles are slightly easier to manage on a day-to-day basis. 'Griddles require simpler daily maintenance—just scrape and wipe down,' explains Craig.
Grills are trickier and more time-consuming to clean. 'The grates require constant brushing and cleaning to remove food particles,' says Bennett. Additionally, she explains that 'ash cans need to be emptied…for a clean cooking environment. The amount of time to clean depends on the grill's design.'
Deep-cleaning grills and griddles takes time and plenty of elbow grease. 'Both appliances require minor disassembling to clean and sanitize, and you always run the risk of minor burns as it is recommended to clean both while they are still hot,' warns Snell.
You should also consider that griddles require additional maintenance. 'Outdoor griddles should be oiled once a week, regardless of usage, due to the griddle retaining moisture, and rusting can occur,' Snell adds.
Winner: Griddles are easier to clean because they have fewer parts to remove.
Grills and griddles are both available at various price points, so you can usually find one that fits your budget. However, grills are generally more cost-effective overall.
'Grills come in many shapes, sizes, and varieties,' explains Snell. '[Griddles often] have to be ordered or purchased from a specialty store, [while] grills are readily available most places and for affordable prices.'
However, the initial cost of the appliance is only one price factor to consider. You'll also need to cover the long-term operating costs, including fuel and accessories. Grills and griddles both require some form of fuel to operate. Depending on your chosen type, you might need to budget for charcoal, wood pellets, or propane gas.
'For summer entertaining, a quality grill offers better value for typical outdoor cooking,' says Craig. 'Grills generally provide more cooking space per dollar and handle traditional summer fare well. However, griddles offer superior versatility if you frequently host breakfast gatherings or cook for diverse dietary preferences.'
If you like the idea of having a covered storage area for your propane tank, the E-210 is a great option. It offers 450 square inches of cooking space total, with 360 inches of this sitting on the main cooking grid, a good amount of space for a two-burner grill.
For the best of both worlds, you can purchase a griddle insert for a grill. However, there's no option to buy a grill insert for a griddle.
Winner: Grills are typically the more cost-effective option.
Ultimately, the choice between a grill and a griddle will come down to your budget, preferences, and the types of food you want to cook.
'My recommendation would always be to have a grill first,' advises Bennett. 'Due to the design of the grill and the variable price points and qualities, you can always add a cast-iron pan or a griddle plate to a grill, but you can't add a grill to a griddle.'
However, either appliance can become an outdoor living staple. Grills are better suited for those on a limited budget or who want their summer barbeque food to have seasonal grill and char marks. Griddles are better for cooking more delicate foods outside, like eggs, flaky fish, or stir-fries.
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WIRED
06-08-2025
- WIRED
How to Keep Your Outdoor Griddle From Rusting
An outdoor griddle turns your backyard into a short-order kitchen. Here's how to season a griddle, and how to keep it seasoned. Courtesy of Lowe's; Matthew Korfhage All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. Learn more. OK, so you've got a backyard griddle. Congratulations, it's a little like joining a cult—albeit one whose shrine is smashburgers, tacos, and pancakes. (Check out WIRED's guide to the best griddles here.) Each outdoor griddle lover has their own conversion story, one they can't stop telling friends and strangers about. But especially, the griddle has its own distinct set of rituals—a cycle of seasoning and cleaning and maintenance it's possible to love, but also maybe fear. On Reddit or Facebook, posts from new griddle owners betray earnest anxiety … am I doing it wrong? Why can I not get the even black surface I see on griddle videos? I've tested and broken in 10 new flat-top grills this summer alone, so I get it. I've made the mistakes. I've tested the solutions. Here's a quick guide to griddle-seasoning and care, and a few pieces of gear that'll help you along the way—with some advice cribbed from pros at the best griddle makers, like Blackstone, Weber, and Traeger. Why Season a Griddle? Photograph: Matthew Korfhage Properly seasoning a griddle, and keeping it seasoned, is the best way to keep your flat-top from rusting—and also to get a smooth surface that'll both transfer heat more evenly and keep food from sticking as much. The process of seasoning involves heating up unsaturated fats, often high-heat oils like grape-seed oil or canola oil, atop a porous metal like carbon steel or cast iron. Once you reach the smoke point of each oil (more on that later), the liquid fat polymerizes into a hard, nonstick surface that chemically bonds to the surface of the metal and fills in its pores. This protects the metal from oxidizing, which is good: That's what rust is. It also makes the surface of your griddle smoother and more hydrophobic, meaning it repels water. This means food is less likely to stick. All of these things are what you want, cookingwise. But to get this effect, you'll need a wafer-thin, even coating … not a gummy buildup of lots of oil. Here's what to do. First, Clean Your Griddle With Soap (Probably) Check your user manual before any initial cleaning. Some griddles, like the Weber Slate Rust Resistant Griddle, come preseasoned with food-grade oils and already have a layer of seasoning. This doesn't mean you don't have to season it again—but it does mean you shouldn't clean off the seasoning and start over. But most griddles arrive seasoned with shipping oil meant to protect it on its journey to you, but which you don't necessarily want to keep. As a first step, you'll need to scrub your grill with soap and water. Note that almost every guide from every griddle maker says not to use soap and water to clean your grilltop on an ongoing basis: This is the first, last, and only time you'll likely use soap. But do so this time. I tend to favor Dawn Powerwash Spray ($5) and a sponge for this, rather than messing around with a bucket. Just spray lightly, wipe in a circular motion with the sponge across the entire surface of the griddle, then rinse out the sponge and wipe the soap off with water. Dry with a cloth or paper towel, and you're done. How to Season Your Griddle the First Time OK, so now you've got a clean slate. This is good. That's what you need for polymers to form chemical bonds with the griddle surface. Here are the tools you'll want to season your griddle: An unsaturated (read: plant-based) oil with neutral flavor and a high smoke point above 400 degrees Fahrenheit. This includes grape-seed (my go-to), avocado, or canola oil. Refined olive oil can sometimes work, but avoid extra-virgin, which usually has a lower smoke point. Avoid peanut oil unless you universally like the flavor of peanuts. A good set of grill tongs, like this excellent pair from Traeger. Paper towels or preferably blue shop towels that don't throw off as many nubs and fibers. An infrared thermometer gun. (Optional) a squeeze bottle for oil. The process from here is easy, but there's a bit of nuance to getting a good first few layers down, and it'll depend a bit on the evenness of heating on your griddle. Note: Even if your griddle comes preseasoned, you'll probably want to apply a coat or two anyway. The seasoning won't be as hardy as you'd like. Here are the steps to seasoning a griddle the first time. 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Photograph: Matthew Korfhage That's the baseline, but there are additional tips. Most griddle makers will tell you to just blast your burners on high—but that's a bit of a recipe for quickly burning off oil at the hottest spots of your griddle before the edges have a chance to season. Seasoning cast iron pans in an oven is a much more controlled and even process. But most big backyard griddles have strong hot spots, and temperature can vary by anywhere from 50 to 150 degrees across the cooking surface—with the hottest spots above the burners. I like to use an infrared thermometer, and I adjust my burner dials to keep my griddle temperature at or below 500 degrees while seasoning. Often this means having a lower temp in the middle burner or burners, but keeping side burners on higher. 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CNET
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Best Air Fryers: Cheap vs. Expensive Best Air Fryers: Cheap vs. Expensive Click to unmute Video Player is loading. Play Video Pause Skip Backward Skip Forward Next playlist item Unmute Current Time 0:01 / Duration 0:30 Loaded : 100.00% 0:01 Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:29 Share Fullscreen This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. 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Best Air Fryers: Cheap vs. Expensive I tried two approaches, both with a quarter pound of lean ground beef, seasoned simply with salt and pepper. Air fryer cheeseburger recipe Shape a single patty of beef about three-quarters of an inch in thickness. Place in a greased air fryer basket and cooked at 370 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes, flipping at the halfway mark. With about 2 minutes to go, add cheese to top of burger patty and place bun into air fryer basket to toast. Remove all ingredients and build burger on bun with toppings of your choice. Serve. I also tried the same amount of meat shaped into two, thin, smash-style patties for a total cooking time of about six minutes. (Double your cheeseburger, double your fun.) Making a great burger in an air fryer takes almost no skill and requires very little cleanup afterward. Pamela Vachon/CNET Air fryers require very little cleanup You can cook a burger to that perfect medium or medium rare with an air fryer. Pamela Vachon/CNET Well, that was easy. In both cases the patties cooked evenly, with an outcome that was medium in doneness. (You can easily experiment with your model and ideal burger patty size to find the precise timings for your preferred degree of doneness.) The hot air circulation even managed to produce a bit of caramelized crust on one side. Because I could, even with a small, single-household air fryer, I put in a couple of strips of bacon with the single burger patty, since crispy, spatter-free bacon is another excellent use for an air fryer -- not to mention an exceptional burger topping. Speaking of spatter-free, this is the single most compelling reason to employ the air fryer for burger prep. Your clothing, skin and stovetop all avoid the sizzling oil droplets that -- safely contained within the air fryer drawer -- like to escape the pan during regular skillet cooking. The smoky, greasy, meaty aroma, which is otherwise appealing at a burger dive, but not so much in a studio apartment, is also minimized. Cleanup was limited only to the nonstick, air fryer drawer. Read more: I've Been Making Bacon Wrong. Here's the Best (and Cleanest) Way to Cook it There are drawbacks to air fryer burgers With an air fryer, you can't smash the patties down as easily as you can on a grill or griddle. Pamela Vachon/CNET The air fryer isn't perfect when it comes to burgers, and the drawbacks as I experienced are twofold. First, since you can't really access the patty while it cooks, you're unable to smash it down in such a way that it doesn't shrink up significantly while cooking. Since an English muffin is the best burger containment method -- I will not be considering opposing viewpoints at this time -- this didn't bother me so much, since the resulting patty fits the intended vessel perfectly. Expect shrinkage when considering the size of your patty before cooking. Second, if you're like me and believe that a burger without cheese isn't worth eating, things get a little more complicated. Because of the air circulation action of the air fryer, it's hard to anchor cheese on top for a quick melt at the end of the process. My first attempt with a sliced single, an ideal burger cheese -- and I am a cheese pro, so don't come at me -- flew off and unhelpfully adhered to the surface of the air fryer drawer. Am I seeing double? Pamela Vachon/CNET My second attempt where a slice was halved and layered for extra heft was more successful, even more so when I moved the patties to the back edge of the fryer basket, which gets less aggressive air circulation. This may just be a quirk of my model, but I'd be prepared to experiment. I wouldn't even consider shredded cheese on top of a patty, but I absolutely would consider a cheese-stuffed burger, which should work nicely.
