5 Best Indoor Smokeless Grills for the Money

Looking for the best indoor smokeless grill to buy this year? Here are the top 5 grills that will give you the best bang for your money.

Grilling is great, but the weather isn’t always as great, and sometimes it’s best to do your grilling indoors with a good indoor grill.  And it’s even better when your indoor grill is completely smokeless, you don’t have to worry about any pesky smoke alarms.

Indoor smokeless grills give you cookout quality meals right in your kitchen.  You can’t beat the convenience of that.

Following that, we also have a little section where we answer some of your most frequently asked questions.

Best Indoor Smokeless Grills – Comparison Table

Best Indoor Smokeless Grills Reviews

#1. Hamilton Beach Electric Indoor Searing Grill

This beauty from Hamilton Beach is flying off the shelves online – customers love it! You get 118 square inches of grilling surface altogether, which is enough to feed up to about 6 people at once.

This grill comes with a hood, which allows hot air from the grill to circulate, so along with the high searing heat that locks in those all-important juices and flavors, you also heat your meats right the way through.  The lid also helps to push the food down to get those delicious signature grill marks.

And better yet, the lid also has a window, so you can see exactly how your food is doing as you cook, and assess whether your food needs to be turned over, or whether you should adjust the temperature.

Yes, the temperature is adjustable which is not always something you get on an indoor grill.

It comes with an extra-large drip tray, so you don’t get any messy spills on your kitchen countertop.

And as for keeping things clean, it gets better still.  The grill hood, the grill plate, and the drip tray are all removable and dishwasher safe – how handy is that!

We like the indicator lights featured – they let you know when the grill is sufficiently preheated so you can see when it’s time to put your food on.  No need for guesswork!

Cons

This indoor grill is really flying off the shelves at Walmart and the customer feedback is phenomenal.  After well over 11,000 customer ratings, the average customer rating comes out at an outstanding 4 and a half stars out of 5.

It’s referred to as a 5 in one unit because of its 5 functionalities.  You can use it as a contact grill, a panini press, a full grill, a full griddle, or as half grill/half griddle.  This gives you so much more versatility than if you were to buy a machine that’s just a grill alone.  You could grill meats on one side and fry eggs on the other!

This machine also offers a lot more cooking surface area than the majority of their counterparts.  Basically it’s like a contact grill, but one whereby the lid turns a full 180 degrees, to effectively double the cooking surface area.

There’s 100 square inches of cooking surface area available when closed, or 200 square inches when open.

The 2 cooking plates are reversible, each with a grill design on the one side, with a griddle set up on the other side.

These cooking plates are non-stick on both sides and are removable and dishwasher safe.

When closed the grill is really compact, at just 13.5 inches long and 11.5 inches wide.  Small enough to easily fit on your kitchen worktop without encroaching on your food prep area.

Unlike many indoor grills, you can adjust the temperature as you wish – so handy.

Excess grease and fat is drained away via an integrated drip tray.

Cons

This beauty is flying off the shelves at Walmart – and we can see why!

It uses special patented technology to give you barbeque results right on your kitchen counter.  There are infrared heaters enclosed which run the length of the grill on either side. And there are special reflectors which direct this heat that they produced, so you get really even heating across the grill.  There are no flare-ups or hot spots.

The grill heats up quickly to a steady 446 degrees Fahrenheit, to sear your meats on the outside, while leaving them juicy and tender on the inside, mmm.

It also uses special technology to do away with the smoke.  The drip tray is placed underneath the infrared heaters and is designed to remain cool.  This way there’s barely any smoke to speak of.

And it’s super easy to clean, either wipe the grid down when cool or place it in the dishwasher.

We love our safety features, and that includes the non-slip feet on this grill, keeping it safely in place.

But it’s not just us who love it – customer feedback is impressive, after well over 1000 customer ratings, the average customer rating comes in at a whopping 4 and a half stars out of 5.

Cons

No list of top picks for indoor grills would be complete without a George Foreman entry!

This particular model is hugely popular with customers.  It’s stand out feature is that you can use it both outdoors and indoors – quite the little money saver if you don’t have an outdoor grill already!  Use it on its stand when you want it outdoors, or remove the stand when you want to use it indoors, and place it on the countertop.

It’s also got a really big grilling surface, coming in at a huge 240 square inches – that’s more than enough to comfortably feed a large family.

We love that there’s adjustable temperature control on this model, not all George Foremans do that.  There are 5 heat settings altogether.

It has a lid so you can keep the heat in and get your meats cooked right through their interior

The tough non-stick coating is super easy to wipe clean.

Its fully electric, so you don’t have to worry about charcoal or propane dangers, and your food is heated evenly with no flare-ups.  You may get some steam with it but you won’t get any smoke.

Cons

Here’s another great indoor grill that’s been really popular.  After over 600 customer ratings, the average customer rating is a nice 4 and a half stars out of 5.

It’s available at a great price, you can flip the grill plate over and use it as a griddle if you wanted to, and it has a removable lid.  It’s got so much going for it!

As for the size of the cooking surface, it comes to 161 square inches altogether, enough to feed a small to a medium-sized group.

The lid is great too, it’s good safety feature if there are kids around, and it’s completely see-through, so you can check on your meat.  And if you don’t want in on, simply take it off before you use it.

It’s really easy to clean too, you can simply wipe it down with a wet towel.

Buying an Indoor Smokeless Grills

Not sure what to look for in your indoor smokeless grill?  Read on – we go through everything.

Cooking Surface Area

The bigger the grill, the more food you can grill at any one time.  This is handy when you’ve got plenty of mouths to feed or if you’ve got hungry appetites to take care of or even unexpected guests.

Of course, you also have to consider how much room you have in your kitchen, it’s no good getting a really big grill if the size of it prevents you from using your kitchen worktops to prep your food.

Even heating

Even heating is an important feature in your indoor grill – you don’t want to be eating a steak that’s hot on one end and cold on the other.  Luckily the majority of the indoor grills on the market today, and the ones in our Top 5 picks all feature even heating.  In fact, even heating is far easier to achieve on an indoor grill than the outdoor charcoal counterparts.

Non-Stick

When you grill outdoors, you often get food sticking to the grill, and this makes it harder to retrieve the food when you’re ready to plate up.  To prevent this from happening you should look for a grill that’s non-stick.

Easy to clean

Good hygiene is so important when it comes to preparing and cooking food.  The easier it is to keep your cookware and cooking appliances clean, the better.  As a general rule, non-stick grills tend to be much easier to clean than their counterparts.

Grill Grate Material

Different grill grate materials have different properties.  Most of the smokeless grill grates are made from thin cast aluminum which heats up quickly and is good for searing your meats.

Some grill gates are made from thick cast iron which makes them great for retaining heat.

Some grill grates are ceramic or ceramic coated, which makes them non-stick and really easy to clean.

Temperature Control

Ideally, you’re going to want the facility to set the cooking temperature as you see fit, so you can grill your meats exactly how you want them.  Or you can make changes to the temperature according to when items you’re cooking on other appliances will be ready, turning the heat up or down as required.

Cord Length

Most indoor grills are electric, so unless you’re able to place your indoor grill near a socket, you will need a decent length of cord to plug it in.

Inclined Drip Pan

If you or anyone you’re cooking for is health-conscious, you may be interested in an inclined drip pan.  An inclined drip pan allows excess grease and fat to slide away from your food, removing unnecessary calories, leaving you with leaner meals, and a grill that’s easier to clean.

Lid

You can get indoor grills with or without a lid.  When you don’t have a lid, it’s quicker and easier to turn your foods over on the grill as needs be.  But when you put a lid on top, it helps to trap hot air in and moves around in the chamber you’ve created, and this helps the interior of the meat to cook through, much like an oven does.

If you opt for a grill with a lid, it’s a good idea to get one that’s transparent, so you can check on how your food’s doing, without disturbing the heat.

Additional Features

Another feature that has become more common in a smokeless indoor grill, is the ability to flip the grill plate over and use it as a griddle.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do indoor grills really work?

They sure do!  You get the same texture and flavor when you grill and sear your meat on a  smokeless indoor grill as you would if you were using an outdoor grill.

Are smokeless grills really smokeless?

Smokeless grills are not all created equal.  The large majority of indoor grills are contact grills that run off electricity, so there’s no propane smoke or charcoal smoke to worry about.

There are other indoor grills however that do produce some smoke, but due to the technology employed in the grill, the smoke given off from the grill is diminished so that they are virtually smokeless.

Occasionally smoke may be found coming off a contact grill.  However, if you are getting smoke from a smokeless grill, this is usually down to using a dirty grill plate.  You can prevent this kind of thing from happening by always ensuring that your grill is clean before you use it.

Another tip for preventing smoke from your indoor grill is to ensure that you temperature is not turned up too high, as this can cause the food to burn and release smoke.

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