Your Cart is Empty
How Can I Grill Without Charcoal?
Grilling is one of the favorite ways of making foods. Many people still believe that they should grill with charcoal to cook tasty foods. However, that is not always the case. Additionally, not everyone has a backyard to cook using a charcoal grill
How can you grill without charcoal? There are other viable ways you can grill foods without charcoal, and they include using pans, electric grills, etc. In this article, we explore different ways of grilling without charcoal. Therefore, if you have no charcoal grill but you still tend to grill foods, this article is for you.
Ways of Grilling Without Charcoal
1. Use a Grill Pan
Grill pans come as the first option if you want to grill without charcoal. As the name suggests, they feature a similar design as pans, but their cooking surface's ridges make them different from the typical pans. The ridges make them better for grilling and making sear marks on foods, as you would expect from a charcoal grill.
Grill pans cooks over stovetops; thus, you do not need to use charcoal. They are made of materials such as cast iron and aluminum that easily conduct and maintain heat. Once preheated for about 5 to 10 minutes, they easily cook your foods while the ridges form grill marks.
You get incredible results from tasty foods. However, you might miss out on not getting a smoky flavor since you are not using charcoal and cooking on indirect heat. You can always enhance the flavor with smoky ingredients while marinating your foods.
Below are the benefits of grill pans:
- It easily forms grill marks on foods similar to those of charcoal grills.
- Heats quickly and distributes heat evenly.
- Allows fats to drain from foods easily.
2. Use an Indoor Electric Grill
Cooking on indoor electric grills is another way of cooking without charcoal. Unlike the typical charcoal grills or grill pans, electric grills use electricity as their source of power. The heating element is located beneath the cooking surface. Therefore you will be using indirect heat for cooking.
Electric grills’ cooking surfaces also come with a raised ridges like that of a typical grill. Once the grill is hot enough for cooking, you can easily attain grill marks on your foods and excellent taste.
Like on a grill pan, you have to use smoky ingredients such as marinades to achieve a smoky flavor. Additionally, you can achieve a charcoal flavor using woods chips. Please read our guide on how to get a charcoal flavor on an electric grill.
Among the top benefits of this method of grilling include:
- It’s safer than charcoal grilling since there are no flames or smoke involved. As a result, they are used as alternatives for indoor cooking.
- They are compact and lightweight, thus easier to move from one place to another.
- They are used for both indoor grilling and outdoor cooking
- It allows fats and juices to flow down from foods being cooked without causing sudden flare-ups of flames like it to happen on charcoal grills.
3. Infrared Cooking
Infrared cooking is among the newest form of grilling. It also does not involve the use of any charcoal. Infrared grills have a heating element between flames and grill plate/ cooking surfaces.
Since they use high temperatures, they cook very fast.
Usually, infrared technology utilizes hot air circulation to cook foods; thus, foods tend to retain their juices. Therefore, you don’t expect a flare-up of flames while cooking. Also, they distribute heat evenly.
The only downside of infrared grills is that they are extremely costly, and many people, including repairers, are not familiar with them. Also, acquiring their parts for repair is not easy unless you source from the respective manufacturers.
Final Thought
As discussed above, there are other feasible techniques of grilling without charcoal. They include grill pans, electric grills, infrared grills, and adding smoky ingredients to your foods. They are cheap yet straightforward methods. Additionally, they are safer than charcoal grills. Lastly, they promote healthy cooking, and you are not limited to enhance the flavors of foods you’ll be cooking.
Check out Atgrills indoor electric grills and griddles to grill food without charcoal on a non stick cookware with natural stone coating.
