The Best Accessories to Up Your Backyard Grilling Game

Up your grilling game with these tools for getting the perfect sear, smoke, roast, or pizza.
Grilling is the most elemental way to cook. There’s the burning wood, charcoal, or gas producing heat, and there’s your food sizzling in that heat. It’s a simple way to cook, but it can be daunting. How do you know when your meat is done? How do you get those great grill marks? As with most things, having the right tools makes the job much easier. If our guide to portable grills got you started on the road to grilling mastery, consider this the follow-up tips-and-tricks edition. Professional chefs may make it look easy to poke a bit of meat and pronounce it medium rare, but for the rest of us, these tools help take the guess work out of grilling.

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A Digital Thermometer

Habor Foldable Food Thermometer

It takes a lot of grilling practice to know the temperature of meat just by feeling it. This is an admittedly useful skill you can work toward, but really there’s no need. You can grab a great instant-read digital thermometer like the Habor Foldable Thermometer ($16). The small, foldable design is easy to palm so you can temp your food on the sly and then poke it with your finger and say, “Ah yes, medium rare” when your friends are looking. If you fancy something fancier, the MeatStick ($65) is a wireless thermometer you can leave in the meat, and it’ll broadcast the temperature to your phone.

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Heat Resistant Gloves

Grill Heat Aid Gloves

I’ll confess: I wasn’t even planning to test these because I thought the idea was ridiculous. Who needs gloves to grill? Then the folks at GrillGrates sent me a pair and I thought, What the heck. Turns out, heat resistant gloves are awesome. You can do everything with your hands. Later, I got a pair of these Grill Heat Aid Gloves ($29), which can handle up to 932 degrees. A word of caution: These help, but they don’t make you invulnerable. You’re still dealing with very high temperatures when grilling, so be cautious.

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Heavy Duty Tongs

Weber Steel Tongs & Spatula

Cooking large pieces of meat means flipping heavy pieces of meat. Most kitchen tongs are not up the task. To avoid dropping your half-cooked food, I recommend heavy-duty stainless steel tongs. I love these Weber Tongs ($22) and the set includes a nice heavy spatula as well.

Weber

A Grate for Your Grill

GrillGrates (for Many Grill Sizes)

The gas versus charcoal grilling debate will never die, but you can skip it entirely with a set of Grill Grates. The extra flavor that you get from charcoal comes primarily from the rendered fat dripping off your food, hitting the coals below, and becoming smoke, which then flavors your food. Grill Grates give you the same effect without the charcoal, trapping juices in its deep grooves where they burn off and flavor your food. The also prevent flareups, even when cooking normally flare-prone food like bratwurst. They can replace your existing grates or just cover them. Here’s a set to fit the Weber Jumbo Joe ($90) and another for the Weber Q1200 gas grill ($60).

Grillgrates

Charcoal Baskets

Weber Charcoal Briquet Holders

If you want to branch out from grilling (high heat) to slow cooking (indirect heat, or smoking), do yourself a favor and grab a set of charcoal baskets. These make it easy to cluster your briquets to one side of the grill so you can keep your indirect cooks on the other. Combine these with a hinged grill and you’ll have an easy way to feed in fresh fuel as your smoke progresses. These hinged grates fit the Jumbo Joe, our top pick for portable charcoal grills.

Weber

A Veggie Basket

Weber Steel Vegetable Basket

A veggie basket is not a necessity, but it sure is nice to have. It lets you slice your veggies ahead of time, toss them in a little olive oil, and cook them without having half of them fall through the grates. Your veggies will cook faster and there’s less mess. I like this Weber basket ($15). It’s solid stainless steel with no rivets. My only gripe is that it’s not big enough for a veggie-loving family of five. If you’re cooking for a crowd, try the 14-inch basket ($26).

Weber

A Pizza Stone

Pizza Stone With Carry Rack

It’s not quite a wood-fired pizza—for that you’ll want check out our favorite pizza ovens—but you can make a pretty good pie with a pizza stone on your grill. I’ve used this Weber stone quite a bit, but be sure to check the fit for your particular grill. Want something larger? I didn’t test it, but this stone is 18 inches across, letting you make a large pizza. If rain drowns your barbecue, fear not; these pizza stones work just as well in the oven.

Weber

A Grill Cleaning Block

GrillStone Grill Cleaner

Not one of the grilling manufacturers I talked to for this piece endorsed this, but I have been cleaning my stainless steel grill grates with wadded up aluminum foil for years. A stainless steel or brass wire brush can leave behind small bristles that get stuck in your grill and wind up in your food. It happens more often than you think. Instead of foil, you could try the Earthstone GrillStone Cleaner ($17), a pumice-like stone cleaner made from recycled glass. If you must own a brush, get one that’s a single, continuous wire. I like this Grill Art brush. If you get a GrillGrate there’s a continuous wire cleaner ($20) for those as well.

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