Cuisinart Griddler Elite vs Breville Smart Grill – Indoor Grilling Champions

It’s summertime, and temperatures have already gone crazy. While I can’t stand the heat at all – it really makes me nervous – hot temperatures like the ones from these days drive me nuts.
Consequentially, I can’t imagine summer without AC turned on, even during the night (yeah, I know, it’s not good for health).

So, what can be even worse than this? Well, my wife has a birthday on June 28th. Last year, the pandemic was still the hottest topic, so I’ve somehow avoided making a party, but this year I have no excuse. And guess what’s the part without which any of our family members and friends can’t imagine the birthday party? Yeah, you’re right, it’s the grill.

So, since, I really can’t stand being outside for about two hours grilling meat in our backyard, I’ve decided to buy an indoor grill. I came across a few really popular alternatives but the two I’ve decided to review in this article caught my eye.

Keep on reading to find out everything that matters about Cuisinart Griddler Elite and Breville Smart Grill.

What makes a good indoor grill?

Well, if you ask me, all that matters is the meat that should have the taste closest to the one you get when grilling outdoor. On the other side, when it comes to indoor grilling size matters, too, since you don’t want to spend a whole day in the kitchen while your guests are having fun. Of course, I’m having in mind the size of the grill surface.

You don’t buy an indoor grill every day and you’re not going to use it too often. This means that a device like this shouldn’t be too pricey; it needs to be easy to use, clean, and store; and, in the end, it should be fully functional.

Cuisinart Griddler Elite (GR-300WS)

Cuisinart Griddler Elite is a versatile device that has a really big cooking surface. It comes with reversible and easy-to-remove plates. You can remove them only with a press of the button on the side. Also, it’s worth noting that plates are dishwasher safe and easy to clean up.

Plates are reversible – you have one flat side, one griddle side, and the same goes for both plates.

You can combine these two plates, or open the griddler all the way up horizontally and have two large cooking surfaces. Just to help you visualize this, on one plate you can place about 6 hamburgers or 12 pancakes. That’s what I had in mind when I was talking about the importance of cooking surface size.

Plates have an embedded heating element, or in the other words, the heating element is inside the plates. This kind of heating element allows you even heat distribution across the plates and gives you a nice finishing on the grilled food.

Unfortunately, there is one disadvantage when it comes to this kind of heating element. The disadvantage is that if you damage the plates you need to replace them completely because the heating element is inside, and that might cost you more than you would expect.

When you open the griddler all the way up, you’ll notice the drip tray between and below the plates. The drip tray is removable and dishwasher safe, and plates are designed in a way to store excess fat or any other leaks to a tray.

In addition to that, the griddler comes with a beautiful handle on the front, that makes it easy to raise the top cover, without any danger of getting burned.

The knob on the side is adjustable, it’s more like a sliding bar, so you can easily do top browning if you want to make, for example, grill cheese sandwiches with the cheese on the top, or you want to make a larger sandwich without having to squeeze them.

On the front side is the LED display where you can adjust the griddler settings. Also, the griddler has a built-in timer – you can set it up to 16 minutes, upper sear, bottom sear, one plate, or both plates. It’s important to note that the timer doesn’t turn off the griddle, you need to turn it off manually. That can be considered as a drawback or a note for future improvements.

The griddler comes with 6 different cooking options: contact grill, Panini press, full griddle, full grill, half grill/half griddle, and top melt.

In the end, we’ll take another look at griddler’s plates, since they are probably the most important part of the griddler that might interest you. When turning plates ON or OFF you can turn them independently or you can turn both plates ON or OFF. Also, Cuisinart Griddler Elite allows you to adjust the plate’s heat separately. And one more thing, cool the griddler off before putting plates into the dishwasher.

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Breville Smart Grill (BGR820XL)

I’m going to highlight some of the most important features of the Breville Smart Grill.

As you can see from the chart above, this device has a lot in common with Cuisinart Griddler Elite, but it’s more affordable.

First of all, it’s very easy to use and cleaning is very easy, too, because of non-stick surfaces.

Breville Smart Grill is a great product, solid and heavy, and offers a lot of flexibility. It contains three elements – Panini press plus griddle and grill plate. The plates are removable and dishwasher safe, with the embedded heating element, same as with Cuisinart Griddler Elite. Also, plates are very easy to remove by pushing the plate release button. Another very useful feature, when it comes to plates is the lock function. Breville Smart Grill has two operating modes – barbecue or Panini mode. So, simply said, the cooking surface is adjustable –if you want it to work in barbecue mode, you can open it up all the way. When using the device in barbecue mode, all of the extra fat will drip into the hole in the middle connected with the tray.

On the other side, some might say that the Panini press function is the hottest function of this indoor grill. That’s mainly because you can choose between 6 different positions (heights) between the top and bottom plate, depending on how much force you want to put on the sandwich between them.

Another similarity with the Cuisinart Griddler is the timer, which also doesn’t have the automatic shut-off feature.

Breville Smart Grill comes with variable temperature control – you can switch between low, medium, high, and sear temperature settings.

Also, another simple but very useful feature is that you can wrap up the cord on the bottom of the grill leaving it long just as you need it.

So, to sum it up – it’s simple to use, great for cleaning, and pretty affordable. It’s good as it gets, and if you’re looking for a simple indoor grill this seems like a nice investment.

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Final Verdict

Now, that I’ve listed all that I thought might be interesting to you about these two indoor grills, I must admit I’ve already made a decision. It’s Cuisinart Griddler Elite and I’m going to explain my decision the shortest possible way.

Both devices are great and solid indoor grills, but Cuisinart Griddler Elite comes with a lot more features. Since I’m not planning to buy indoor grills every now and then, I don’t think that paying some extra money should be a big deal. So, yes, Cuisinart Griddler Elite is definitely my choice.

Of course, if you don’t mind extra features, or you plan to use the device for indoor grilling only, then the Breville Smart Grill will do the job.

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Last update on 2024-04-23 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API