— Recommendations are independently chosen by Reviewed’s editors. Purchases you make through our links may earn us a commission.Gas grills may lack the romance of grilling with charcoal—you won’t get the extra boost of flavor from smoky briquettes, and it’s impossible to get the grill to heat up to the same temperature. But gas offers instant, even heat that puts charcoal to shame, helping you grill burgers or the perfect chicken breast. They also boast precise temperature control, which makes it easy to cook delicate foods that might be burned while cooking over coals that can get as hot as 700°F.
While choosing gas is a relatively simple decision, picking the best gas grill to purchase is considerably more difficult. From big brands like Weber grills (including our top pick, Weber Spirit II E-310 (available at Amazon) to the generic grills that crop up at your local grocery store every spring, there are hundreds of options to choose from.
We put popular gas grills through a battery of tests from ease of assembly to preheat speeds, and evaluating its grill surface. After cooking dozens of burgers, chicken drumsticks, and asparagus on each grill, we can say with certainty that the most expensive model is not necessarily the best, but the cheapest options might not be built to satisfy, either.
These are the best gas grills we tested ranked, in order.
- Weber Spirit II E-310 Gas Grill
- Weber Genesis II E-310 Gas Grill
- 3 Embers 4-Burner Gas Grill
- Dyna-Glo 4-Burner Open Cart LP Gas Grill
- Char-Broil Performance 5-Burner Gas Grill
- Cuisinart 3-in-1 Five Burner Gas Grill
- Nexgrill 5-Burner Propane Gas Grill
The Weber Spirit II E-310 is our pick for best gas grill.
The Weber Spirit II E-310 may be the brand’s entry-level grill, but it didn’t act like a lesser product when it came to performance. It was our favorite grill to use on every test, producing perfect sear marks on burgers, evenly cooked chicken, and picture-perfect asparagus. It can’t hold quite as many burgers as our upgrade pick, the Weber Genesis II E-310, but the 18 or so burgers that do fit will be cooked evenly to perfection.
This grill is proof that BTUs are not the end-all-be-all in grill choice. Its 30,000 BTUs (or, 71 per square inch) cranks out an impressive amount of heat—we created indirect heat by turning a single burner on high heat, then heating the grill to 300 degrees; and when we turned all the burners on low, it hit an impressive 400° F (which was 25 to 50 degrees hotter than some of the higher BTU grills we tested).
We also loved some of the aesthetic features, and the grill itself felt well put together and built to last. They really thought of everything with this grill: a side-mounted propane tank with a gas meter, sturdy side tables, and cooking grates that fit together perfectly. It was also one of the few grills that had hooks on the side for hanging your grilling tools, and the Weber lids were the only ones designed to vent smoke away from tunneling into your face. a bonus, this grill is also iGrill3 (a Bluetooth enabled thermometer that mounts permanently to the grill table and can send grilling alerts and data right to your smartphone) compatible. As compared to some of the other grills, the Weber was significantly easier to build, too. Although there were a lot of little parts to put together, the instruction manual was clear-cut and easy to understand.
The Weber Spirit II E-310 isn’t the cheapest grill on the market, but it’s absolutely worth the price. When you take all the factors into account—performance, ease of use, and aesthetic appearance—this grill was a no-brainer for our choice as Best Overall.
Pros
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Cooks evenly and perfectly sears meat and veggies
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Produces impressive heat for 30,000 BTUs
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Sturdy, well-built design and features
Cons
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Only holds about 18 burgers
The Weber Genesis II E-310 offers more grilling space than our main pick, the Weber Spirit II E-310 affords.
If you can afford the additional expense and want a grill with the same exceptional build quality as our main pick but with a larger cooking surface, we’d recommend upgrading to the Weber Genesis II E-310 Gas Grill. You can easily fit 24 burgers on this bad boy (versus the 18 that Weber Spirit II E-310 can handle). This grill offers roughly the same BTUs per square inch as the Spirit II (76 BTUs, in case you’re wondering). When it came to performance, we really didn't notice a difference between the two; they both produced excellent grilled burgers and chicken drumsticks.
The Genesis’ side-mounted propane tank has a windshield around it, and its four wheels make it easier to move around. Instead of a plastic handle and lid, the whole lid is metal, giving it a more professional, sleeker look. We loved how one of the side tables folded down for easy storage, and making the warming rack foldable was a brilliant design choice – I’m forever taking those things off to create extra space and losing them somewhere in the garage. And the grill is already configured for iGrill3 Bluetooth thermometers (sold separately).
If you’re looking for a step-up to this step-up, you’ll find that some grills in Weber’s Genesis II Series also have sear burners and side burners. We didn’t test models with these features: they’re not worth the extra coin, for most people. If not having a side burner on your grill is a dealbreaker for you, this could be the grill for you.
That Weber backs its products with a 10-year warranty against corrosion and rust, helps to take the sting out of the purchase price of this upgrade pick. This is a well-made grill that will serve you well for years to come.
Pros
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Cooks evenly and perfectly sears meat and veggies
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Metal lid and handles are sleeker than plastic
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Side tables and racks fold for easy storage
Cons
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More expensive than most grills
How We Tested
A gaggle of gas grills all waiting to be tested.
The Tester
Hi, I’m Lindsay Mattison, a trained professional chef and outdoor enthusiast. During the summertime, you’ll find me outside grilling burgers on the patio, slow cooking a pork shoulder on the smoker, or building a yakitori grill on my fire pit. If I can cook it outside, I will!
One thing I’ve learned over the years is the importance of having a reliable grill; it’s absolutely key to building confidence in your grilling game. I’d love to help you find the right one for you!
The Tests
We cooked a feast of burgers, chicken, and veggies on every grill we called in for testing.
Using my training and years of grilling experience as a starting point, I spent hours researching the latest, greatest and most popular gas grills available online and in stores. Using price, quality and brand reputation to narrow the field, I chose seven highly-rated gas grills from available via popular shopping outlets like Amazon, Home Depot and Lowes to call in for testing. After receiving our test candidates, we set about building each one (a two-person job, for sure, given the weight of each grill).
After assembling each grill, my goal was to find out if factors, such as the number of burners, BTUs, and evaluating the square inches of cooking space for its grate material to see how that affected the grill’s overall performance. To do this, I started off by testing how well each grill performed on three different heat levels: high heat (all the burners on the hottest setting), low heat (all the burners on the lowest setting), and indirect heat (one or two burners turned on high).
For our high-temperature cooking test, I timed how long it took for the grill to hit 600° F, an ideal temperature for high-heat searing for steaks, vegetables, and burgers. Once the grill was smoking hot, we placed slices of white bread over the entire surface to map out the heating pattern. Grills with even heating really shined here, creating predictable patterns without noticeable hot or cold spots. Next, I grilled burgers, spaced 2-inches apart, cooking them for 5 minutes a side. After the timer expired, I measured the internal temperature of each burger in hope that they were all within 5 to 10 degrees of each other. Finally, to round out the high-heat tests, we tossed thin-stemmed asparagus onto the cooking grates to see if they fell through.
For the low-temperature tests, I was hoping to see a temperature around 375°F when all the burners were turned to their lowest position. This is an ideal temperature for slow cooking foods or grilling delicate items that can’t withstand a grill’s high heat. Chicken drumsticks were the perfect option for this test, and the best grills cooked them in about 30 minutes, creating an even, golden brown skin.
The last test was indirect heat: a cooking method which only uses a few of the burners to create an oven-like environment inside of the grill. It’s the best way to cook food that takes longer than 30 minutes to finish or that would otherwise burn when exposed to high heat—like a whole chicken, a rack of ribs, or a pork shoulder. I measured each grill’s internal temperature after 15 minutes of preheating and cooked a whole chicken on the top-performing grills.
I finished our assessment by looking at each grill’s aesthetic features and build quality. Do the grills rattle and shake when you roll them around? Are the side tables and side shelves sturdy enough to hold heavy food items? Are there hooks to hang your grilling tools on? Is there a place to store the propane tank, and is it within reach of the hookup hose? Do the grill’s handles get too hot to touch? Is its grease tray catch pan easy to access? After compiling the scores, some of these design choices made a huge difference in the grill’s overall ranking.
Chicken drumsticks helped us test which gas grill was best for low-temperature cooking.
What You Should Know About Gas Grills
Every gas grill has a rating known as BTUs—British Thermal Units—a measure of the amount of heat the grill can produce. More and more, grill manufacturers are pumping out grills with higher and higher BTU counts, and consumers rely on these numbers as a measure of the grill’s performance. So, what’s the deal: do the BTUs actually matter?
I’m going to go ahead and say no: our top two grill picks had fewer BTUs per square foot of cooking space than the competition, produced evenly-cooked food and offered a more enjoyable cooking experience. In fact, one of our least favorite grills had the highest BTUs in the group!
BTUs don’t necessarily give you a good measure of how the grill’s design will affect the cooked food. It’s also important to keep in mind that higher BTU grills burn through propane faster, and if the lid doesn’t fit tightly onto the grill, all that heat won’t remain inside anyway.
At the end of the day, BTUs are simply an indication of how much heat your grill can produce, not how hot it will actually get inside your grill. So, look at the number if you like, but don’t put too much stock into it.
Gas or Charcoal—How Do You Choose?
In the eternal debate over whether a gas grill or a charcoal grill is better for outdoor cooking, there is no wrong answer. If you’re cooking your food on the grill instead of inside the house, it will capture that beautiful charred essence and smoky flavor from cooking over open flames. You likely already have strong opinions on the topic of gas versus charcoal and we’re not here to change your mind. If you’re still on the fence on the subject, however, here are the pros and cons of using each type of grill to help you choose the right one for you. Let’s talk gas grills, first.
Gas grills are more convenient than charcoal grills. That they don’t use charcoal as fuel not only makes a gas grill easier to clean (no ash!), but it also cuts down its initial heating time. That gas grills come equipped with electric starters or a spark wheel to ignite its gas burner helps to get you cooking faster than charcoal users can manage, as well. It’s easy to easier to control the heat while you’re grilling with gas than it is when using charcoal; to adjust the heat up and down, simply twist a knob instead of fiddling around with hot coals. It is a bummer when you run out of propane, though, so we love these newer grills that have a handy meter right on the side of the grill.
Charcoal grills, on the other hand, are significantly less expensive than their gas counterparts. Many people prefer the flavor of cooking over a charcoal grill, as the briquettes they use for fuel infuse smokey elements into the food. The coals created by burning those briquettes can burn hotter than propane or natural gas, which can be a pro or a con: you’ll get a serious sear on your food if that’s what you’re going for, but it’s also easy to burn your food over 700° F temperatures.
What About Electric Grills?
While these appliances are called “grills,” they heat your food using a coil instead of flames. That makes them closer to an electric griddle than a grill. If you want to grill indoors, we’d suggest you use your oven’s broiler, a cast-iron griddle pan or an indoor grill. In order to use an electric grill, you need an accessible power outlet (a feature that not all decks or patios have), or a high-powered extension cord (a hassle to use and a trip-hazard.)
Other Gas Grills We Tested
If we were to describe any of these grills as being “built like a tank,” it would be the 3 Embers 4-Burner Gas Grill. It arrived in the heaviest box I’ve ever seen, strapped into a palate that almost buckled under its weight. After building so many grills, we definitely appreciated only having to put the side tables onto this one—especially considering that it has two drawers and a cabinet door, all of which would have been pretty tricky to put on correctly at home. The grill itself looks gorgeous, with a large glass viewing window, stainless steel for days, and fancy features like burner knobs that light up in iridescent blue when they’re ignited. It was also the only grill we tested that had stainless steel grates, which did get stained during the course of testing but made beautiful sear marks on our burgers.
Performance wise, the 3 Embers had the most consistent heating across all four burners, although it was notably hotter in the front area than the back. It worked really well at low temperatures, too, maintaining a perfect 375° F with all the burners turned to low. The only thing it couldn’t do? The grates didn’t have crossbars placed in the right spaces, so our tiny asparagus stalks fell right through.
Bottom line: If you’re looking for a massive grill that can cook over 24 burgers while looking like a professional staple on your deck, this is the one. Just don’t plan to move it too much (seriously, it’s so heavy!) and be ready to shell out some coin because this one doesn’t come cheap.
Pros
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Consistent heating across all four burners
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Cooks well at low temperatures
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Stainless steel grates make beautiful sear marks
Cons
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Too heavy to really move around
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Crossbar placement allows veggies to fall through
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More expensive than many grills
The Dyna-Glo 4-Burner Open Cart LP Gas Grill was the least expensive grill in the testing group, and it actually did a pretty decent job all things considered. It felt sturdier than some of the grills in the same price range, and although the lid was noisy, it was smooth and closed tightly to the grill. Like the other inexpensive grills, it shook badly when you moved it around on its wheels, but the tables were sturdy and the knobs clicked satisfyingly when you turned them on and off. Our major complaint with this grill was a hot spot in the back right corner, and the three grill grate system. They didn’t sit together very well, making it really difficult to clean this grill without making a ridiculous amount of noise. We also hated the lid design, which funneled smoke right into your face as soon as anything flared up.
Pros
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Lid closes smooth and tightly
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Sturdier build than others in this price range
Cons
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Hot spot in the back right corner
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Noisy when opening/closing lid and cleaning
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Lid design directs smoke to griller's face
The Char-Broil Performance 5-Burner Gas Grill is proof that higher BTUs aren’t necessarily better. This value-priced grill only has 40,000 BTUs, but since it had a smaller cooking area than some of the other grills, it still averaged out to a solid 84 BTUs per square inch. It wasn’t able to get as hot as quickly as the higher BTU grills, but it did do an admirable job at cooking burgers and chicken drumsticks evenly across the five burners. Unfortunately, this grill lost a lot of points in the aesthetics department. The plastic dials felt cheap, and overall the grill was a bit flimsy and clunky. We wondered how long it would stay together! If you need a grill for the short term and don’t want to spend a lot, this would fit the bill. For our money, we’d rather spend more on a grill that will hang around for a few years.
Pros
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Cooks evenly across five burners
Cons
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Plastic dials feel cheap
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Construction feels flimsy
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Small cooking area
We really liked some of the add-on features of the Cuisinart 3-in-1 Five Burner Gas Grill–such as its stainless-steel smoke tube and heavy-duty cast-iron griddle–but the grill itself didn’t perform well enough to justify its high price tag. The burgers in the back charred and burned before the ones in the front cooked through, and we had a hard time getting the grill to cook at lower temperatures. Not only that, but this one was one of the more difficult, time-consuming grills to build. It had too many pieces and the frame was flimsy, shaking and rattling when we moved it around. The lid was so heavy that I worried the grill might fall over when you opened it! Unfortunately, a few of the pieces warped on our original tests, but Cuisinart’s customer service was top-notch and sent us a replacement. We didn’t experience any damage with the second grill, but its performance still ranks it near the bottom of our list.
Pros
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Quality add-on features, like a cast iron griddle
Cons
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Doesn't cook evenly or at low temperatures
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Time-consuming to assemble
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Construction feels flimsy
The Nexgrill 5-Burner Propane Gas Grill gets pretty good customer ratings and it’s available for a nice budget price of around $200, but we weren’t too thrilled with it. It was our least favorite grill to build, with too many tiny screws and a side burner that was almost too stiff to push into place. The lid didn’t close all the way—it’s possible it was damaged during shipping—but that allowed a lot of heat to escape as we used it. It had the highest BTUs of all the grills (a massive 55,000, or 115 per square inch of cooking area), which did help it get to 600° F in only 11 minutes, but it struggled to maintain low temperatures without losing a flame. The straw that broke the camel’s back: the back right corner was significantly hotter than the rest of the grill, charring our burgers to a crisp.
Pros
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Impressive BTUs that mean quick heating
Cons
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Difficult to assemble
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Doesn't cook evenly or at low temperatures
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Lid doesn't close securely