Two independent test kitchens reached the same conclusion about this grill from opposite directions. Serious Eats made it her budget pick after testing eight smokeless grills, praising a dial that was hot when it needed to be and stayed that way. Reviewed, testing nine indoor grills, called it their first choice for anyone set on an open grill and got deep grill marks on burgers, chicken and fish. Both flagged the same flaw: the underside of the plate is uncoated and traps food.
Full review
Two Test Kitchens, One Verdict
The Hamilton Beach 25361 has been through two serious independent evaluations and came out well in both. Serious Eats' Taylor Murray tested eight smokeless grills for a review updated in February 2026 — grilling half-inch onion slices to map hot spots, butterflied chicken breasts for five minutes a side, and New York strip steaks with no oil to see what stuck — and named it the best budget smokeless indoor grill. Reviewed's Sharon Franke, a former New York City professional chef who has reviewed kitchen equipment for over 30 years, tested nine indoor grills and called it "our first choice" for anyone set on an open grill.
The two testers came at it differently and agreed anyway. Murray's summary was about the interface: "The rotary temperature dial was extremely easy to use. Twist it in one direction, and the temperature goes up; the other way brings it back down. While this doesn't offer the same precision as other models, it might not be necessary for most cooks who just want to grill food without worrying about a temperature difference of 25 degrees or so. During my testing, it was hot when it needed to be and stayed that way. Can't ask for much more than that." Franke's was about results: "Burgers, chicken, and fish came out with deep grill marks closely resembling the ones you get from your outdoor grill."
The Lid Is the Feature
Most open indoor grills either have a lid or they do not, and the 25361's is removable, which turns out to matter in both configurations. Closed, Murray found it "trapped smoke and steam as well as grease splatters." Franke described the same behaviour with an extra detail about cooking speed: "The lid doesn't press down on food, but rather it helps to hold in heat to speed up cooking a little and also contain smoke and cooking odors."
Off, the geometry changes completely. "When it's removed, the sides are open so that you can add skewers to the grill without worrying if they will fit," Murray wrote. That is the same argument the open-topped Zojirushi wins on — nothing squeezing a long cut or a bone-in piece — except here you can choose. A closed lid on an apartment counter is a meaningful difference in how much cooking smell ends up in the rest of the flat. The catch, and Murray said it plainly, is that "the lid can be a bit clunky to operate."
Why the Grate Holes Matter More Than the Marketing
The most useful finding in Serious Eats' testing was mechanical rather than product-specific. Murray set out to determine what actually reduces smoke on an indoor grill and concluded it was not the tech: "What led to the smoke reduction was a larger number of holes in the grill grate." Her reasoning follows directly: "Because a lot of smoke comes from burning fat, the faster it's removed from the heating element, the less smoke there is."
She named this grill and the Zojirushi as the two that did it right, both having "lots of holes located between the grills' ridges, so oil and fat were whisked away the moment they started to pool." By contrast she found the Breville's tilted plate routed grease well but through a hole that "was a bit small," and dismissed an Elite Gourmet model whose "lid and tiny grease drip hole did little to prevent smoke." The 25361 pairs its perforated plate with what Hamilton Beach calls an extra-large drip tray sitting directly beneath the cooking surface. It is unglamorous engineering and it is the thing that works.
450°F on a Dial, With a Light to Prove It
The temperature control runs from 200°F to 450°F, and Hamilton Beach's own documentation describes the top end as a searing temperature — "When the Hamilton Beach Electric Indoor Searing Grill reaches 450° F, the green indicator light will glow." That indicator turns out to be more valuable than it sounds. Murray's broader finding across the whole test group was that most extra features were noise, with one exception: "The only extra feature that I found particularly useful was an audible alert that the machine was preheated." A visual equivalent solves the same problem, which is knowing when to put food down.
The trade against digital grills is real but modest. There is no numeric readout, so you cannot dial in 375°F and know you have it — Murray's own framing is that this "doesn't offer the same precision as other models," and that a 25-degree difference is not something most cooks are chasing. The grill also has a separate section on the right sized for small items like shrimp or mushrooms, which is genuinely useful for a mixed cook and mildly annoying if you just want one uninterrupted flat surface.
The Uncoated Underside
The one substantive complaint about this grill is specific, and it is what cost it the top spot in Serious Eats' ranking. "The underside of the grill is not coated in the same nonstick finish as the top, so some spots trapped food and oil," Murray wrote. "This wasn't an issue when I cleaned it in the dishwasher, but it could be a little vexing when hand washing."
That single detail was the deciding factor between this grill and her winner. She spelled it out: "The tiebreaker between the Zojirushi Indoor Electric Grill and Hamilton Beach Electric Indoor Searing Grill was this exact spec. The Zojirushi is coated on the bottom as well as the top, so as fat drips down and congeals, it still won't stick when you go to clean it (though only the drip tray is dishwasher-safe). Conversely, Hamilton Beach was harder to scrub since the bottom was uncoated." There is a neat irony here: the Hamilton Beach loses on hand-washing but wins on dishwashing, because its plate goes in the machine and the Zojirushi's does not. Which grill is easier to clean depends entirely on how you clean.
Everything Comes Apart and Goes in the Dishwasher
Hamilton Beach states that the removable grilling plate, the extra-large drip tray and the removable cover all go in the dishwasher, and Franke confirmed the practical version: "The grill grate and the drip pan are dishwasher safe and the lid comes off for hand washing." Murray reported the nonstick surviving her testing intact — "The nonstick coating didn't ding or blemish in any way and only ever needed a light scrub with a soft-bristle brush, at most."
The unit measures 16.73 inches wide by 12.4 deep by 6.81 tall and weighs eight pounds. That height is with the lid fitted, and it makes this the tallest of the open grills here — the Zojirushi is three inches high. In a kitchen where the grill lives in a cupboard rather than on the counter, that difference is the one you will notice most often.
The Case Reviewed Made Against Open Grills Generally
It would be dishonest to present this grill's two endorsements without the qualification Reviewed attached to all of them. Franke tested nine indoor grills and did not give a top pick to any open model, explaining: "In our tests, open grills didn't give us much better results than a closed grill and they can't be used to make a pressed sandwich. For this reason, we didn't select any of the open grills we tested as a top pick." Her overall winner was a contact griddler.
So the honest framing is that the 25361 is the best of a format Reviewed considers structurally limited, and the best budget option in a format Serious Eats ranked first. Both can be true. An open grill with a removable lid is the closest an indoor appliance gets to the shape and behaviour of an outdoor grill — food on one side, heat below, marks where the ridges are. A contact grill cooks both faces at once and makes a panini. If you want the first thing, this is a strong buy; if you want the second, look at the Breville BGR820XL The Smart Grill or the Cuisinart Griddler Five GR-5BNAS instead.
The Apartment Grill
This suits a specific and common situation: an apartment or condo without outdoor grill access, a cook who wants burgers and chicken with real marks rather than pan-seared approximations, and a budget that does not stretch to a multi-function appliance. The lid earns its place here more than anywhere, because containing smoke and cooking odours is a bigger deal in shared walls than in a house.
It is the wrong grill in three cases. If you hand wash everything, the uncoated underside will irritate you every time and the Zojirushi's dual-coated plate is the better design. If you want a pressed sandwich, this cannot make one. And if you want temperature set to a number rather than a dial position, nothing about a rotary control will satisfy you. Otherwise, two of the most credible test kitchens in the category recommended it, and neither found a reason to warn you off.
Strengths
- +Serious Eats' budget pick out of eight smokeless grills tested, and Reviewed's first choice among open grills after testing nine
- +Grate perforation is the mechanism Serious Eats found actually reduces smoke, and this grill has holes between the ridges so fat leaves the element quickly
- +Removable lid traps smoke, steam and grease splatter when closed, then comes off so skewers and long cuts fit with the sides open
- +Grilling plate, extra-large drip tray and the lid itself are all dishwasher safe
- +Reviewed grilled six hamburgers at a time on it and reported deep grill marks closely resembling those from an outdoor grill
- +Rotary dial from 200°F to 450°F with a green indicator light that confirms the searing temperature has been reached
Watch-outs
- −The underside of the grill plate is not coated in the same nonstick finish as the top, so food and oil stick there — a real nuisance if you hand wash
- −Serious Eats found the lid clunky to operate
- −A rotary dial gives no numeric feedback, so you cannot set a specific temperature the way you can on a grill with a digital readout
- −Reviewed judged that open grills as a class, this one included, did not outperform closed contact grills and cannot press a sandwich
- −At 6.81 inches tall with the lid on it is the bulkiest of the open grills here to store
- −The special small-food section on the right complicates the layout for anyone who just wants one flat cooking area
How it compares
Serious Eats ranked this second behind the Zojirushi EB-CC15 Indoor Electric Grill, and the tiebreaker was cleaning: the Zojirushi's grate is nonstick on both faces, this one only on top. In exchange the Hamilton Beach has a lid the Zojirushi lacks, which contains smoke and speeds cooking, and every removable part goes in the dishwasher. It is far simpler than the Breville BGR820XL The Smart Grill and well under half the price of the Ninja Sizzle Smokeless Indoor Grill & Griddle GR101, and unlike the Ninja Foodi 5-in-1 Indoor Grill AG301 it does one job only.
Rating sources
“The rotary temperature dial was extremely easy to use. Twist it in one direction, and the temperature goes up; the other way brings it back down.”
“Burgers, chicken, and fish came out with deep grill marks closely resembling the ones you get from your outdoor grill.”
Our 4.4 score is the average of these published ratings. Ratings marked * were derived from the reviewer’s written analysis or video transcript — the publisher didn’t print an explicit numeric score, so we inferred one from their own words. Click through to verify. More about methodology.
