T-Fal OptiGrill Indoor Panini Press Grill with 6 Cooking Programs

Like many families, we are constantly on the go and preparing nutritious meals has become quite the magic trick. I wanted some sort of indoor grill that provided the utility of endless meal options but was also very easy to care for. I had owned the boxer's brand of indoor grill and in it's day was fine, but was, in the long run, still time consuming both in preparation and clean-up. So, I began my research of what recent technology had to offer. The T-fal OptiGrill was constantly appearing first or second on most every list you could find for grills available today. The idea of an active timer system, removable grill plates for cleaning and most of all the ability to effectively grill straight from the freezer was intriguing at the very least. That with all of the positive reviews made ordering the T-fal a no brainer. When I unpacked the grill, I was impressed with it's build quality and well documented guides and recipe ideas. After rinsing off the plates, I pulled out a couple of frozen steaks, seasoned them and began the simple button sequence for the preheat and cooking sequence When the unit beeped to signal that it was ready, I put on the steaks, closed the hood and watched the color coded timer do it's thing. Within 2 minutes the amazing aroma pulled the rest of the family into the kitchen to watch the balance of the process. About 2 minutes after the medium notification chimed, I pulled out 2 wonderfully caramelized, juicy, medium well done steaks for both my wife and son. The couldn't stop praising the steaks the whole time they ate. I made myself a frozen hamburger patty the next day with similar results. I was amazed at how well it was cooked and just how good it tasted. Whom ever designed this grill got it right, this is one amazing appliance. If this unit holds up half as good as I expect it to, I will be one very happy customer. This will definitely make a healthy change in my families diet. You owe it to yourself and your family to research this product well ... if you do, you will most likely make the same decision to get one that I did.

Purchased this online just over a week ago. Had a Foreman grill been using awhile. I liked the Foreman grill ok but many times I would overcook my food or the chicken would be a bit dry (probably cause I overcooked it too). The Forman Grill worked well enough. It was the Next Gen version with temp controls. I did like the removable grates which this one has as well. The build quality of the T-Fal is at least 1 order of magnitude better than the Foreman. You can see some of this when you pull the grates or open and close the lid. The grease trap is much larger on the T-Fal. The controls on the T-Fal are fine I would had liked a bit more solid feel to them for the price but they are not bad at all. Just use with some degree of care and feel. Cooked a 1.5" thick NY Strip for my 1st cooking. Turned out FANTASTIC! Used Weber Chicago Steak seasoning and PAM high Temp Non stick spray. It cooked the steak to a perfect med rare and fork tender n juicy. I may or may not have made a better steak on my Weber charcoal grill but that takes about 30-45 mins of prep. This prep took 5 mins. Next I cooked a Frozen chicken breast. Using the same PAM high Temp spray again, set the grill to defrost, poutry and then OK. After a short preheat put the frozen chicken breast on and seasoned it with some Weber kick-n-chicken seasoning . Now doing it this way will take about 3x longer than cooking a chicken breast from thaw. Once it was done I immediately pulled it and cut and tasted it. It was pretty darn good from frozen I will say. Much better than when I use warm water or microwave(microwave thawing I think makes it a little tougher and slightly chewy). By far best same day frozen to done chicken I ever did. I also cooked a thawed chicken breast. This was a Cilantro Lime pre-marinated breast from Wal-Mart (about $5.98). I set the grill to just poultry - then it preheated a bit longer, sprayed on the PAM High Temp Grill spray and let it rip. It was done a good bit quicker than the frozen and was absolutely marvelous! Very very juicy and fork tender. While the results were "good enough" on the frozen chicken to eat and enjoy cooking from say an overnight thaw should produce excellent results. Anytime you quick thaw something you tend to lose a bit of tenderness in either beef or poultry. I have to say I dont think I have made a chicken breast this good over open flame. While I miss the charcoal twang in the taste just a little, the fork tender and evenly cooked state of the breast is simply fantastic. I did burgers from Frozen. I used SAMS Choice Jalapeno Black Angus frozen patties. They are 1/3rd pound thick. I used PAM High Temp Grill spray - Turned out perfectly! Now these were tender and juicy unlike poultry ground beef does pretty well from frozen. My sister came over and made her Salmon on it and LOVED IT! Now if your doing fish DONT use the Pam High Temp cooking spray, Use your normal olive oil or regular spray as I believe the grill presets begin at a lower temp. Use normal olive oil for grilled veggies,shrimp and other stuff. So what is the huge advantage vs the Foreman? Well in a busy schedule it removes a lot of the guesswork out of the time to grill and uses temp presets ,auto thawing, temp change programming and thickness of the selected item to predetermine time to done. And it really does work great! The only caveat to it and they mention it in the guide is if you want a medium rare steak, you cook it to Medium Rare but then let it sit say 5 minutes before eating it , most likely carryover cooking will take it to more Medium done. So stop your cooking about halfway between the Rare and Medium rare color change as I have started doing, let it sit 5 minutes and it will be perfect. This is a great grill for a college student, elderly or someone who needs a fast efficient cooking grill that takes a lot of uncertain guesswork out of cooking. Pros SUPER EASY! Takes a lot of guess work out of cooking meats to desired doneness Efficient - 1800 watts - about the same power as a hairdryer - lot less power than the oven Removable grates - Cleanup isnt bad at all about the same as the Foreman Fairly compact - fits easily and for me permanently on my counter Cons A little pricey - I paid $89 for my Foreman 4 or 5 years ago. This was about 2x that price Alert beeper - Could be a little louder if your in another room or have noisy kids around Soft Touch Controls - I prefer more solid feeling controls

I'm pretty lazy when it comes to cooking. I'd rather just grab fast food. This is probably because I'm a bad cook and usually undercook or overcook things. The OptiGrill really does solve my cooking problem. So far I have cooked a couple steaks, and almost a dozen chicken breasts. All cooked just right with grill marks! I've only used and plan to only use boneless and skinless meats. Usually I will grill two chicken breasts at a time, one for now and save one for later. Setting the OptiGrill is easy, you just press ON, choose the type of meat, and press OK. Grill preheats for 5 minutes, alerts you to put meat on, then you wait until it alerts you for how well you want your meat or if cooking is complete. You'll definitely want to take the meat off at the desired time or else the meat might overcook and dry out. I've noticed my chicken breasts get to about 165-180F with a meat thermometer when it gets towards the end of cooking. After eating my meal, the grill is relatively cooled down enough to clean. Cleanup is pretty easy. Just the two grill plates need to be cleaned and the oil drip pan. The rest of the unit doesn't really get dirty. I've been looking forward to using the OptiGrill, because I know I'll have a properly cooked meat at the end that will taste delicious. I am starting to do different marinades and times, and marinating for 24 hours does make it seem a lot more juicy. I am trying out a dry-rub for a ribeye steak for 48 hours, I can't wait to grill it tomorrow to see how it turns out! Tips: T-Fal recommends you lightly oil the grill on both sides, and this is a great tip to make grill clean up A LOT easier. Another tip would be right after cooking, use a wooden chopstick to clean off any burnt pieces on the grill grooves so there is less to scrub off. When I cook there isn't a lot of oil dripping so I line the oil drip pan with a towel. When preheating is almost done, the grill starts to smoke a little, most likely from the oil and the high temperature.. but just make sure the stove vent is on or a window is open.

I have a George Foreman grill, and I dread cleaning it because the removable plates have aluminum backs and they oxidize and leave gray stains on my hands and everywhere. So, I saw the optigrill on sale, and bought it. It also has removable plates, but they are clean coated metal on the underside, too, so when I wash it, I do not get all my kitchen dirty. I love the sensor cooking feature. It beeps when the food is ready, and it is just the right kind of doneness when the beep sounds. Make sure you close and preheat the grill again if you want to cook another batch, otherwise if you put the food in right away, it will not engage sensor cook program and you will have to use manual program. I only used it a few times so far, but it is so easy to clean and it gives me better results with less stress than my old grill. It is on the smaller size, but it can make four medium size sandwiches which works for us. I like little bumps on the bottom plate that prevent food from sliding down the slick angled surface.

Well this is a good table top grill. Most of what you cook comes out great. I particularly like the way the drip tray is set up as it is superior to the previous ones we have had. All of the automation seemed like a great idea...color coded lights to tell you when things are done perfectly, a sensor that measures the thickness of the food and automatically calculates the correct cooking time, etc. BUT all that stuff really does not work. If you follow the lights EVERYTHING will be seriously overcooked. I like my steaks very rare, and when Optigrill tells me it is done that way, the center is grey (that is NOT rare). What I have had to do is create my own cook times and just ignore the lights and automation. Once I began to use my own timings, the food cooks properly, and I am pleased. Manually it is great. Automatically it is useless.

For many years, I have been using a George Foreman indoor grill that is about this size and I've always been pleased with the way it cooks. The downside was it was a pain in the butt to clean and wash after using. That is what drew me to this T-fal OptiGrill. It has a few features my other didn't have which I must say I have been loving. I've had this now for several months and have used it many times now to cook burgers, sausage, steaks, chicken, chops, potatoes and more. This is super easy to use and your meats come out juicy still. I know some people think grills like this dry your meat out and remove the flavor but it doesn't at all. This has a different colored light for pre-heating, rare cook, medium and well done. The light illuminates and the grill beeps at each cooking interval to let you know your food is done for that setting. If you do well done, once it's cooked it will change to a warming setting. The drip tray slides easily under the grill to catch any dripping juices and fat cooking. You can cook fresh, thawed or frozen meat on this and no matter which you use, it comes out great every time. The cooking plates are removable which makes washing this super easy. I wash them by hand since I don't have a dishwasher. This comes with a small cookbook too which has some yummy recipes in it. The potatoes I made in my photo are from the recipe book. I have not had any issues with this not cooking my meat just the way we want it. It's nice because my daughter likes rare, my son medium and myself and husband like ours well-done so with this, we just pull it off as the system beeps and leave the rest on to continue cooking. Overall, a great indoor grill that I am glad I purchased. I may upgrade to the 8 serving size in the future as I only purchased the 4 serving size.

So I am updating my review for the T-FAL grills. To be fair, I thought maybe i had gotten a lemon unit and Amazon graciously accepted my return and re-purchase, but in the end I had to return both units. 2 malfunctioning units is NOT a lemon- that means something is going on. My original review for the original unit i bought- it was beautiful. Worked like a charm. LOVED IT SO MUCH. How I through it out or lost it I don't know but i'm kicking myself for doing that- my original purchase was exceptional. Forward to this week- I decided to re-buy given my original experience. Then I returned and bought the bigger one as the original new order did not work. Then the bigger replacement behaved the same. So something is going on with T-Fal these days. HOW THE GRILL BEHAVES NOW (the 2 i bought) 1. for whatever reason it is not cooking reliably anymore. Hamburger, fish patties- both were cooked to WELL DONE status and yet were cold and RARE inside. Huh? It was also VERY noticeable how QUICKLY it went through the stages to well done- seemingly within 2-3 quick minutes. 2. when I cooked small hot dogs however, for whatever reason it cooked them a REALLY LONG TIME to get through the stages and by the time i hit yellow (medium)- the dogs were charred through and breaking at the seams. huh? 3. I also noticed that in both cases- even if i picked a program setting, mid-way through the cooking the unit switched ITSELF to MANUAL mode! huh? 4. It used to be you could re-set thes units and turn them off, then turn them back on and re-program. NOT SO with either unit I bought this week. If you turn this thing on then turn it off. It will ONLY accept MANUAL mode for a long time. I basically have to wait for the next meal before i can power on and use a program mode again. All in all- i can NO LONGER recommend this product (small or big version). It doesn't cook it correctly or reliably (super charred hot dogs but rare and cold burger patties on "well done" indicator?), I can't even get the unit to accept my button input to setup the cooking if I've turned it on/off once. It's unfortunate- this was such a kick ass perfect unit you could ever ask for a few years back. T-FAL- check your manufacturing and QA and fix whatever is going wrong these days with your units.

Purchased this for my wife who had one of the small, cheaper versions of the George Foreman grill. The only thing she didn't like about that grill is that it was one that did not have removable plates, so it was terribly difficult to clean! After much research, I decided to get her this one instead of a GF grill. This item got great reviews and it had all the features that she was looking for. I am sure that the newer and larger GF grills perform very well, but I liked how this one 'tells you' how well done the meat is. She uses this at least once a week and so far it has been great! The controls are very easy to use. Pretty much just press the button with the picture of the food you want to cook, wait a short while for it to heat up, then place your food inside! You can watch the color of the 'doneness' meter and remove your food at the appropriate time. The wife really likes this feature as she used to have a hard time cooking pork on the GF because she would have to guess how long to leave it on for. It was usually overdone as she did not want to under cook the meat. With this, she takes it off when the temp meter is where she wants it and it comes out great! Clean up is a breeze as well. The drip tray is very well designed and does not just 'sit' in front of the cooker as with the GF, but part of it slides under it to secure it in place and catch all drippings. The plates are easily removed with just one button for the top and one for the bottom and thus far the non-stick coating has been awesome. Most grime comes off with just hot water, so washing them is a breeze. I usually hand wash these, but have thrown them in the dishwasher as well. Either way, they come out clean and ready for the next use! I hope that this lasts many years.

Funciona perfecto, despues de un casi un mes de estarla utilizando, no he tenido ningun problema, los cortes los deja muy bien dependiendo el termino que selecciones. Recomendable 100%

I purchased the T-fal OptiGrill about four months ago. I live in an apartment without a stove or oven, so cooking meat was pretty much off the table. I've been grilling up a storm since I bought it, using it maybe four or five times a week. Cleaning The non-stick trays are on a slant so the run-off grease is collected in a basket. Both the trays and the basket can be dismantled for easy cleaning. Since the lid closes, I haven't had to deal with any spattering on the nearby counters of the rest of the machine. Food Quality I have cooked sausages, pork, fish, steak, and chicken in various sizes and thicknesses. They've almost all been cooked to perfection, with the exception of the pork (which were small, thin medallions, and came out dry). I've even cooked chicken from frozen, and it turned out perfectly grilled and very juicy. Efficiency The timer beeps at each stage of cooking, so you know how far along it is. For what it's worth, the beeps are loud but not harsh-sounding. You can hear them from another room but they won't startle you if you're still in the kitchen. The grill itself has settings for different kinds of meat, and a manual setting in case you're grilling something a bit more unusual. It comes with both a manual and cookbook to help you further. However, if you want to grill vegetables, you'll have to turn to Google for the best settings since they aren't included in either book. I find the grill to be an ideal size: large enough to cook >8 sausages at once, small enough that it doesn't take up too much counter space.

Muy buen producto para comer rápido y sin preocupaciones calienta súper rápido y es muy fácil de usar altamente recomendable

My original optigrill died after 10 years. I purchased another one as I live in apartment with no balcony. A great grill. The plates are removable and easy to clean. I like the various settings. Also you receive a great cookbook with recipes and photos. For Canadians it’s perfect for grilling the President’s Choice frozen burgers. I’ve used it for grilled sandwiches, fish and bacon. Although a tad large, it’s on my kitchen counter for ease of access. There is a manual setting for grilling vegetables- tomatoes and potatoes. I recommend this grill.

Excelente producto! Una de las mejores compras que he hecho. Recomendado 100%.