The fine art of cooking meat has never stopped evolving. From the earliest campfire cooking circles to the high tech kitchen appliances and WiFi pellet grills of today, found at Manly Bands, it’s clear that humans love coming up with new and interesting ways to get that mouth-watering taste of meat. Amazingly, as far as we’ve come already, there are still new ways to cook that pile of wings, rack of ribs, ribeye steak or whatever is for dinner. For example check www.grillagrills.com. Here, we’ll talk about five of the top ways to cook meat for the modern chef.
1. Sous Vide
Wes Madison mentions that when it comes to achieving culinary excellence, few techniques can match the advantages of sous vide cooking. Sous vide (French for “under vacuum”) is a cooking technique that’s been used in fine dining restaurants for several decades, but has recently made its way to home chefs via a new wave of sous vide cookers. The basic technique is to seal meat inside an airtight plastic bag, and then cook it for hours in a water bath kept at a low, consistent temperature. Your result will be an incredibly juicy and tender piece of meat, done exactly how you like it.
For a technique with its origins in the white tablecloth world, it’s surprisingly easy to get started with sous vide. The only must-have is a device called an immersion circulator, which keeps the whole water bath at a consistent temperature without hot or cold spots. Several circulators are available in the $100 to $300 range, so the investment required is relatively reasonable. Once you’ve got your circulator, all you need is a large, deep cooking pot. Although using a vacuum sealer will give you the best results, a simple zip bag is perfectly OK as long as you’ve gotten the air out of it!
Thus, despite its fancy name and origins, sous vide is surprisingly accessible for home cooking.
2. Kamado Grill
These ceramic-lined charcoal grills are perhaps the oldest tech on our list; some historians say they’ve been used in East Asian countries for literally thousands of years. Now kamado grills have started popping up all over the place in North American backyards, thanks to their incredible versatility and ability to keep a consistent temperature.
A kamado grill has the same basic concept as a standard charcoal grill: You build a fire in the grill’s firebox using charcoal and firestarters, and then control its temperature by opening and closing the dampers. The ceramic lining of a kamado grill, however, is what sets it apart. Its inner ceramic lining can maintain a consistent heat for hours on end, which allows it to function both as a traditional charcoal grill and as a low-and-slow charcoal smoker.
That means a kamado grill is a wildly versatile tool for anybody who loves cooking meat, whether you’re grilling up a batch of burgers for a cookout or smoking a succulent rack of ribs. Just remember to only use lump charcoal and natural firestarters — lighter fluid and briquettes can contaminate the ceramic lining.
3. Air Fryer
Air fryers have become one of the most popular new ways to cook lighter meats like chicken and fish. (If you’ve ever let the TikTok algorithm notice you’re interested in cooking, you’ve undoubtedly seen one before.) They cook food by rapidly circulating superheated air through a cooking chamber, creating crisply fried food without the use of oil and grease as a cooking medium.
Lots of home chefs love air fryers because they’re versatile and easy to operate, but one of their most unique features is how they can significantly reduce the calories in fried food. That’s right — because air fryers cook with extremely hot air rather than the usual saturated fats, they can reduce calories by a whopping 70 to 80 percent. If smashing a whole basket of chicken tenders guilt-free sounds good to you, an air fryer could make your dreams come true.
4. Pellet Grill
There’s just no substitute for a genuine wood fire when you’re grilling or smoking and, thanks to pellet grills, there’s now an easy and convenient way to get that wood flavor you crave. These combination smoker-grills use compressed pellets of natural hardwood as fuel and come equipped with automated fuel-feeding systems that make it easy to set a consistent temperature.
Pellet grills do a great job with standard grill food like burgers and hot dogs, but they can be much, much more. To start, the huge variety of pellet grill recipes out there includes everything from steak to lamb to veggies and desserts. Because a pellet grill uses convection cooking to circulate hot air evenly, it can fulfill many of the same cooking functions as a convection oven.
Smoking meats, however, is where many backyard chefs find that pellet grills shine most brightly. Their wood fired flavor and consistent heat are perfectly suited to making BBQ classics like baby back ribs, pulled pork, smoked chicken and so much more. If you’ve been looking to get into smoking, a pellet grill is among the easiest and most versatile ways to do it. (Plus, if you’re setting up a patio kitchen, many pellet grills are easy to integrate into an outdoor kitchen kit.)
5. Slow Cooker
Although they’re hardly new, slow cookers are having a moment as people rediscover how great they are for set-and-forget-style cooking. Once you’ve prepared your ingredients and placed them in the pot, just turn the heat to the appropriate setting and go on with your day. Several hours later, come back to enjoy the delicious results!
Slow cookers are traditionally associated with foods like chili and stew, and for good reason — they do an amazing job! However, there are tons of ways to do your favorite meats in a slow cooker, from scrumptious Sunday roast to mouth-watering short ribs.
Chefs who love the slow cooker but want faster results have embraced the multi-cooker design popularized by the Instant Pot, which combines a slow cooker and pressure cooker into a supremely flexible cooking device. However, for those just getting started, basic slow cookers are incredibly affordable and generally provide excellent results.