Tefal OptiGrill Review

Sometimes a kitchen gadget comes along which you never knew you needed it until you start using it! Well one such gadget, which I have been aware of (but never took much notice of) is the Tefal OptiGrill. To my mind it was just a gadget that would take up space on my counter and be used for the odd steak or burger – how wrong was I. I’m afraid if Tefal wanted their OptiGrill back they’d have a fight on their hands as like the Tefal ActiFry, the family and I have taken to using it like ducks to water.

All the fat melts out of the meat and collects drip tray!

The first thing I loved about the OptiGrill was the short and simple instructions it came with. Basically there are pre-set buttons to cook burgers, poultry, bacon, sausages, steaks/boneless chops and fish plus a manual button for cooking anything else like toasted sandwiches. You start by choosing a setting and preheating the OptiGrill and when it’s ready you hear an audible beeping. Then you place you food onto the tilted grill pan and again an audible beeping can be heard and a light changes colour according to each stage of cooking. So for a steak you can choose from rare to well done and the beeping occurs at the end of each stage so that you can remove your food at the stage you wish. For things like sausages, you cook until well done but the beeps are a useful reminder to turn them for an even all round colour. As the grill pan is tilted sausages were the only food that I found a bit slippery when raw and some wanted to go for a slide but it wasn’t a big issue as the results were well worth it.

Look how crispy the OptiGrill makes these sausages! I sometimes burn mine in the oven but no chance of that with the OptiGrill!

So far we have had sausages, burgers, bacon (daughter fancied a bacon roll for her packed lunch the other night so cooked herself up a thick rasher) and finally toasted sandwiches. Oh my the toasted sandwiches are to die for and like something you’d pay good money for eating out! You get a deeply toasted crispy ridge alongside a doughy strip of bread and when using cheese it melts so well that it just comes oozing out in a river of deliciousness (which I think you can see in the picture at the top of this post, that’s red onion in there too). We just butter the outside of the bread to get this delicious fried sandwich effect! As the OptiGrill sits on our dresser now my son will come home from college and just make himself a quick toasted sandwich and is extremely pleased with this new gadget. My hubby on trying the above toastie asked what we were going to do with our large cafe style sandwich press as the OptiGrill makes far better toasties!

My Scrumptious Chipolata Tagliatelle recipe which I adapted was even simpler to make using the OptiGrill to cook the sausages!

The other thing I like about the OptiGrill is that you can see exactly how much fat is coming out of your food and it all just drains away. I was very impressed with some Supreme sausages (pictured) that I got from the Elmbridge Food Fair last month, not only were they delicious but not so much as a drop of fat made it into the drip tray unlike most sausages I’ve tried. In fact I used the OptiGrill to help me make one of our regular favourites, Scrumptious Chipolata Tagliatelle, which I tweaked by using sausage, spaghetti and added some petite pois towards the end.

Inspired by Kevin at The Crafty Larder I made a toasted cheese & onion bagel too!

So between the Tefal OptiGrill and the Tefal ActiFry I can virtually cook an entire meal hands free which when you’re a busy person and often pushed for time is an absolute godsend. I’m off to experiment with bananas and halved peaches as I reckon a simple dessert is only round he corner!

I’ll leave you with a little video I made on Instagram!

Getting to know the @TefalUK Optigrill tonight with some burgers! Chips are in the ActiFry! #Review #foodbloguk #foodie #optigrill #cooking #dinnertime

A video posted by Camilla (@fabfood4all) on Sep 22, 2015 at 10:19am PDT

If you’d like to read how other bloggers got on with the Tefal Optigrill then check out these posts:

Super Simple DIY Churros with Tefal OptiGrill – Sophie Loves Food

Testing Out the Tefal OptiGrill – Feeding Boys & a Firefighter

Foodie Parcels in the Post – Foodie Quine

How to get the most out of your Tefal OptiGrill – Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary

I’m entering this post into a new challenge “Club Sandwich” from Cakeyboi and The Crafty Larder.

NB: Thank you to Tefal who sent me an OptiGrill to review, all opinions are my own and I was not paid.