8 Best Panini Presses 2023
8 Best Panini Presses 2023 | The Strategist
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By
Emma Wartzman,
a kitchen and dining writer at the Strategist.
Previously, she was an editor at Bon Appétit and has worked in food media for nine years.
Photo: Marcus McDonald
Photo: Marcus McDonald
- Best overall
- Best less expensive
- Best with floating hinge
- Best grill press
- Best less expensive grill press
- Best high-end
- Best professional-grade
- Best jaffle-maker
If that’s your thing, it’d be reason enough to keep one in your kitchen.
As is almost always the case, adding another appliance to your kitchen is a consideration of how much space you have. If you don’t plan to keep your press out on the counter at all times, you want to make sure it will fit in a drawer or cabinet. To that end, I’ve listed the dimensions of each model.
Some of the panini presses below open a full 180 degrees so that the top plate essentially becomes another bottom, creating a surface that is double the original size. Others only lift partway. One, the grill press, acts like a heavy block with a handle so you can weigh down on a sandwich inside any skillet you already own.
Here, I’ve detailed the opening mechanism of each press.
Like I stated before, you can find panini presses with grooved grates that will leave marks on your food like the ones you get from a grill, while others have a smooth surface. Some even have removable plates that let you swap. This is mostly an aesthetic choice.
Cuisinart Griddler Grill, Griddle & Panini Press
$91
$100 now 9% off
$91
Size: 13” x 11” x 6.5” | Opening mechanism: Opens fully | Grate style: Grooved and flat
The Cuisinart is a well-priced, reliable, do-it-all panini press.
It can, of course, act as a sandwich smasher, applying pressure from the top and emanating heat from both sides. Then, if you want to turn it into one big grill or flat top, you simply press a button on the side that fully releases the hinge. It has removable nonstick cooking plates, allowing you to choose from grooved or flat depending on what you’re cooking. Either way, this makes them easy to clean. “That, I think, is the big benefit of this press,” says Kathy Strahs, author of the blog Panini Happy. “It gives you more flexibility and options than just a press.” And, she says, it has many applications that can make your life easier, such as grilling meats and vegetables or crisping up quesadillas (that don’t require flipping because you get heat from the top and bottom). Writer and cookbook author Patricia Wells uses the Cuisinart for indoor grilling and making toast. “I have given away all my toasters,” she says. “I always felt that toasters just dried out the bread, but the panini press allows it to maintain its moisture.
I also love the grill marks.”
When I tested the machine myself, I appreciated the variation in heat levels. Cheaper models tend to simply turn on and off, but this one allows for low heat (helpful when grilling a thicker sandwich, when you want to make sure the inside becomes hot before the bread gets too dark) as well as medium and high, which both worked well for simple grilled cheeses. The bread got lighter golden brown and darker golden brown, respectively, by the time the cheese was done melting. It also has a warm setting I used when I left half a panini out for a while and wanted to remelt the cheese without retoasting the bread.
Max Blachman-Gentile, director of culinary operations at Tartine, used a slightly higher-end version to test a lot of the menu items they sell at the café and even put it to use in the shop for a while (it eventually wore down churning out 40-plus sandwiches a day, but that shouldn’t be a concern at home).
The major difference between this one and the cheaper model above is how exact the temperature gets. This one lets you select the specific degree you want each plate to reach, while the other has only low, medium, high, and warm settings for the panini function and comes with degrees in intervals of 50 for the open grill. “There are cheaper options, but this one will last a really long time,” Blachman-Gentile says. “Let’s say you want to make four grilled cheeses for your family. You’ll get a consistent result, instead of the first two looking good and the next two not. Some presses have hot spots, but the heat is generally very even over all the plates, as well.”
Hamilton Beach Panini Press Gourmet Sandwich Maker
$40
$45 now 11% off
$40
Size: 11.6” x 12.6” x 4.
5” | Opening mechanism: Opens partially | Grate style: Grooved
This Hamilton Beach model was a favorite among readers in a previous version of this story, with more than 14,000 reviews on Amazon and a 4.6-star rating. Many buyers point out its accessible price point and simplicity, the latter of which was immediately apparent when I tested it out myself. When you plug it in, it turns on automatically. There are no switches and no exact temperature control, but it heats up very quickly, so if you want to unplug between grill sessions (as I did when a group of friends and I spent an evening making and eating panini), there’s hardly any wait time between rounds. Every time I’ve used it to make a sandwich, the bread has turned out evenly toasted and golden brown. The cheese melts perfectly, too, regardless of how stuffed the sandwich was and what type I used.
The plates wipe down easily with a damp cloth or paper towel, even when bits of frico appear stuck onto the grill surface. And its relatively small size makes it less of an imposition to store than some other models on this list.
$40
at Amazon
Buy
$45
at Wayfair
Buy
Breville Panini Press & Grill
$140
Size: 12.25” x 15” x 5” | Opening mechanism: Opens partially | Grate style: Grooved
If you really only intend to press sandwiches, this Breville model is probably the best choice. You can, naturally, fit other things in it, too — say, meats and vegetables to put inside of your panini, as the company suggests — but the top won’t extend all the way around to create that bigger flat surface (so it’s probably not the best for burger night).
The surface area of a single plate, though, is a bit bigger than the Cuisinart’s. “It also, in comparison, gets really hot — and it gets hot fast,” Strahs says. She points out that it has a “floating hinge,” meaning it stays open at various heights if you want to check on whatever is inside. “I haven’t seen that on too many presses, and certainly not on the less expensive ones,” she says. “They just rely on the thickness of whatever you’re grilling. But there are times when you maybe don’t want a top on there at all, or don’t want as much pressure.” The plates aren’t removable, which can make cleaning a bit more cumbersome, as Strahs puts it — but like the Cuisinart, they’re nonstick, which means it shouldn’t be too much of a pain.
Lodge Pre-Seasoned Cast Iron Grill Press
$30 now 33% off
$20
Size: 4.
5” x 6.75” with handle | Opening mechanism: Stand-alone press | Grate style: Flat
For an even more compact nonelectric option, Paige Lipari, the owner of Archestratus Books + Foods in Brooklyn, recommends a grill press — that’s what she uses at her shop to turn out sandwiches day in and day out. She used to have a Waring, the professional-grade press below, but she switched over to an Avantco flattop and the Lodge presses when she redid the kitchen. “They’re extremely inexpensive and very high quality,” she says, echoing the sentiment many professionals feel about the company’s famous cast-iron skillet. To use the press, you can use any pan, lay down your sandwich, place the tool on top, then flip it and do the same thing on the other side. “They have a nice weight to them,” she says, “heavy enough to press down fully and evenly but still easy to wield.
” She also notes that this particular size is perfect for most sandwiches, fully covering the bread and ensuring a uniform color.
Victoria Cast-Iron Grill Press
$19
$20 now 5% off
$19
Size: 4.3” x 8.3” with handle | Opening mechanism: Stand-alone press | Grate style: Flat
For a slightly cheaper press, Spencer Rubin, the founder of Melt Shop, likes this one from Victoria. It works the same as the Lodge above but has a wooden handle that Rubin says doesn’t heat up like a fully cast-iron model and therefore allows for easy handling. It’s also a bit lighter, so “you don’t end up pushing the cheese or ingredients out of the bread,” he says.
$19
at Amazon
Buy
$15
at Food52
Buy
Breville — The Sear & Press Grill
$200
$200
Size: 14.75” x 13.75” x 8.5” | Opening mechanism: Opens fully | Grate style: Grooved and flat
This Breville, while providing functionality similar to the Cuisinart’s, is overall more powerful and exacting (and accordingly will cost you more). While the Cuisinart does have some temperature control, when in panini mode, it only lets you pick from low, medium, or high heat. This one, on the other hand, allows you to control the precise degrees of each plate at any given time and has slightly more wattage, which means it gets hotter faster.
It also has predetermined settings for panini, burger, and sear, convenient if you want to just click one button and let it go. And — unlike any of the others on the list — it has waffle inserts, too. “You have to buy those separately,” says food writer and editor Alyse Whitney. “But this does so much, it allowed me to get rid of a lot of bulk in my kitchen.” Whitney’s favorite way to employ it is all the way open. “I have used this for Korean barbecue at home,” she says (though usually outside, since the sugar in marinades tends to get smoky).
Waring Large Italian Style Panini Grill
$739
$739
Size: 21.7” x 23” x 20.7” | Opening mechanism: Opens partially | Grate style: Flat
If you want to go hard at home, this Waring is a professional-grade grill, quite similar to the one head chef Clare Malfitano uses at Murray’s Cheese Bar in New York.
There, the presses are even more intense and require special plugs, but Waring makes models for home use, too, including this one (and a nearly identical model with grooved plates). Like the press above, it’s made from cast iron. It’s not cheap by any means — but if for whatever reason you want to do most of your cooking on a panini press (say, if you’re remodeling, or living with particularly inefficient rental-kitchen appliances), it’d be the one to choose. “It’s so consistent in terms of heat,” Malfitano says. “It’s intuitive to use. Before we open for the day, we do prep work on it that isn’t making sandwiches — like charring meatballs or onions or carrots. Sometimes we use it to temper things we don’t need to fully melt, like cream cheese or butter. You can put it on a low setting and put those on there. We cook chicken on it. Occasionally, we cook eggs on it. It stays open if you need it to, so it can be hands free.” Before switching cooking methods at Archestratus, Lipari was also a fan of how “extremely versatile” it was (beyond the “really crispy panini sandwiches” it turned out).
“Vegetables on it got almost barbecue-like with a charred flavor,” she says. “We had people do pop-ups, and they would employ it in other ways too — like one time, someone used it to make a cheese crisp.” Steven Saddoff, owner of New York City’s Ground Support, praises Waring’s customer service. If you have any sort of issue, “you get to talk to real people,” he says. “That’s rare and important to me.” But he also notes that for a regular consumer, a problem would be a rarity. “If you’re not running a café with it, it’ll last forever,” he says.
Breville The Original 74’
$150
$150
Size: 4.8” x 12.6” x 11.3” | Opening mechanism: Opens partially | Grate style: Jaffle-shaped
A jaffle is sort of like an Australian version of a panini (in Australia, they often call them “toasties”).
As in, it’s a toasted sandwich that comes together in an electric press — only instead of the construction being two flat pieces of bread with fillings in between, a jaffle-maker secures those fillings inside of bread, pressing down so that they form into the concave shape of the plate and sealing the edges completely around. “They’re specifically made on soft, supermarket-style white bread,” Blachman-Gentile says. “A chef in Australia that I know uses one to cook eggs as well. It goes into the wells and kind of steams and makes perfectly cooked eggs in a minute-and-a-half.” Breville actually claims to have invented the first electric one (the original kinds worked on top of the stove, much like the Lagostina press). Theirs — the one that Blachman-Gentile has used — is on the pricier end, but there are cheaper options out there if you like the idea of playing around with this style of sandwich. “It’s not as versatile,” he says, “and basically only for one type of sandwich. But I just think it’s a cool machine.
”
$150
at Breville
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• Max Blachman-Gentile, the Director of Culinary Operations at Tartine
• Paige Lipari, owner of Archestratus Books + Foods
• Clare Malfitano, head chef at Murray’s Cheese Bar
• Spencer Rubin, founder of Melt Shop
• Steven Saddoff, owner of NYC’s Ground Support
• Kathy Strahs, author of Panini Happy
• Patricia Wells, writer and cookbook author
• Alyse Whitney, food writer and editor
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The 8 Very Best Panini Presses
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7 Best Panini Makers of 2023
Every item on this page was chosen by a The Pioneer Woman editor.
We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy.
1
Best Budget
Electric Panini Press Grill and Gourmet Sandwich Maker
1
Best Budget
Electric Panini Press Grill and Gourmet Sandwich Maker
Now 18% Off
$29 at Amazon
Credit: Amazon
If you’re still on the fence about whether you need a panini maker, this budget-friendly press might be perfect for you. In addition to making delicious sandwiches, it can also be used for grilling burgers, steaks, and veggies. It features a floating hinge that adjusts to accommodate any size sandwich, too.
2
Best for Families
Breville Grill & Panini Press
2
Best for Families
Breville Grill & Panini Press
$130 at Williams Sonoma
Credit: Williams Sonoma
Looking to make sandwiches for the whole family in one shot? Try this top-of-the-line panini maker and grill that accommodates up to four sandwiches at once.
3
Best Single-Serve
Dash Mini Maker Portable Grill Machine + Panini Press
3
Best Single-Serve
Dash Mini Maker Portable Grill Machine + Panini Press
$17 at Amazon
Credit: Amazon
On the other hand, if you want sandwiches for one, this single-serve panini maker is all you need! It won’t take up too much counter space, plus it’s adorable and comes in six fun colors.
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4
Best Grill Press
Cast Iron Square Ribbed Panini Press
4
Best Grill Press
Cast Iron Square Ribbed Panini Press
Now 25% Off
$24 at Amazon
Credit: Amazon
This Lodge panini handle and press set is a great alternative to a traditional panini maker. It’s easy to store and can also be paired with a coordinating skillet or grill pan by the brand.
5
Removable Grill and Griddler Plates
Panini Press Sandwich Maker & More
5
Removable Grill and Griddler Plates
Panini Press Sandwich Maker & More
$100 at Amazon
Credit: Amazon
This versatile panini maker gives you the option of using grill plates or griddler plates, both of which are removable, reversible, and dishwasher safe. You can even open the cover and lay the press flat for a double cooking surface.
6
26,000+ Reviews
George Foreman Grill and Panini Press
6
26,000+ Reviews
George Foreman Grill and Panini Press
$35 at Amazon
Credit: Amazon
The George Foreman Grill made its debut in 1994 and is still beloved in many households to this day.
This new model features 35% faster heat-up times than previous models so you’ll be doing some lean, mean, fat-reducing grilling in mere moments!
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7
Locking Lid
Hamilton Beach Electric Panini Press Grill with Locking Lid
7
Locking Lid
Hamilton Beach Electric Panini Press Grill with Locking Lid
Now 11% Off
$40 at Amazon
Credit: Amazon
Another affordable option, this top-rated panini press features a locking lid that allows you to use the bottom grill by itself to make flatbreads or open-face sandwiches.
Tierney McAfee
Tierney McAfee is a freelance writer and Country Living and The Pioneer Woman contributor who covers entertainment, holiday & entertaining, food & drinks, design ideas, DIY, and more.
Bartscher | Contact grill “Panini-MDI” 1R
| Grill top plate width |
340 mm |
| Grill top plate depth |
220 mm |
| Grill bottom plate width |
360 mm |
| Bottom grill plate depth |
285 mm |
| Connection value |
2. 2kW |
| Voltage | 230 V |
| Frequency | 50/60 Hz |
| Grease container | Yes |
| Temperature range from |
50 °C |
| Temperature range up to |
300 °C |
| Control | MDI handle |
| Pilot lamp |
warm up On/Off |
| Temperature control |
Electronic In increments of 0.1 °C |
| Grill surface model | Fluted |
| Complete | 1 cleaning brush |
| Grill plate material |
Cast iron Enamelled |
| Top plate stop adjustable | No |
| Number of grill units | 1 |
| Digital display | Yes |
| Timer | Yes |
| Type of protection | IPX3 |
| Programming | – |
| Switch | Yes |
| Features |
Handle with digital indication of temperature and time Memory function Beep at the end of the time (0:10 – 9:30 minutes) |
| Material | Stainless steel |
| Important information | – |
| Width | 410 mm |
| Depth | 400 mm |
| Height | 200 mm |
| Weight | 18. 3 kg |
Panini grill in Saransk: 308 products: free shipping, 55% discount [link]
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