Finally, an indoor grill that makes healthy eating easy!

My family loves to grill. Originally it was a good excuse to have friends over. Now, we all love the taste and the health benefits of grilled food. We must own at least 5 grilling cookbooks. So when we moved from Texas to Virginia - where the weather keeps us from grilling as often as we like - we found the need for an indoor grill.

We had purchased a grill similar to the Hamilton Beach 31560 Indoor Grill for a wedding gift in the past. I had never heard of it, but was impressed with the dishwasher safe aspect. So I tried it first. It worked well enough, but was awfully heavy. I had no where to store it on the counter, only in the pantry. Plus I found I had to do a lot of prep cleaning before I placed it in the dishwasher.

When the George Foreman Grill craze began, my mom convinced me to try one of those. I liked that this one was more compact and could sit on my countertop. I also liked that it cut the cooking time in half. Call me picky though, within 2 years (if not sooner) I wanted to replace this grill. I had problems with the drip tray moving, so I always grilled right next to the sink. Thus I was moving the grill again - something I wasn't supposed to have to do. I also felt it cooked the meat too much. I like my meat moist, not dry. (But I have actually recommended this grill to a friend of mine who likes her meat dry.) Another problem I had with the George Foreman Grill was that it didn't clean as well as everyone else raved it did. However, I use a marinade or rub every time I grill. The marinades especially would get "caked" onto the grill plates. I think that was a big factor.

Next a friend of mine suggested a reversible grill to use on top of the stove (since I was complaining about moving indoor grills around). It was a cast iron grill on one side, a griddle on the other and was placed over two burners. It worked well, but I hate to clean cast iron, so I was resistant to pull it out. Plus about 6 months later, we moved to a new house that had a stove with a griddle in the middle. A dishwasher safe one, so the reversible one spent more time collecting dust. Soon I wanted to replace it as well.

By now, I was tired of spending the money on indoor grills and not liking them for one reason or another. I noticed that George Foreman had come out with a grill with removable plates so you could place them in the dishwasher. Now this was the answer I thought! Until I saw the price. There was no way I was spending $100 on another grill when I'd really rather be doing the grilling outside. Then someone pointed me to the Hamilton Beach 25325 Indoor Grill.

I researched it - it seemed like a great idea, but I was hung up on the price and the fact that I was replacing yet another perfectly good grill just because I didn't like it. So I waited for it to go on sale. I finally bought the grill at Christmas time (and found a respectable home for my George Foreman Grill).

The Hamilton Beach 25325 Indoor Grill is much more compact and lighter than the other two indoor grills I've used. So I don't mind moving it around. I feel it has the same grilling space than the other two - but I haven't looked at exact figures available. I am able to easily grill 3 pieces of meat on the grill (there's only four of us, and two are small). A fourth piece could be added. In fact, more than that. The Hamilton Beach 25325 Indoor Grill offers the feature of propping up the top grill so you can use it flat (only one surface on the meat at a time), thus doubling your grilling space. I generally use it the conventional way - a grill surface on each side of the meat so cooking time is lower.

The grill plates on the Hamilton Beach 25325 Indoor Grill are removable so that they can be cleaned in the dishwasher - solving the stuck on marinade problem I have. I don't find I have to do a lot of prep cleaning with this one. In fact, all my husband ever does is let the plates soak in some hot water until we go to bed and then puts them in the dishwasher. So I have had no problems cleaning this.

The drip tray slides into the Hamilton Beach 25325 Indoor Grill. I love this feature because it doesn't move like the George Foreman Grill, thus eliminating the mess on the countertop I was having.

The Hamilton Beach 25325 Indoor Grill cooks meat evenly, quickly and lets it remain moist (tada!). The top grill does create deeper, darker grill marks. I'm not sure how much that has to do with the weight of the lid on the meat though. I personally flip the meat sometime during the grilling time to keep things even. This does also cause some of my marinades to stick a little more to the top - but I still haven't had any major problems getting it clean.

The Hamilton Beach 25325 Indoor Grill does need to be preheated for 5 minutes. I find this annoying, but I had to do it with the other two indoor grills, so an annoyance I've chosen to accept. However, I feel the George Foreman Grill did have the upper hand on this aspect. As soon as you plugged it in, it would start a 5 minute countdown and then beep when the grill was preheated. The Hamilton Beach 25325 Indoor Grill has only a standard timer (non-digital) that I have to set for 5 minutes and then reset for the length of time required for cooking the meat. This brings up one of my only complaints about this grill. The heating element turns off when the timer goes to zero. Too often I've set it to preheat, been distracted by my kids during the 5 minute preheat and come back to a grill I have to preheat again because it sat off too long. But I suppose this is safer than having the grill turn on when plugged in and turned off when the plug is removed.

The best part of this grill? The price. I know I complained about the price before, but that was mainly because I'd already spent so much on indoor grills. For around $50, the Hamilton Beach 25325 Indoor Grill is definitely worth it. If this was the first indoor grill I'd ever spent money on, I'd be thrilled with the value!

I would definitely recommend this for an indoor grill. The size may be an issue for bigger families or for those who want to do items in addition to their meat. When cooking inside, I only grill the meat, I steam the vegetables while outside I grill both. So I can't really comment on how it cooks vegetables. But this is still definitely a grill worth trying!