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Flat Top Gas Griddles & Flat Top Grills for Every Outdoor Kitchen
A flat top gas griddle is a flat cooking surface, usually stainless steel or steel with a protective coating, heated from below by one or more gas burners. Unlike a traditional grill, there are no grates and no open flame touching your food, just a hot, even surface that sears, scrambles, and stir-fries with equal ease. You can cook nearly anything on a flat top grill: smash burgers, pancakes, eggs, stir-fry, seafood, vegetables, and fajitas all work well, and a griddle also handles pots and pans for soups and sides. Popular brands include Traeger's Flatrock, Evo, Lynx Asado gas griddles, and Blackstone.
Flat Top Griddle Configurations
Outdoor flat top griddles are available in 3 configurations, and choosing the right one comes down to how and where you plan to cook. Freestanding gas griddles mount on a wheeled cart, giving you portability along with extra features like side burners, accessory rails, and storage shelves. Built-in gas griddles insert directly into an outdoor kitchen island and make an excellent companion appliance next to a built-in grill, especially at an outdoor bar where guests can watch you cook. Portable gas griddles are light enough to carry anywhere, making them a natural fit for tailgating, camping, or a small patio that can't accommodate a full-size unit.
Flat Top Grill Benefits
- Even, High Heat: The flat cooking surface distributes heat evenly across multiple burners, and some models use U-shaped burners to create larger, more consistent heating zones.
- Low Smoke: Without grease dripping onto an open flame, a flat top barbecue grill produces very little smoke. Grease drains into a removable pan underneath instead, which also makes cleanup easier.
- Multiple Cooking Zones: A large cooking surface lets you prepare more than one dish at a time, like scrambling eggs on one side while searing steak or bacon on the other.
- Lighter on Oil: Most foods cook in their own juices with minimal added oil, which means less fat than traditional grilling methods.
- Built for Entertaining: An open, wide-format cooking surface invites everyone to gather around, making a flat top grill a natural centerpiece for teppanyaki-style cooking with friends and family.
Choosing the Right Size, Class, and Material
Finding the best outdoor griddles for your space starts with matching size, class, and material to how you actually cook. Flat top griddles are sized by the width of their cooking surface, ranging from small units under 26 inches to XL models 43 inches and up, with a small griddle handling roughly 9 to 16 burgers at a time. Beyond size, BBQGuys organizes flat top gas grills into 4 classes. Luxury models use the highest quality parts and materials available, typically backed by a lifetime warranty and the widest temperature range in the lineup. Premium models are usually built with 304 commercial-grade stainless steel, long-lasting and sometimes backed by a lifetime warranty as well, with a wide range of compatible accessories. Practical models mix stainless and painted steel, carry warranties up to 10 years, and may have somewhat limited cooking versatility or difficulty reaching very high temperatures. Entry-Level models are the most affordable and accessible, with quality that varies more from product to product, and this tier is mostly made up of portable griddles suited to camping or tailgating. Whatever class you choose, keeping the cooking surface seasoned with a high smoke point oil every so often prevents rust and sticking. Cast iron cookware will eventually scratch a steel cooktop and can leave rust-causing iron flecks behind, so stick to other cookware materials when adding pots or pans to your cook.
Griddles vs. Grills, Teppanyaki, and Hibachi
Gas griddles go by a lot of names, including teppanyaki grills, planchas, and hibachis, though they all share the same basic flat cooking surface. If you already own a gas grill, an accessory griddle that sits on top of your existing grates is an easy way to add griddle cooking to your setup without buying a second appliance. For a closer look at what separates a griddle from a teppanyaki, hibachi, or plancha, read our What Is a Hibachi Grill article.
Talk to a BBQGuys Expert About Flat Top Gas Griddles
Finding the best outdoor griddles for your space means balancing configuration, fuel type, size, and budget. Read our flat top griddle buying guide for a deeper dive into what to look for, compare models side by side in our flat top griddle comparison chart, or browse our Flat Top Grills FAQ for answers to more specific questions about seasoning, cleaning, and everyday use. You can also check out our gas griddle expert reviews to see how specific models perform in real testing, or call one of our experts at 1-877-743-2269, available daily to help you find the right flat top outdoor gas grill for your backyard.
