Yakitori is a mouthwatering dish from Japan whose popularity has now spread to every nook and corner of the world.
You can find Yakatori in different types of restaurants though it is especially served in a restaurant commonly known as Yakatori-ya. Traditional Yakatori is made from pieces of chicken meat taken from different parts of the chicken and usually grilled over charcoal.
Enjoying Yakitori is such an enchanting experience that Yakitori lovers across the USA are trying to enjoy the experience in the comfort of their homes. However, the art of recreating Yakitori at home environment warrants some skills and equipment.
To let you enjoy the delicious Yakitori at home, we have 7 best yakitori grills for you. They will serve your purpose best in different situations.
So, let’s walk through all of them one by one to know about their specific features and service qualities. You will also come across a deep review of each of the grill below that are extremely insightful and would provide essential information to help you in your decision to choose the right grill for you.
What is Yakitori Grill?
It is actually a type of grill which you can use to cook your Yakatori which refers to grilled chicken. However, most of the world understands Yakatori as any type of Japanese barbecue. The meat on such a case is skewered and heated over low temperatures.
Yakatori grill is normally rectangular-shaped and 2-feet long and few inches wide. The wire mesh or the grill is on the top. The food is put on the open area over the mesh. Be careful to put the food over the mesh to prevent burning the skewers.
Grillers normally use white charcoal during grilling nowadays. However, you can use regular charcoal also if white charcoal is unavailable.
So, the yakitori grill is different from other grills as it uses a different kind of charcoal and also regarding the amount of heat needed to cook (200-250 F).
Why Yakatori is So Popular?
Yakitori grills have totally different features from those of other grills.
Firstly, its shape is rectangular and it’s compact. This shape provides a big surface area for the skewers to keep. This compact size serves the purpose best since the Yakatori is prepared and served on the tabletop.
Most of the modern Yakitori uses ceramic coating inside and outside. But, the traditional Yakatori uses clay coating. This makes the grill to retain heat within for perfect cooking.
This, if you get the option to buy the clay mold you better buy that instead of ceramic coating.
Best Yakitori Grills: Reviews and Buyer Guide
Now, this buyer guide will help you walk through the three different segments of the great open fire grill grate and enrich you with valuable insight.
1. Fire sense large Yakitori Charcoal Grill
You will find the grill do easy to use. No assembly is required and also easy to dump the ashes out. The fact that you don’t have to worry about the grill falling off the slots like on others makes a world of difference. You can add soaked wood chips for extra flavor. You can make hamburgers, chicken kebobs and everything will come out fantastic!!!
This is a great little grill. And efficient too. You can put 5 briquettes in each compartment and cooked 12 beef patties and will find the charcoal still burning after half an hour. It uses very little charcoal to generate enormous heat.
This grill works great with smokeless charcoal and the product makes great BBQ. Its packaging is also great.
However, do not leave this grill outside after use. If it gets wet then it will fall apart like wet clay. This grill is small but is perfect for a small family. If you know how to grill well then this grill will be easy for you to use.
It uses a very small amount of charcoal to try to produce very high heat and cooks quickly as well as seals in all the juices. So be prepared for very high heat output. It is a perfect grill for apartments and small gatherings. You can use it in the fireplace also.
It is also easy to clean. Wait after cooking and let it cool to room temperature. Then clean it with soap and water as you see fit.
The actual body, the steel holder, and the chrome cooking grates are of high quality that will last a long time. It is decided into 2 sections that will each fit 9 briquettes in a 3 x 3 layout. As the coals are close to the 17 x 20 inches cooking surface area, it is great for searing steaks and burgers.
It is also a large size grill with a 7 x 20 x 28 inches dimension that will fit easily in your outdoor table. It is also a reasonably priced tabletop grill compared to its peers. And, yes, you can also use this light/ medium weight grill weighing 18 lbs in your small family backyard too!!
When you try to dump the ashes out be extra careful. Don’t slam it on the edge to dump the ashes out. Or else it may become a nice memory. It is also a lovely little hibachi that can cook for you a couple of quick and smokey-perfect vow steaks.
This is a small insulated hibachi that is suitable for use in the tabletop surface. It will d great for grilling small things that you enjoy in the manner of Korean BBQ. It is also fairly lightweight use.
Pros:
- Heat up to 500 F.
- Easy to clean
- Strong build
- Quick heat
- Fast cooking time
- Portable, Easy to use
- Makes excellent hibachi-style food.
Cons:
- Some issues about cleaning were reported.
- Get damaged if gets
- Not so durable
2. Iwatani CB-SLG1 – Best Tabletop Yakitori Grill
Iwatani is a top-quality product! It is great for Yakitori or small grilling on the beaches while fishing! Besides, it is the best tabletop grill you can ever buy.
To simply call this grill awesome is like saying Bill Gates has a bit of money. You can taste the best piece of chicken you have ever cooked thanks to this little grill.
This grill does come all apart making it so easy to clean. It takes less than 10 minutes to clean and put away. There will be no grease smell. Keep it indoors. Also, make sure to put water in the slide-out drawer. Just make sure you wipe a light coat of oil everywhere after cleaning if used near saltwater before storing it.
All instructions are in Japanese but easy to figure out. You can also use Google Translate to translate the Japanese instructions.
This is a perfect Yakitori grill and you can pretty much grill anywhere with this product. This little grill is so fast and fun y use that you will rarely use your stove.
This made-in-Japan grill is simple and easy to use. Fill water on the bottom tray up to the line. Set cassettes (magnetically holds), slow turn the knobs, and ignite. Make sure both sides are burning.
This tiny but mighty portable grill runs on butane cans. You can cook six meals in one can. You can broil shrimps, scally, mushrooms, steaks on this little jewel. Having a dimension of 12.52 x 11.34 x 6.38 inches, you can use it for RVs as well as the inside house.
The burner is U-shaped and so it cooks on the full width of the surface. You can eliminate flare-up by putting water on the bottom tray. It has also a built-in ignitor to light up the fire. Brackets also fold down during. transport to hold the grate in place.
This grill is durable and long-lasting. Its body and parts are made of steel, stainless steel with enameled processing and plating processing. Furthermore, you can use it to slow cook veggies and meat on the sides whenever you need it.
This is an outstanding product and a must-have item in your kitchen provided you have an exhaust fan there. The water pan makes it easy to clean and do also provides humidity to food in cooking. A stainless steel cooking some is useful in cooking thicker items like sausages quicker.
You can use it as tabletop yakitori as well as on the balcony. It will certainly be an awesome buy. If you want to use it indoors then please know your vent. Put it under a vent or window with nothing flammable nearby.
It is a lightweight item of 4.64 pounds that is also foldable and thus super portable and requires very small storage space. You can use cassettes gas as quick fuel. It has a pressure-sensitive safety device and a magnetic-type container detachment system.
Can continue to heat/operate up to 90 minutes.
Pros:
- Easy to clean
- Easy to use
- Great value for money
- Lightweight, Portable
- Versatile use
- Small size
- Quick Heat up
Cons:
- The Center heats higher than the sides
3. Party Griller Yakitori Grill Double Mesh Grill Grate – Commercial Yakitori Grill
The Party Fair Box is excellent for Chinese-style BBQ, sassy, yakitori, and kebabs.
This is grill is made up of 430 stainless steel all across including a mesh grill grate and seasoning shakers. So, it can withstand rain and do not rust, unlike many other products that claim stainless steel.
This grill performance is always better than expected. The steel would hold up the heat for grilling skewers. However, the heat should be lower than the heat of traditional American grilling. That is because the distance between charcoal to skewer is far shorter. It is more like traditional Chinese street BBQ using a thinner skewer with smaller cuts.
This heavy-duty grill is perfect for grilling skewers of meat, vegetables, and seafood. It is also easy to clean and store as it collapses easily. It is easy to assemble too as it takes just a few seconds to do so.
This is a well-made grill. The top is made of 22 gauge 1/32 inches of commercial-grade stainless steel inside and out. The bottom stand has coated regular steel. You can use a combination of Binchotan sawdust charcoal switch royal oak hardwood lump charcoal, and the food will turn out pretty yummy.
It is a really nice grill that will exceed your expectations in quality of service. One important fact is not to wash it after use. Just wipe it by a dry towel.
Basically, the grill is built for Japanese Yakitori. Yet you could use it for anything that fits. You could also use any type of charcoal though the right type is Binchotan
You could use the grill for very many ways such as backyard grilling, poolside parties, park picnic, beach parties, tailgating, campings, and many more.
Only a small part of the wood skewer will get the heat because of only the 8-inch width of the skewer and the meat is kept away from the heat source. This kind of contact-free will not let the meat get attached with grates that normally happen in other grills which year the meat.
This will result in moist and juicy bbq every time you grill them properly. The dept of the cooking area is 7 inches. Furthermore, proper ventilation in two sides of the grill allows proper air circulation leading to even heat distribution essential for ideal cooking.
It also provides an extra tong which comes very handy. Having a dimension of 31.5 x 7.87 x 34.25 inches, it can hold many yakitori, sassy, and kebab skewers that will enable you to feed an army of guests at any party.
So, it is an ideal party grill. Besides, it is a lightweight grill weighing only 16.8 lb. you can easily pick it up empty. It is not a drawer, it’s a box.
Pros:
- Easy to assemble
- Portable
- Easy to clean
- Lightweight
- Even hLsrge cooking surface.
Cons:
- Gets very hot
- A bit of rust can happen if left outside.
4. Uten Charcoal – Best Portable Yakitori Grill For Camping
This is a small size grill with a dimension of 24.7 x 12.8 x 3.1 inches that can easily accompany you to any road trip or beach party to enchant a group of 3-5 persons with a mouthwatering grill and many other delicious items in any family party such as beach, camping, trailer, picnics and a lot more.
It is manufactured cold tooled iron and premium chrome wire mesh. Therefore, it is a very strong and high heat resistant, and also a very compact item. Besides, it’s easily foldable after use that allows easy storage in a small space, and is also easy to carry. Its baking net can be separated and so it is easy to clean too.
Its stylish look can also make it a perfect gift item. Just make sure that you use it on a flat surface or on a table. Just simply unfold, put charcoal, and then enjoy vs real yummy grill.
It will do slow cooking and make the meat soft and add moisture to the grill and thus making it extra yummy. It will keep all the good nutrients like vitamins, protein, and minerals but at the same time drive away fats and thus extra calories. This is ultra-lightweight vitamin weighing only 4 lbs making it easy to carry and transport.
If you use ready-to-light charcoal, then it takes no more than 5 to 10 minutes to be ready to cook. It is also deep enough to hold charcoal and will not overflow. One good point of this grill is that you need to use less charcoal and it will heat up fast and cook fast.
You can use it a lot. Just clean it after every use. The thin metal sheet is thin enough to handle the heat and will not warp from heat. Pouring water or ice to extinguish coal is not a good idea.
It will highly impress you when you see how little space it takes when it folds as its folding dimension is 13.8 x 9.4 x 2.4 inches. So, it takes very little space for storage. So, it will be a great grill if your RV storage area is limited.
The charcoal grate is raised having lots of ventilation on the sides that ensure that the charcoal will burn very well which is always great to cook meat. It has a fixed structure that ensures stability.
The product comes with a guarantee of repairs and technical service in case of any problem for 12 months.
Pros:
- Compact
- Well designed
- Foldable, Portable
- Easy to clean
- Easy to use
- Adaptable
Cons:
- Bottom tray doesn’t sit properly in the space.
5. ISUMER Charcoal Grill Kabab Grills Portable BBQ
Isumer charcoal grill is a nice grill for the price. It is strong and sturdy that arrives well packaged. It is large yet lightweight. It is rectangular and so it can save more space than round-shaped grills. Therefore, it can cook a lot of food in one go.
It reaches fully assembled and all you need to do is to unfold the legs and set up the racks. It is simple and easy to assemble requiring no tools. Made of stainless steel means that the bottom will not corrode due to the caustic solution that the ashes produce which happens in the case of regular steel grills.
This 13.5 pounds lightweight grill is a highly portable grill having a large cooking surface area measuring 28.7 inches long and 12.8 inches wide along with legs that fold flat underneath, thus making it extremely convenient for picnic and camping. I
You will love it because it is so easy to set up, takes so little space for storage while traveling, and cook kebobs on it. It can cook a meal for 10 people and also double of that with ease. It is a compact but not small grill which is a must-have item for those who love camping and beach parties.
This charcoal grill is completely effortless to carry by itself and highly suitable for outdoor and indoor use. It is also ideal for simple charcoal cooking in patios.
It is also a perfect barbecue grill made of high-quality materials. Being lightweight you can carry it to barbecue in the wild. You can put it down in the cars also. You can also enjoy a great BBQ party with friends on Christmas Eve.
The grill is rather flat, the food is always close to the heat that making the design for quick grilling. It can cook as fast as your party can eat. You can try skewers of lamb, shrimp, thin slices of Korean short ribs and corn, steamed salmons and veggies, sausages, Malay sassy, shish kebobs, shashlik, yakitori, and mesquite.
It can go fine with hotdogs and burgers too. It has 3 grill grates and a tray without any holes. This grill is also easy to clean. Just dump water on the mesquite and then flip it straight to let the water drain out.
You can disassemble and then reassemble the accessories very easily which also makes cleaning easy. This is a large size grill with a dimension of 45 x 12.8 x 26.8 inches. There is a plate that serves you and you can put some food on it and do you don’t need to search for another table for the food.
The grill pan is non-stick. high temperature resistant, durable especially suitable for high temperature cooking including searing. There are 2 air vents on two ends of the grill allowing proper temperature management and control to make burning fully.
Besides, there is a handle that is very useful to carry the grill from place A to B which is great during camping. The inbuilt ash catcher allows trouble-free ash to clean up.
The storage rack provides handy spaces to keep things to grills such as seafood, sausages, mutton kebabs, and vegetables. The seasoning baskets let a convenient place for seasoning and the side basket enables you to keep BBQ tools, utensils, and other essentials.
Pros:
- Easy to clean
- Easy to assemble
- Portable
- Quick heating and cooking
- Great value for money
- Versatile.
Cons:
- Edges are razor-sharp
6. Zojirushi EB-CC15 – Best Electric Indoor Yakitori Grill
Zojirushi electric grill is solid gold. Don’t waste your time and money on other brands as you will find the grill as perfect. The grill elements or assembly is solidly built cast iron for proper heat distribution with a really durable heavy-duty non-stick coating. The handles are connected with thick stainless steel brackets with stainless steel screws. From design to assembly it is very well done!
Everything in this grill is grilled to perfection. This grill heats up quickly and holds the heat well. The control unit is very simple to use. So, if you are looking for easy to use, no smoke indoor grill, make this one your choice. You can have steaks, chicken breasts, pork chops, inch and a half thick lamb chops, zucchinis, and squash grilled on with great pleasure.
This Zojirushi indoor electric grill provides a perfect solution to those who live in apartment complexes or condos where all kinds of outdoor grillings are strictly prohibited. This grand brand really does a first-class job in this condition. You can cook fish and can make a full Korean BBQ dinner.
When you cook using this grill, there will be little to no smoke. Whatever little smoke there maybe sometimes it will be no more than what you get from a normal frying pan or pot.
This 1300 Watt appliance having a dimension of 20.5 x 14.1 x 6.1inches does have a cooking surface area of 12 ½ x 9 1/4. sq inches. It weighs 7 pounds. It had 120 volts but with an appropriate electrical transformer, you can convert it to 220 volts.
It has an electric skillet which is essential for braising pot roasts or chicken as they simmer in wine.
It is super easy to clean. The top comes off by just taking the plug out. You can rinse it and clean it which is a breeze. Nothing is there really to scrub. Just some warm water and some suds will do the job. Being non-stick also makes cleaning easy.
Zojirushi is a real grill with an opening for the grease to drip into the tray. The drip tray is made with fine-quality stainless steel.
This grill does perfect that you will be highly excited if you try Korean BBQ using thin slices of ribeye for bulgogi and galbi (beef short ribs with beautiful colors and texture of marbling), samgyeobsal (pork belly) with shiitake mushrooms, onions, garlic, cloves, Asian sweet potatoes, zucchinis, pumpkin, and carrots all with a light drizzled coating of sesame seed oil. So, no need to go to the restaurant anymore when all these can be prepared at home.
The overwhelming majority of users highly recommend this grill to anyone who wants to enjoy some great-tasting grilled food such as juicy tender flavorful steaks, lobster tails, shrimps, and corns. They also create beautiful char marks on the steaks.
Zojirushi as a grill is simply great. Defeats every George Foreman in most ways. It attains a much higher temperature allowing it to leave grill marks and proper taste. Its non-stick is also better than that of George Foreman as well. You can also try chicken and salmon on your little Zojirushi to enjoy matchless taste and flavor.
Pros:
- Smokeless
- Sear marks on chicken
- Great for indoor grilling
Cons:
- Not enough power
Factors to Consider Before Buying Yakitori Grills
Let’s go through some gems tips about issues that you must take into account while pondering about the type of grill you need and want to buy.
Size
The size of the Yakatori grill matters according to the intention of use. If you desire a Japanese type then choose a small tabletop type. If you want for commercial purposes, then having the one made for commercial use will serve best.
Shape
The traditional Yakatori is especially intended and used for chicken skewing. However, in the western world, it is used for other uses such as cooking burgers, kebabs, and various other kinds of meat.
If you want to use it for chicken skewing then go for rectangular ones otherwise you better opt for cylindrical types.
Convenience
You should look for the one having adjustable coal beds and extra wires.
Instructions manual
Make sure, it also has instructions manual about assembling which must be very clear and easy to follow and understand.
Durable
Make sure it is made of durable materials that last long and don’t rust easily.
Heat
Also, look into the amount of heat created which is is a very important factor for grilling.
Heat retention capacity
Also, look out for how long it can keep the heat once or is generated.
Heat distribution
Make sure that heat is distributed properly for ideal cooking.
Budget
Last but certainly not the less important issue is how much money you can spend for the purchase of the grill which is impacted by the type of grill you need or desire.
Final Thoughts
Yakitori’s popularity has gone beyond the shores of Japan. Now it is also hugely popular in the USA too. So, having a Best Yakitori Grill can meet your needs of one of the popular grills easily.
You can enjoy everything from chicken to satay to kebobs to shashlik to anything creative that comes to your mind if you have Yakitori grill with you. So it can bring creativity to your cooking.
There are a plethora of Japanese cooking grills in the market as the Japanese culinary arts are becoming more and more popular in the USA. But you will not have to worry as you go through the information we have provided to you which is more than enough to make a precise buying decision.
This will finally pave the way to make the ultimate delicious Yakitori foods in your kitchen or your backyard.