Cutting Time with Contact Grilling
Tips & Tricks: Cutting Time with Contact Grilling
One of the great things about your George Foreman grill is that it cuts cooking time drastically by cooking food from both sides. Traditionally, grilling is a longer cooking process because it involves flipping food halfway through your cooking time to evenly mark and cook the food correctly. However, indoor contact grills (starting with the original Champ™ grill that launched the technology as a whole) cook from both sides at once with a top and bottom grill plate press system.
The heavy weight when you lift the cover of your grill is there for a reason to press food correctly
Have you ever wondered why the top cover of your George Foreman grill is a little heavy? This is actually a technical part of the design that contributes to making it cook well. The cover and top plate are designed to a specific weight in order to ensure the grill presses food correctly, so the cooking will be even from top to bottom. A lighter cover might not press as well, leading to inconsistent results.
When cooking on your contact grill, you want to make sure to account for the cut in cooking time so you don’t overcook or burn your food. As a general rule of thumb, anything besides poultry will cook in less than ten minutes. If you have your Use & Care manual, always check it first to see if the cooking chart lists the cook time for that particular food or cut. If it’s not included or you’ve lost your Use & Care manual, you can use the following ranges to serve as a reference:
Burgers (including Turkey Burgers): 4 – 6 minutes, depending on the thickness (add 1 – 2 minutes for frozen)
Hot Dogs: 4 – 5 minutes
Steak: 4 – 8 minutes, depending on the thickness of the cut
Pork: 4 – 6 minutes, depending on the cut
Sausage: 4 – 6 minutes, depending on thickness of link or patty
Bacon: 6 – 8 minutes
Chicken: 10 – 13 minutes, depending on thickness and parts being cooked
Turkey: 9 – 11 minutes, depending on thickness and parts being cooked
Fish: 4 – 7 minutes, except for Salmon Steaks (cook 7 – 9)
Shrimp: 3 – 4 minutes
The pressing action is easy to see with softer foods like Panini
Sandwiches & Wraps: 3 – 4 minutes
Fruit & Vegetables: Highly specific cook times to the type of produce being cooked; start at 3 – 4 minutes for most items and then increase as needed (some go up to 7); potato slices take much longer – sometimes up to 18 minutes for ½-inch slices
The nice thing about grilling is that you can check the food without affecting the results too much. In many types of cooking – slow cooking and pan searing, for example – you will actually affect your final results by checking and poking too often. Even in baking, you don’t want to keep the door open for too long, if at all (using your window to check progress is better). However, grilling allows you to check periodically without drastically impacting your final plate. This way, you can have fun experimenting with new foods you’ve never grilled before and still avoid overcooking and less than desired results.
