Keep Vegetables And Shrimp From Falling Through Grill Grates With This BBQ Tool

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Some of the most delicious items to fire on the grill can seem almost impossible to keep there. Shrimp's sweetness is amplified with the graze of a grill's flames, for example, and vegetables, such as mushrooms and sliced zucchini, are also excellent with a little bit of char. The balancing act required to keep them suspended on the grates, however, is totally inefficient. Sure, you can skewer them, but kabobs are not always the effect you're going for. Instead, grill baskets can keep your petite morsels snug and toasty without having to layer everything onto sharp sticks.

Grill baskets could not be easier to use. Many, such as the Aizoam Grill Basket, open like a book for you to toss in handfuls of whatever you desire, and latch closed to keep everything safely inside. The Aizoam Grill Basket also has a long detachable handle for easy flipping and, although this should probably go without saying, it's made with food-grade stainless steel. There are plenty of other configurations on the market, including the Ivtivfu Rolling Grill Basket if you'd rather roll than flip, and the Weber Stainless Steel Vegetable Basket if you love compartmentalization without as much functionality.

Shrimp and small or sliced veggies are the obvious use cases for grill baskets because they always seem precariously positioned. The same goes for scallops, which are great on the grill, and halved, pitted cherries, which would otherwise be practically impossible to give the barbecue treatment. A grill basket is also great for securing and grilling a whole fish to better keep it intact (versus tongs and spatulas).

A grill basket can also keep your grill a little cleaner since food particles stick to it before they cling to the grates. That, of course, makes the grill basket one more thing to clean, and it isn't always easy to properly scrub each of its little metal squares. A cheap, dedicated toothbrush works terrifically. A metal cooling rack can also double as a one-sided grill basket, should you not be ready to commit to yet another cooking tool. Once you give a grill basket a whirl, you'll almost certainly take advantage of all the additional grilling opportunities it can inspire.