Salter Large Health Grill review: A flexible, budget grill that fits a complete meal

Salter sells a wide range of home appliances including the powerful 2,000W Salter Large Health Grill, which is designed to grill meat and fish, roast vegetables and toast sandwiches. While there’s a wide range of grills to choose from, this health grill stands out for its reasonable price and stylish design.

Salter might be best known for its good looking range of practical kitchen and bathroom scales but it also has an abundance of health grills and sandwich makers. Not only can this grill be used to sandwich bread for cheese-laden paninis, but it opens up flat to provide cooking space for up to six portions of food such as chicken breasts or fish.

The grill comes equipped with 180-degree hinges that close snugly. When the plates are open, you’ll get double the cooking space, which is ideal for cooking full meals for one or two.

If you’re thinking of investing in this cleverly designed grill built to tackle a variety of meat, veg and carbs in one go, this could be the grill for you.

Salter Large Health Grill review: What do you get for your money?

Salter’s kitchen lineup includes a range of budget grills, with prices starting at £30 for an entry-level design. In comparison, you can expect to pay up to £250 for more premium designs with more accurate controls and intelligent control panels from the likes of Tefal or Ninja.

At the time of writing, the Salter Large Health Grill is reasonably priced at £48. It has a steel frame, ceramic-coated, non-stick plates and, as is to be expected, is PFAS-free. There’s a lock and lift lever at the front and a 180-degree locking button on the side, so you can use the grill either flat or folded. The adjustable temperature control dial on the front of the grill is basic in design, but I found it easy to use. It allows you to up the heat from setting one through to five. Although the instructions don’t tell you how hot this grill actually gets, it reaches a maximum temperature of 240ºC on its highest setting.

Salter Large Health Grill review: What’s good about it?

To give the Health Grill a fair test, I used it to sear a steak, cook mini chicken fillets and grill vegetables including corn on the cob. I also used it to make toasted cheese sandwiches.

On my first few attempts, I found the temperature control dial a bit hit and miss: when choosing to go all in on the highest heat setting, I ended up overcooking both my steak and the chicken. There’s no pre-heat setting here either, but there is a handy green indicator light to let you know when the grill plates have heated to the corresponding heat setting. As I got used to using the grill, I gained a better understanding of how long my food needed and my food tasted better with every go. The instructions state nine minutes for a thin steak, but I found it cooked much faster. On the highest setting, my steak was ready in four minutes. The cheese toastie, which I cooked using standard size bread, was surprisingly quick to cook too and was ready in just three minutes.

The design of the grill is sleek and compact measuring just 31.9 x 34.6 x 13.7cm (WDH). I particularly like the way the plates are angled slightly inwards, so that food doesn’t fall forwards. The grease drains inwards toward the middle of the appliance, where a small drip tray sits neatly underneath, catching any oils as they fall away from food. When preparing the meat – and in particular the more fatty steak – I noticed quite a bit of smoke rising up from the plates, so I made sure I had adequate ventilation around the grill at all times. I half expected the heat of this grill to affect the handle but it remained comfortably cool to touch in use every time.

Salter Large Health Grill review: How easy is it to clean?

Before cleaning this grill you need to ensure that it has been unplugged and thoroughly cooled with the lid up. Unfortunately, the grill plates aren’t dishwasher-safe or even removable. The instructions advise cleaning each plate with a soft, damp cloth and drying them thoroughly, which took me a bit of time as the cooking fat had burnt on and the ridges are quite narrow. I also found the coil spring that holds the two sides of the grill together hard to clean as the springs are so tight. Over time, I can imagine this clogging up with grease splashing off the grill plates.

Salter suggests that to prolong the life of the non-stick plates you should apply a thin coat of cooking oil to them and rub this in gently with a paper towel. I found that the drip tray did a good job of collecting any grease from the plates and this was easy to wash under a running tap with washing up liquid.

Salter Large Health Grill review: What could be better?

As I’ve touched on above, there are no exact temperatures on the Health Grill so working out what temperature to use is a bit of a guessing game. I found it frustrating that there isn’t a definitive off button here either and to turn the device off the dial needs to be moved to 0. As the red light still shows when the dial is at 0, I switched it off at the plug for peace of mind. While I love that it opens flat, there’s also no lock to lock the lid shut when it’s not in use and this makes storing it on its side a bit difficult. I also think the cord length is too short, which could be a problem if you’re limited on the number of plugs you have on your worktop.

Salter Large Health Grill review: Should you buy it?

Having tried this grill over the course of a week I’ve found it to be very versatile and effective for cooking various meat, fish, vegetables and toasting sandwiches – all with that delicious char-grilled finish. At 2,000W, it’s surprisingly powerful, and while you can’t choose accurate temperatures the plates do get very hot quickly.

I like the way you can use this grill in two ways – either folded so it griddles both sides of your food at once, or with the plates flat so you can cook a complete meal and use it more like you would a stovetop.

You will need to use a little elbow grease to make sure the grill stays clean as it doesn’t come with removable, dishwasher-safe parts. But, once you get into the habit of cleaning it as soon as it has cooled, much of the washing up effort is removed. Overall I think that while the design is basic and has a few minor design flaws, it’s a reasonably priced all-rounder and I think this grill is definitely one to consider.