For a BBQ you might be asked to bring your own meat. Or maybe to contribute a salad or a dessert. But whether you feed a crowd or share the load, below are some ideas for enjoying a barbeque on a budget. For a full budget entertaining menu plan, check out the article on cheap appetisers here.

Meat is usually the most expensive part of a meal. Here are some cheaper meat alternatives. Charred sausage is almost obligatory for a stubbies and thongs kind of BBQ.

The one where the kids are running around under the sprinkler and parents are wilting in the heat. Slapped on a bit of white bread, smothered in sauce and washed down with a beer, BBQ sausages make a great low-fuss, low-budget meal.

This is where gourmet sausages come to the rescue. Just special enough to lift them out of the realm of the ordinary, but still cheap enough not to break the budget. They give you the best of both worlds: little morsels of skewered meat sandwiched between plenty of vegetables to stretch that meat out.

And with marinades, you can serve up a variety of flavours with very little cost or effort. You can make kebabs with any meat you like or create vegetarian kebabs.

Cuts of meat that work great for skewers included:. Before marinating your wings cut them into drumettes and wingettes. This makes it easier to cook and eat. To separate the wings, cut the tip off the wing at the joint save that for the stockpot , and then cut through the remaining joint to create two-piece.

Looking for marinade ideas? Here are 31 ideas to whet your appetite. The last cheap meat option is mince. And for something a bit different, you can create your own help yourself burger bar that incorporates the meat and the sides, and everyone helps themselves.

I have my own favourite burger recipe , but the sky is the limit when it comes to burger flavours. Check out some killer burger ideas here.

Serving a whole lot of delicious sides means you can get away with serving less meat. And as sides are a lot cheaper than meat, it will bring your BBQ budget down.

Rice or pasta salad, for example, can cost a couple of dollars, but they are a filling BBQ favourite. But if you want to go to a little more trouble, here are some cheap and easy summer dessert ideas.

In my opinion, the best way to save on drinks is to ask your guests to BYO. Ice water — still or sparkling — is a must for summer entertaining. A fancy cordial is a cheap and easy way to jazz up otherwise boring plain water.

A more exciting alternative to alcohol — and one that kids and non-drinkers alike will enjoy — is a simple fruit punch. A bottle or two of wine or bubbly and some low-alcoholic beer are also good options.

These are cheaper to purchase on sale or from discount stores like Uncle Dans. Hope you enjoy many hours of good weather, good food, and good conversation. Before writing about frugal living, Mel worked as an accountant.

As well as a diploma in accounting, Mel has an honours degree in humanities, including writing and research. There were some issues with sticking, but not significant enough to take the grill out of the running, and the grates have wide spaces between them, which led to losing some onions when flipping or trying to remove them.

Assembly took a little more than an hour to complete, and we found it tedious. The initial impression of the assembly and construction led to performance doubts, but when put through its paces, the Dyna-Glo performed much better than expected. Cooking Area: square inches Dimensions: 50 x 23 x 45 inches Weight: 90 pounds Number of Burners: Two.

The Traveler delivers remarkably good performance for a portable grill. Its pop-up cart design is intuitive to use and approachable for all cooks.

Assembly took about 15 minutes for one person with no issues interpreting the instructions though a second look at them before starting never hurts. The Traveler has enameled cast iron grates, presenting no notable sticking problems during our tests.

It has a single, circular burner that provides even heating across the grill, and we noted no hot or cool spots. The single control knob was easy and intuitive to use. Also, with a smaller dome-shaped lid, this grill presented one of the most accurate readings of grill temperatures from the built-in thermometer of all the models tested.

Cleaning was a simple task, and bracing the stand with your foot should minimize any grate movement when brushing. Cooking Area: square inches Dimensions: 23 x 44 x 37 Weight: 68 pounds Number of Burners: One. The Q keeps appearing at the top of our testing results.

There were a few flare-ups during the tests, mostly when introducing oil or fat, but they settled quickly without adverse effects on the food.

This grill is excellent for camping, picnics, or home use, especially for people with limited space who want a grill that performs well. The only real drawbacks are its weight and size for a portable grill, but the value and performance make those an almost non-issue.

Cooking Area: square inches Dimensions: 17 x 41 x 16 inches Weight: 31 pounds Number of Burners: One. Weighing two grills of comparable price but with significantly different cooking capacities, the Weber Traveler Portable Gas Grill barely edged out the Monument Grills 4-Burner Propane Gas Grill.

The Weber was slightly more responsive to temperature adjustment, had no sticking or flare-up issues, and had one of the most accurate built-in dome thermometers of the models we tested.

We put 23 gas grills through tests that replicate what the average consumer would do after purchasing a grill. Starting with assembly, we rated the difficulty of assembly and the clarity of the instructions on a scale of one to five. We then judged the sturdiness, evenness of heat distribution, and overall subjective impression on the same scale.

After that, we grilled 12 thick onion slices, 12 burgers, and 12 accompanying buns per grill. We cooked each for a prescribed amount of time at a specified temperature setting and observed how the grill behaved, noting any variations of doneness on varying spots of the grill, flare-ups, or sticking.

Again, we rated these on a scale of one to five. Finally, we judged the grills on how easy they were to clean up after cooking. The grills with the highest scores moved on to our next round of testing. We then cooked strip steaks to assess how each model handled indirect heat grilling and searing at high heat.

As with our previous tests, we looked for sticking and flare ups, as well as how well easily we could regulate the temperature of the grills and clean them after cooking. We totaled the category scores and averaged them.

Finally, we tested the portable grills for portability, including how easily the grills could collapse for storage and return to their grilling position.

We rolled or carried the grills from storage to our outdoor lab area, as we noted any difficulties that we experienced moving and lifting the grill, while factoring in whether someone might need assistance moving a grill in and out of a vehicle, for example. When it comes to size, consider where you are going to use the grill and where you will store it, if someplace different.

Large grills and small balconies or patios can be both bothersome and dangerous. With a large grill in a small space, maneuvering around the grill can be difficult and increase the risk of burns from the hot exterior of the grill.

If you have a large family or intend to cook for a large group of friends, consider buying a grill with a large cook area. On the other hand, if you are routinely grilling for one or two people, that expanded cooking area can be wasted, along with the extra dollars for the larger space.

A BTU is the measure of energy necessary to raise 1 pound of water essentially 1 pint by 1°F. Think of the BTU rating as the potential for heat. A higher BTU rating can be good, but the more important measure is how that heat is distributed and retained.

What features do you need and will reasonably use on a gas grill? Hardy recommends using a commercially available firebox or building your own version with double layers of aluminum foil with chips soaked in bourbon. You first need to put the chips over high heat to get them to ignite; then, you can turn the burner down for more ambient heat to slow cook your food and allow them to bathe in the smoke.

Both Hardy and Rice prefer a little help from cleaning products to keep grills neat and shiny. Hardy prefers using oven cleaner and a grill brush while it is hot to remove food particles before they can build up. Rice likes to scrub and soak the burners in degreaser when they get clogged to restore them to good working order.

Following either method and a good rinse, heating the grill after reassembly is crucial to preventing rust from forming on the wet parts. The most overlooked piece and the first to corrode is the grease tray. A grease tray is an excellent place for fires to start under the burners, so regularly cleaning it increases the overall life of your grill and decreases the likelihood of unwanted flare-ups and grease fires.

Rice and Hardy expect a grill to last two to three years when left outside. Longevity can improve by covering the grill when not in use or storing it under cover to shield it from the elements and regularly cleaning the parts of the grill to remove any buildup. Its drawbacks lie in the quality of materials and temperature variation throughout the cooking area, with multiple flare-ups in our testing.

The Char-Broil had multiple hot and cool spots, and the construction left the entire thing feeling shaky. The only real drawback to the Venture is the heat consistency.

It has cool spots in the center with hotter edges, which, unfortunately, take up a notable percentage of the cooking area of this otherwise easy-to-use grill. The RoadTrip also suffers from hot and cool spots, with very noticeable temperature variations.

Sticking issues and hot spots bumped it off the list. The grill runs very hot, even on the lowest setting, and requires an experienced griller to regulate the heat and not overcook the food.

Our tests showed as much as °F difference in multiple spots of the small square-inch cooking area. Greg Baker is an award-winning chef, restaurateur, and food writer with decades of experience in the food industry.

For this piece, he interviewed pitmasters Maxcel Hardy and Brandon Rice to find out what the pros look for in a gas grill.

He then used their insights and his own expertise and market research to curate this list. Use limited data to select advertising. Create profiles for personalised advertising.

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