George Foreman Immersa Grill review: Lean, easy-clean grilling machine
The latest George Foreman is compact, fully dishwasher-safe and can cook up a range of tasty foods – but is it a total knockout?
Pros
- Whole grill can be put in the dishwasher
- Preheats quickly
- Compact and easy to store
Cons
- Lack of controls and fine-tuning
- Relatively pricey
- No other notable features
First launched in 1994, the George Foreman Grill quickly became a household name for both its pop culture impact and health-focused kitchen innovations. The latest in a series of iterative upgrades, the George Foreman Immersa is a compact tabletop grill that focuses on simple, healthy cooking and easy clean-up.
Fitted with a removable control panel that allows it to be placed straight into the dishwasher or sink after use, it straightforwardly delivers on this promise. But in the age of the air fryer, with hassle-free, health-conscious cooking appliances a more crowded category than ever, George Foreman has a lot of newfound competition. We put the Immersa through its paces to find out whether it’s ready to step into the ring once more.
George Foreman Immersa Grill review: What do you get for the money?
The George Foreman Immersa is a clamshell-style electric grill, consisting of an electric control panel with heating indicator lights, a sturdy matte-plastic exterior, a removable drip-tray and two non-stick metal grill plates inside.
Like many indoor grills, the Immersa is fitted with a floating hinge, which ensures food comes into full contact with both plates, regardless of its shape or size. I tested the individual size Immersa for this review, whose plates measure 24 x 17cm, enough to easily fit two medium chicken breasts or a single large steak. If you plan on cooking for larger groups, the Family size model offers more space, coming in at a roomier 26 x 21cm and costing an extra £20. Both the Individual and Family models are easily disassembled and have dishwasher-safe grill plates, with either size fitting neatly into the bottom rack of your dishwasher.
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At £80, the Immersa sits somewhere in the mid range for electric grills in terms of price. Similarly easy to clean and more versatile options we’ve tested, such as the Tefal OptiGrill Elite and the Cuisinart Style Collection Grill and Griddle, tend to hover around the £160 mark, with their higher prices being reflective of their additional perks, such as digital interfaces, programmable settings, larger capacities and more robust build quality.
In terms of the George Foreman range, the Immersa is one of the more expensive options. You can pick up the relatively similar Small Fit Grill for just £24, though there’s no option to pop this in the dishwasher, nor does it have removable plates for easier cleaning. Pivoting away from grills, if you’re looking for a different kind of healthy cooking appliance, you might also want to consider our favourite mid-range air fryer, the Ninja AF100UK, which is just £127 at the time of writing.
George Foreman Immersa Grill review: What’s good about it?
Out of the box, the Immersa has a sturdy feel and a stylish exterior, looking a good deal more handsome than previous models. Part of a style update for the brand, the Immersa trades in the slightly tacky shiny finish of old for a smooth, matte look that will be better suited to most kitchens.
Once set up on the countertop and plugged in, the Immersa was ready to use in just four minutes. To get a sense of the Immersa’s capabilities, I tested it by cooking up a pair of marinated chicken breasts, a rump steak and a serving of chopped peppers and onions. As per the manual’s estimations, the steak came to medium rare in under five minutes, while the chicken breasts took the full recommended cooking time of 12 minutes. Overall, using the grill was a pleasantly simple affair, with the food needing little interference or minding outside of a single flip midway through. Both the steak and the chicken breasts came out of the Immersa with nice-looking grill marks and a tasty char on their exteriors, while retaining their juiciness and flavour.
In between cooks, the non-stick coating on the grill plates made them a doddle to wipe down to prepare for the next batch of food. Moreover, the ease of popping the entire grill in the sink for a quick scrub at the end of proceedings provided a welcome contrast to cleaning crusty pans or more finicky griddles. Another bonus is that once cooled, cleaned and dried, the vertical storage of the grill, along with its general compactness, allows it to slot nicely into a cupboard without taking up much space in a crowded kitchen.
George Foreman Immersa Grill review: What could be better?
As with other George Foreman grills, the Immersa’s simplicity and straightforwardness can be considered a weakness as well as a strength. Those who like to fine-tune their cooking won’t have much to work with here, as the Immersa has no tweakable controls or settings and, barring the red and green lights that indicate whether it has finished preheating or not, there are no visible temperature indicators. While the manual gives general cooking times for common items such as steak, chicken, bacon, onions and peppers, it would be enlightening to know what temperature the grill is reaching when that light turns green (having checked with a George Foreman rep, we can confirm that the grill operates at 220°C).
Perhaps a step too far in being barebones, the Immersa doesn’t even have an on/off switch, instead needing to be plugged in or unplugged to start or finish the heating process. While not a dealbreaker, users in busy households may not like the idea of reaching to yank a plug out of a socket if the grill needs to be shut off at a moment’s notice. Another small quality-of-life niggle was the fact that the exterior of the grill heated up a notable amount during cooking. While this is understandable, it did make me long for a heat-proof handle or similar solution, given the grill’s not insignificant price tag.
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George Foreman Immersa Grill review: Should you buy it?
The George Foreman Immersa is stylishly designed, compact and virtually hassle-free thanks to its easy-to-clean non-stick grill plates and dishwasher-safe parts. I was impressed with its quick preheat time and solid performance on items such as chicken breast and steak, despite being a little disappointed at the lack of controls and temperature settings.
Overall, while it might not match the budget-friendly pricing of older models, nor compete with the fully fledged features of pricier grills, it does sit nicely in its niche as a sturdy option for those who want something simple, effective and mid-range in terms of price. While not a true knockout, the Immersa does everything it sets out to do.