Cooking breakfast on a gas grill is a flavorful way to enhance your mornings. With the right tools, techniques, and some preparation, you can grill up everything from pancakes to bacon with ease. Avoid common mistakes like overheating and embrace the versatility of grilling breakfast outdoors for a delicious start to your day.
Who amongst us hasn’t gazed out of the window at their grill while drinking their morning coffee and thought: “Why not breakfast?” After all, the grill is a versatile tool, and it’s perfect for adding that smoky, charred goodness to your favorite breakfast dishes.
Classic BBQ meals like burgers and steak may be the first thing you think of when you fire up the grill, but limiting your grill usage to just lunch and dinner means you’re missing out on a virtual buffet of breakfast grub. Grilling can enhance the flavor of traditional breakfast items. There are plenty of BBQ breakfast ideas to cook up any morning of the week, and it’s absolutely a meal worth trying outdoors.
In this post, we will break down some very important BBQ breakfast business, such as:
- General breakfast grilling tips and advice for cooking breakfast on a gas grill
- Common breakfast mistakes to avoid when grilling home breakfast on the grill
- Essential tools for grilling breakfast
- Delicious barbecue breakfast ideas to get you started
You’ve heard of rise and grind, now get ready to rise and grill. Let’s put on our aprons and get cooking.
Tips and Advice for Cooking Breakfast on a Gas Grill
Cooking breakfast on a gas grill is a slightly different prospect than grilling other meals, or even cooking breakfast indoors.
While many grilled foods can be placed directly on the grill, you’ll need a griddle or skillet to grill most breakfast foods. Imagine cracking an egg or ladling pancake batter directly onto your grill grates—it’s not a pretty prospect.
Instead, simply place your griddle or skillet on the grill, preheat, and cook as you would indoors. You’ll still get all that glorious grill flavor, but without the mess (and with food you can actually eat). For maximum cooking possibilities, you can also arrange your grill so that you have a cast iron pan or griddle on one side and the open grill grates on the other.
Set yourself up for even greater grilling success by following these additional tips for cooking breakfast on a gas grill:
- Prepare all of your ingredients beforehand to make the grilling process smoother and faster. Breakfast foods tend to cook quickly, and you don’t want to be scrambling around for your eggs while your bacon burns.
- Preheat both the grill and the pan or griddle before you start cooking. Not properly preheating your cookware (especially cast iron) is one of the most common reasons why things stick. Give your grill and griddle or skillet at least 15 minutes to heat, and test the heat of your pan using a surface thermometer before you start cooking.
- Keep the heat around medium (or follow the recipe you are using), and use indirect heat to avoid burning delicate breakfast items.
- If you’re new to cooking breakfast on a gas grill, start easy by using the grill to warm pre-cooked products that are just in need of reheating and a little bit of crust.
- If you are cooking anything that you want to have a bit of char (such as sausage links), start it in the preheated pan and then move it onto the grates towards the end of cooking so it can get a few licks from the flames.
- While most BBQ breakfast foods will be cooked with the lid open, be prepared to keep the lid closed if you are doing any baking on the grill.
- Breakfast food items often need more handling and flipping than other meals, so you will need to have your grilling tools to hand:
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Common Mistakes to Avoid When Cooking Breakfast on a Gas Grill
Grilling home breakfast on the grill is not exactly the same as other meals. There are a lot of foods that start as liquids and cook into solids (think eggs and pancakes), as well as thin and easily burned items, and things that are small enough to slip through the grill grates. To help avoid a breakfast fiasco, some additional considerations are required.
Here are some common mistakes to avoid when cooking breakfast on a gas grill:
- Breakfast items are generally thinner than dinner and lunch fare, and so they often require lower heat—unless you are baking something. Manage this by not heating your grill higher than medium heat.
- Closing the lid when grilling anything that will burn quickly (bacon, pancakes, toast, etc) can quickly lead to overcooking your food. You need to keep an eye on these items, so keep that lid open.
- Leaving the grill open when baking anything like bread or muffins means you’ll lose heat. Your grill needs the heat and consistent temperature to bake (just like an oven).
- Not preheating the grill, griddle, and cast iron skillet for the smoothest, non-stick grilling experience. Give your grill (and skillet or griddle) at least 15 minutes to preheat before you start cooking.
- Not keeping an eye out for the grease pool when using the griddle or a pan, especially if it has low sides. The grease can eventually spill over the side if you aren’t careful and cause a significant flare-up. Paper towels (or bread—delicious bacon-grease fried bread, anyone?) and tongs can help you soak up the grease.
Essential Tools for Cooking Breakfast on a Gas Grill
Cooking breakfast on a gas grill calls for a few essential tools and accessories. All you need are a few simple items that you may already have in your kitchen:
- A good griddle, grilling stone, or cast iron skillet: A griddle, stone, or skillet is a must-have if you are planning to make items like pancakes, eggs, and bacon. Griddles and skillets will be the most practical for preparing home breakfast on the grill. A grilling stone is great for baking (and pizza), and it can be useful for other breakfast items as well—just make sure to stay mindful of the grease as it has no lip to catch it.
- Grill baskets: A grill basket is essential for smaller items like veggies (specifically, breakfast potatoes) or cut-up fruits (though large items like pineapple can be grilled directly on the grate for beautifully caramelized grill marks). You can also use a cast iron skillet (or other oven-safe skillet).
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- Thermometers: An accurate thermometer will ensure food is cooked to the right temperature before it gets overcooked.
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Delicious Barbecue Breakfast Ideas
Home breakfast on the grill can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. Here are some of our favorite grillable breakfast options to get you started on your journey to living the dream of grilling every meal of the day.
- Toast: One of the best grilled breakfast foods is bread, toasted to perfection over an open flame. For maximum goodness, butter your bread before toasting (or fry it up in your leftover bacon grease).
- The breakfast sandwich: Elevate your traditional breakfast sandwich by trying these easy to make Beer-Can Breakfast Burgers from Barbecuebible.com.
- Pancakes: Effectively the same as cooking them on a pan on your stove top, cooking pancakes on a griddle on the grill is easy—and you have the option to give them tasty grill marks at the end. Looking for something savory? Try this grilled scallion pancakes recipe from Serious Eats.
- Bacon and Eggs: A griddle or a foil packet is essential for grilling bacon and eggs without making a mess, but that perfect smoky char will make it worth it. Add a sliced bell pepper to keep your egg better contained on the griddle, as recommended by Grillaholics.
- Avocado egg: Look out avocado toast, a new breakfast champion has entered the ring. Avocado egg cooked on the grill is the perfect protein rich breakfast. Try this recipe by The Daily Meal. You could also still put it on toast if you really want.
Master Cooking Breakfast on a Gas Grill
Making breakfast—it’s no longer just for the indoors. Cooking breakfast on a gas grill opens up a world of smoky flavors and new possibilities.
With the right techniques, tools, and preparation, you can transform traditional breakfast items like pancakes, eggs, and bacon into a delicious barbecue feast. Whether it’s a simple toast or more elaborate breakfast burritos, grilling breakfast will elevate your mornings to a whole new level. Now, it’s time to rise and grill!
Work on your grill skills—check out our Grilling Techniques Guides.
