The 7 Very Best Panini Presses

Size: 13” x 11” x 6.5” | Opening mechanism: Opens fully | Grate style: Grooved and flat

The Cuisinart is a well-priced, reliable, do-it-all panini press. It can act as a sandwich smasher, applying pressure from the top and emanating heat from both sides. Then, if you want to turn it into one big grill or flat top, you simply press a button on the side that fully releases the hinge. When I tested the machine myself, I appreciated the variation in heat levels: low, medium, and high. Cheaper models tend to simply turn on and off, but this one allows for low heat (helpful when grilling a thicker sandwich where you want to make sure the inside becomes hot before the bread gets too dark), as well as medium and high, which both worked well for simple grilled cheeses. The bread on the outside of those got lighter golden brown and darker golden brown, respectively, by the time the cheese was done melting. It also has a warm setting I used when I left half a panini out for a while and wanted to re-melt the cheese without re-toasting the bread. And it has removable nonstick cooking plates (that come both grooved and flat), which makes it very easy to clean. The final bonus (and another feature that sets this one apart from some cheaper models) is the floating hinge, which allows for the top plate to be fully flat when pressing multiple sandwiches at once, as opposed to in a V-shape that can place uneven pressure across the surfaces and push ingredients out.

I’m not the only fan of the Cuisinart Griddler Grill. Kathy Strahs, author of the blog Panini Happy, loves this model for its flexibility. She uses it for grilling meats and vegetables or crisping up quesadillas (that don’t require flipping because you get heat from the top and bottom).” Writer and cookbook author Patricia Wells uses it for indoor grilling and making toast. “I have given away all my toasters,” she says. “I always felt that toasters just dried out the bread but the panini press allows it to maintain its moisture. I also love the grill marks.”

Max Blachman-Gentile, director of culinary operations at Tartine, used a slightly higher-end and more expensive version of the Griddler to test a lot of the menu items sold at the café and even put it to use in the shop for a while (it eventually wore down churning out 40-plus sandwiches a day, but that shouldn’t be a concern at home). The major difference is that his $160 model lets you select the specific degree you want each plate to reach (a feature also found in the high-end Breville below), while the less expensive, more basic one above has only low, medium, high, and warm settings. “Let’s say you want to make four grilled cheeses for your family,” Blachman-Gentile says. “You’ll get a consistent result, instead of the first two looking good and the next two not. Some presses have hot spots, but the heat is generally very even over all the plates, as well.”

Size: 11.6” x 12.6” x 4.5” | Opening mechanism: Opens partially | Grate style: Grooved

This Hamilton Beach press comes in at an even more accessible price point — and though it lacks the customizable temperature control of the Cuisinart, I still found it to be a reliable machine that was simple to operate. When you plug it in, it turns on automatically. There are no switches, but it heats up very quickly, so if you want to unplug between grill sessions (as I did when a group of friends and I all spent an evening making and eating panini), there’s hardly any wait time between rounds. Every time I’ve used it to make a sandwich, the bread has turned out evenly toasted and golden brown. The cheese melts perfectly, too, regardless of how stuffed the sandwich is and what type I’m using. The plates wipe down easily with a damp cloth or paper towel, even when bits of melted cheese appear stuck onto the grill surface. And its relatively small size makes it less of an imposition to store than some other models on this list.

Size: 4.3” x 8.3” with handle | Opening mechanism: Stand-alone press | Grate style: Flat

The manual press I own is this slightly cheaper one from Victoria, which works the same as the Lodge above, but is a bit more rectangular in shape. It was originally recommended by Spencer Rubin, the founder of Melt Shop, who uses it at home. It provides full coverage if you have more oblong-shaped slices, though it applies enough pressure to evenly brown square ones, too (as you can see below). Plus, it fits nicely over fish filets (which I make often) — and both models work just as well for tasks like smashing potatoes, crushing cucumbers for a vinegary salad, crisping rice, and searing meat. (And, of course, these latter tasks are also ones that can’t be achieved with an electric press.) The other bonus: the handle is made from wood, as opposed to cast iron, so it doesn’t get as hot on the stovetop. It’s a bit lighter, too, so “you don’t end up pushing the cheese or ingredients out of the bread,” Rubin says.

Size: 14.75” x 13.75” x 8.5” | Opening mechanism: Opens fully | Grate style: Grooved and flat

In my testing, I found the Breville grills standard sandwiches on par with the Cuisinart. It also heats evenly and has a floating hinge for even pressure. But overall, the temperature settings are more exacting. While the Cuisinart has low, medium, and high heat modes, this one allows you to control the precise degrees of each of the plates at any given time. For a thinner sandwich, like the one pictured, I set both grates to 350 degrees, which melted the cheese and toasted the bread evenly. For a particularly large sandwich, I started a bit lower, at 300 degrees, which allowed the cheese to melt without letting the bread get too dark. (Technically, the Breville also boasts slightly more wattage, which means it gets hotter faster. To be honest, I didn’t notice a huge difference here: Both machines preheated in just a few minutes.) It also has predetermined settings for panini, burger, and sear, convenient if you want to just click one button and let it go.

Food writer and editor Alyse Whitney’s s favorite way to employ it is all the way open. “I have used this for Korean barbecue at home,” she says (though usually outside, since the sugar in marinades tends to get smoky). “Also pancakes and french toast for a crowd.” And — unlike any of the others on the list — it has waffle inserts you can buy separately to make it even more versatile.

Size: 21.7” x 23” x 20.7” | Opening mechanism: Opens partially | Grate style: Flat

If you want to go hard at home, Waring makes professional-grade grills. (Look closely when out and about, and you’ll likely spot them at sandwich shops and even behind bars that serve late-night snacks.) This one is quite similar to the one that head chef Clare Malfitano uses at Murray’s Cheese Bar in New York. There, the presses are even more intense and require special plugs, but Waring makes models for home use, too, including this one (and a nearly identical model with grooved plates). Like the press above, it’s made from cast iron. It’s not cheap by any means — but if for whatever reason you want to do most of your cooking on a panini press (say, if you’re remodeling, or living with particularly inefficient rental kitchen appliances), it’d be the one to choose. “It’s so consistent in terms of heat,” Malfitano says. “It’s intuitive to use. Before we open for the day, we do prep work on it that isn’t making sandwiches — like charing meatballs or onions or carrots. Sometimes we use it to temper things we don’t need to fully melt, like cream cheese, or butter. You can put it on a low setting and put those on there. We cook chicken on it. Occasionally we cook eggs on it. It stays open if you need it to so it can be hands free.”

Before she switched cooking methods to a flattop and grill press at Archestratus, Lipari used a Waring, too — and she was also a fan of how “extremely versatile” it was (beyond the “really crispy panini sandwiches” it turned out). “Vegetables on it got almost barbecue-like, with a charred flavor,” she says. “We had people do pop-ups and they would employ it in other ways, too — like one time someone used it to make a cheese crisp.” Steven Saddoff, owner of New York City’s Ground Support, praises Waring’s customer service. If you have any sort of issue, “you get to talk to real people,” he says. “That’s rare and important to me.” But he also notes that for a regular consumer, a problem would be a rarity. “If you’re not running a cafe with it, it’ll last forever,” he says.