This Game-Changing OXO Find Is a Must-Have for Grilling Season

Grilling is an elusive cooking skill. You can do your best to follow a recipe for, say, grilled strip steak, but if you don’t also have an accurate command of your grill — which can experience wide temperature fluctuations, varying smoke levels, and other inconsistencies that come with outdoor cooking — then your food can easily come out overcooked. Likewise, if your food prep station is in disarray, you’ll have a hard time focusing on cooking and end up wishing you had just made dinner on the stovetop.

Thankfully, we’ve found some tools that help you get consistently delicious results from your grill. In addition to having a reliable instant-read thermometer, your strongest ally at the grill is one that is not flashy, expensive, or overly technical. It’s simply a setup of cutting boards, marinating containers, and food trays that keep all your food organized so all you have to think about is getting it on and off the grill. And, rather than spend extra time and money trying to piece your own kit together, OXO saved you the trouble by creating this all-in-one grill kit that will definitely come in handy this summer. (Bonus: It’s 20 percent off!)

This six-piece set is basically an all-in-one food transport and prep system for your grill. It consists of three containers — one large and two small — that you can use to store raw and cooked foods and carry them between your kitchen, your grill, and your dinner table. The two smaller containers are color coded: red for raw meats and uncooked vegetables, and gray for cooked foods. The larger gray container can be used either for cooked foods or as a raw food dish for when you have a lot of things to put on the grill. Both the small containers have lids to keep their contents secure and the lid on the large container doubles as a cutting board, so you can carve up steaks and slice chicken breasts right at your table.

I’m familiar with color-coded grill trays and like how they let you easily prevent cross contamination by keeping raw and cooked ingredients separate. But, I prefer this set with lids because it lets you use the raw tray as a marinating container in your refrigerator and the cooked tray for storing leftovers.

Alternatively, if you want to make a lot of food, you can use both small trays as marinating containers and place all the cooked food in the big container. In that case, the red and gray colors can distinguish between different flavors or spice levels so you don’t mix up which cuts of meat are seasoned in which style. I also appreciate that every piece in this set is dishwasher-safe, and when you’re done, the small containers nest inside the large one so they take up less room in your cabinets.

The more time I spend around people who grill, the more I realize that the key to being a grillmaster is largely about being organized. All of my grilling mishaps have come from a lack of preparedness — such as not having a serving tray ready and leaving chicken legs on the grill for too long. This simple set is a vital step toward improving your grilling skills, and, best of all, you can use it for other cooking tasks even when you’re not grilling. Pick it up today and get ready for a summer of easy, mess-free, char-grilled goodness.

Buy: OXO Grilling Prep and Carry System, $31.99 (normally $39.99)