Dash Mini Maker - Grill

I bought this to keep in the office and make my cheese melts for lunch. It's a perfect size, easy to clean and easy to use. I have used it to make hot sandwiches at work. Use cold cuts and cheese on a tortilla and fold it and grill it, perfect easy and delicious.

This is very small, but perfect for one person. I've used it for burger patties that I size myself, not pre-shaped so that it will fit. Also, for small breakfast patties, grilled cheese with firm bread, cut to size, or English muffin. Also good for panini style sandwich with small thin chicken cutlet, and firm bread cut to size. Can't get a lot of ingredients on there, but otherwise handy to use. The recipe included for grilled pineapple with cinnamon and nutmeg is very good. I've also found it easy to clean.

Great size for a small steak 1 inch thick 3 minutes perfectly medium rare

OK, I mainly bought this because it was cute. And I have a Dash mini rice cooker that is terrific for use in my travel trailer (I'm cooking for two.) In testing the panini press, I tried three tests: 1. Reheat a leftover piece of a muffuletta sandwich: While this fat sandwich is admittedly way too thick for the press, it did a credible job of heating the sandwich through and crisping the bread, the bottom of which had become rather soggy. 2. "Taco" with ricotta, mozzarella and marinara. This was obviously not the best use for this machine, or probably any panini press for that matter. The ricotta melted and oozed out with the marinara before the tortilla was adequately toasted. I'd consider this one a fail. 3. "Quesadilla" with chicken, poblano, and jack cheese. This one came out a little better since the ingredients didn't start out liquid, but again the cheese melted and oozed out before the tortilla was as toasty as I would have liked it. I'm going to assume that generally, this machine isn't great for toasting stuffed tortillas. SUMMARY: I will try a few more tests before giving up, but I'm not sure how much I'll really use this machine. The capacity is really small, so heating up a small sandwich for 1 is probably the optimal use for me. I wouldn't use it to cook burgers or meat or eggs--I'd always use another method for those applications. And if I need to heat up two sandwiches, I'd probably use the stove top or oven so they are done at the same time. I didn't find the functionality great enough to get a second one in order to heat two sandwiches simultaneously. I also did not find it all that easy to clean anything that oozed off the non-stick surface.

I love this little grill! It's perfect for cooking a hamburger patty or chicken strips for a salad. Cooks fast and taste great. Great for cooking for one. Be aware clean up is the only drawback but for me I would still recommend it.

I had hoped this would have flattened the burger I made while cooking but it did not. The burger puffed up while cooking

I use this thing all the time for sandwiches, rolls, bread, you name it. It has really helped me improve my eating

The idea is great. But it doesn't function practically. You cannot cook even a 1/4 lb burger. Possibly a slider. Whatever you try there is not enough height to keep the fat from flowing over the sides. It is a complete mess. Difficult to clean after usage. It would be great for a single thin sausage patty perhaps, but not what it claims to do. To me, it is basically a useless product, totally nonfunctional to it's intended use. You would have to cook something very small and very, very thin for it to work. I sent mine back. Not even worth the sales tax value. Again, the idea is very good, just not enough thought in the design. It does get hot and it gets hot quickly, but the mess, is not worth it. I went by the reviews, and I can't believe that many people find this to be a great item. Makes me wonder. Nevertheless, I do not recommend this product and suggest you opt for a little larger grill that can at the very least, handle one regular size hamburger patty. Imagine trying to put a one-third patty in this thing. You'd have the biggest mess you can't even image. Juices and grea not only flowing over the sides, but out the sides as well as it cooks, as there is no barrier to keep that stuff inside and not on your countertop.