16 Gifts For The Barbecue Lover In Your Life

Part of the fun of holiday shopping online is that most retailers offer their customers the ability to give reviews to let them know if the product met their expectations. Those types of reviews on Amazon, Home Depot, William Sonoma, and more are key in helping us decide what barbecue-related gifts to include on the list. Social media is a great tool for seeing products in action from real people to determine if there are any differences, good or bad, from the acutal product and its marketing material. 

We also want to offer a wide variety of gifts in the world of grilling. There are tools for grilling, books about barbecue, and even whole grills themselves. We also offer ideas like charcoal or wood pellets that make great add-on gifts for any barbecue lover and beyond. Because we are all about food too, there are also plenty of items geared toward foodies, from barbecue rubs and sauces to pieces of meat meant for gifting. Beware: the items you see ahead may cause you to open up your wallet with reckless abandon, and we take no responsibility in what happens after you click on a product. 

A Dozen Cousins variety pack of seasoning sauces is a multi-purpose gift, especially if you have more than one foodie in your life. The seasoning sauces use simple and easy-to-recognize ingredients to convey flavors inspired by many vibrant cultures. The variety pack comes with a total of 10 pouches, including those intended for meat marinades and for seasoning rice. Each pack comes with two pouches of Mexican red rice, Peruvian pollo a la brasa, Jamaican jerk seasoning, and Caribbean coconut rice; it also includes one pouch each of pollo asado and arroz con gandules. 

The entire set can definitely be a thoughtful gift for one person, but it also can be easily split up to add on to other gifts for an entire barbecue-themed present for more than one receiver. The pouches are also small enough to stuff into stockings for an easy and wholesome meal idea. "I love your products. When we need to eat and don't have time to cook, the beans and rice combinations are the best — healthy and delicious," one customer wrote in a review on the brand's website. 

The variety pack of A Dozen Cousins sauces sells for $35 on the brand's website. 

Pure Grit is New York City barbecue joint that just happens to be vegan. The restaurant itself is buzzworthy but to get the experience of vegan BBQ at home, you can buy your loved ones the Pure Grit BBQ kit for the holidays. It comes with one jar of BBQ sauce, one jar of "The Hot Stuff" hot sauce, and one package of BBQ blend rub. 

All of the ingredients from the brand are designed for plant-based proteins and vegetables with a vinegary taste that is mild enough to allow all of the flavors of the meal to shine through. "Totally Epic Sauce!!! AND we love the vegan recipes, keep 'em comin!! Pure Grit RULES," one Reviews IO post about Pure Grit BBQ sauce reads. Other Yelp reviews also suggest that whether you're dining in Pure Grit or eating at home, the BBQ rub makes a great topping for French fries. 

Pure Grit sells its BBQ kit for $36, as of December 2022. 

Some people are dedicated to using their outdoor grill regardless of the weather outside. It'd be useless to buy them tools for grilling indoors because they'd insist to do it their way instead. To make the experience more comfortable for them, the Zgrills essential winter grilling gear kit is the perfect gift. It features a fire-resistant grill insulation blanket for the 600 series, heat-resistant gloves, and a large grill mat for the patio. The gloves can resist more than 1400 degrees F and the mat is totally heat-resistant and leakproof. 

Amazon customers who purchased the Zgrills cover state that it helps temperature control and consistency with burning pellets during the winter. Additionally, the gloves have plenty of fans too. "My husband BBQs for a living. He absolutely loves these gloves. They are long enough to cover the lower part of his arms and are perfect when he has to move hot and heavy things," one Amazon review reads. 

ZGrills sells its essential winter grilling gear for $130, as of December 2022. 

Barbecue experts can pretty much agree, that lighter fluid should be used as a last-case scenario in grilling. Sure, it makes it quick to light the coal, wood, or pellets you're using as a heat source. But the chemicals in the lighter fluid can impact the flavor and end up in your food if you don't wait long enough for it to burn off, not to mention the safety risks involved with dumping fluid over an open flame. The solution is for every grill master to own a chimney starter, which can be one of the most practical gifts you can give this year. 

One solid option is the Weber RapidFire chimney starter that is made out of aluminized steel. The chimney has two handles for controlling the flame, which is best utilized alongside heat-resistant gloves. "I've never found a better way to start a charcoal fire! I like this so much that I bought a friend one for her grill, and she loves it," one customer wrote in a review on Weber's website. "Never fails to light the charcoal. And without the smell, chemicals, or fire risk of expensive fluid starters."

At the time of this writing, the Weber RapidFire chimney starter sells for $27.59 on Amazon.

Some people think of the grill as solely as cooking meats over the open flame. When it's too hot outside to even think of being in your kitchen, you can easily utilize the grill to cook your entire meal. Vegetables are particularly tasty on the barbecue, you just need to have the right equipment so that your side dish doesn't end up falling through the grill grates. One ideal gift for the person who loves cooking everything outside, especially vegetables, is the Outset jumbo outdoor grill basket. 

The basket has a nonstick coating and mesh design that prevents delicate ingredients like seafood and vegetables from falling through the cracks while still giving them direct contact with the heat. It can be used for both indoor and outdoor cooking and comes with a detachable handle for even more versatility. "I have been using this since the day I received it. This is great for cooking vegetables on the grill. I have recommended this to at least 20 people since using it," a customer wrote on the brand's website. 

The Outset jumbo outdoor grill basket sells for $22 on Home Depot, as of December 2022. 

The ultimate gift for the barbecue lover is a prime piece of meat, and Golden Steer Steak Company makes it even easier to give the gift of high-quality beef for any occasion. To really wow the foodie in your life this holiday season, check out the Gunslinger ribeye pack of four steaks and the accouterments to go with it. It's by far not a cheap gift, but it sure is a show-stopper. 

The Gunslinger comes with four steaks adding up to more than 5 pounds of beef that can feed up to six people. It's the top 6% of the beef that is butchered in-house into steaks and wet-aged for 30 days to add even more umami flavor. The package also comes with Maitre D' butter, au jus, and Sergio's seasoning to have the ultimate steakhouse experience at home, best cooked over the grill. "When I first saw the ad for The Golden Steer Steak Company I thought they were just another run-of-the-mill online company selling their shoe leather meat they called steak. I couldn't have been more wrong," one user review on Golden Steer's website reads. "I've never tasted steak as tender and tasty as this and I've tasted a lot of steak in my time but not like this."

The Gunslinger ribeye package is being sold for $285 from Golden Steer.

Traditionally, someone receiving coal as a gift for Christmas would be considered a bad thing — unless you're an expert in barbecue. Charcoal is always a welcome gift to someone who isn't a fan of using a gas grill, and Cowboy Charcoal is some of the best you can buy. The best charcoal to gift someone this year is Cowboy's all-natural range-style hardwood briquets and it won't even break the bank. 

Cowboy's hardwood briquets provide a long-lasting heat source and don't contain chemicals and filler like some other brands. The company uses 95% hardwood charcoal with a vegetable binder to create these briquets with a natural woody flavor. They also get hot quickly, making it almost too simple to fire up the grill and start crafting a meal. "Best ever charcoal," one Tractor Supply customer wrote in a review. "Long lasting & love the mixture of sweet woods used in them. Just that little extra umph of flavor for all your grilling needs." 

Tractor Supply sells Cowboy all-natural range-style hardwood briquets for $10, as of December 2022. 

One thing we've definitely taken away from this list of barbecue-related gifts is that there is so much to learn in the world of giving. One foolproof gift for anyone with a strong hobby or interest is the gift of knowledge, or a book about that subject. For the barbecue lover, one must-read option that makes a great holiday gift is Steven Raichlen's "Project Smoke." Raichlen is also known for his PBS show of the same name which is all about cooking with smoke. 

"Project Smoke" features techniques and recipes for smoking every dish from drinks to desserts. It's the book that spawned several follow-ups from Raichlen, so it should be a staple on any barbecue lover's bookshelf if they don't have it already. "Awesome book, very detailed and lots of information and recipes," one Amazon review of the book reads. "I'm an average smoker, now am stunning family and friends with the techniques and knowledge I have inquired from this book." 

At the time of this writing, "Project Smoke" sells for $18.29 on Amazon.