The best barbecue boxes available for summer 2023

Top tips for barbecuing

You can cook over wood or charcoal, but make sure you buy your charcoal from a sustainable source. A lot of commercial charcoal is made from felled tropical trees. We like London Log Co, who supply many chefs and restaurants. The charcoal is visibly chunkier and has a slower burn time. Make sure any logs and kindling are kiln-dried and suitable for cookery, so there’s no additional smoke or unwanted tree resin.

Indirect versus direct cooking

Most barbecue cooking requires two temperature zones: indirect means the coals are banked to one side of the grill and the food is cooked on the opposite side. Direct means you put your food over the heat source – this is good for fast-grilling food like kebabs or finishing steaks or chicken thighs. As a general rule, barbecuing with the lid down offers longer, slower cooking – recreating an oven-like environment and maintaining a steady heat. Cook with the lid off for fast grilling and browning or when you need a flame.

The 10 best barbecue kits

Dishoom Summer Barbecue Box

Nothing will impress guests more than bringing a taste of Dishoom to your next barbecue. Dishoom’s NEW summer box contains a spicy mix of popular grills from the restaurant including:  ready-marinated lamb chops, chicken tikka skewers and their iconic murgh malai chicken. Note, this box doesn’t include any of your side dishes, but we recommend rustling up some of their gunpowder potatoes and your favourite greens to make this one heck of a feast. The box will easily feed four people, or maybe more, depending on the sides you pair it with. Available from Dishoom (£49).

Made In Oldstead by Tommy Banks

So much more than a delivery of meat, this is a complete meal at home created by the master that is Chef Tommy Banks. Feast on mains, sides, condiments and dessert, with all the finest trimmings. Mains include a to-die-for black garlic beef short rib, as well as miso and honey pork ribeye and Oldstead’s very own pork sausages.  Accompany those alongside some banging sides: Caesar salad, miso glazed sweetcorn and some surprisingly tasty condiments. Save room for the big finale: raspberry ice cream sandwiches. Available from Made In Oldstead (£75).

Home by Simon Rogan’s BBQ box

Good meat requires little more than a lick of a flame, but this box from Simon Rogan (of L’Enclume) offers that and so much more. We’re talking short rib, drenched in the most sumptuous barbecue sauce, burgers with a black garlic emulsion and the one and only Kirkham’s Lancashire cheese, chicken thighs with a meticulously well-balanced spice rub, plus incredible side dishes too. The Boston-style barbecue beans were a favourite (try them with your eggs in the morning if you can’t fit it all in on the day). The beef short rib offers a sweet, rich flavour and creates an incredible crust when it hits the barbecue. This meat is rich in savouriness, and the texture is incredible supple. Available from Simon Rogan (from £56 for 2).

Ginger Pig BBQ box

This box might set you back more than your usual barbecue, but all you have to do is taste the items inside and it will be easy to see why. Animal husbandry is at the centre of everything the company does, and it shows. From the rump steaks whose fat is so full of sweetness it genuinely tastes like chocolate, to pork chops that come out so perfectly tender and can take a hit of spice yet still manage to taste deliciously porky. Then there are the chuck steak burgers, expertly mixed with enough beef fat to keep them supremely tender. You’ll be winning if you roast some potatoes in that rendered beef fat too – trust us! The 12 Lincolnshire sausages make a good pitch for best-sausages-ever, and will make for a hot dog to write home about. The king of the box, the T bone, would easily serve 3 and is so full of umami, it’s one of those ones you want to tell everyone about after. Serving 6-8, this box is proper value for money. P.S. Don’t throw away any of those bones – they are magic thrown into a pasta sauce, and will turn a simple spaghetti into something heavenly. Available from Ginger Pig (£96).

Swaledale barbecue meat box

When it comes to the barbecue, variety is the spice of life. If you have many a mouth to feed, Swaledale’s box is overflowing with top quality meat. This is one for the pork fans – from old native breeds such as the Middle White, the sausages and pork chops here are second-to-none. Also included, though, is wonderful chicken drumsticks and breasts, perfect to grill up as they are because when meat tastes this good, all it needs is a little salt and the heat of the grill. The box easily feeds a crowd of 8-10, and offers something for everyone. Swaledale have scooped up a huge number of accolades for their butcher meat in recent years and when you try it, it’s easy to see why. Available from Swaledale (£78).

The Ethical Butcher

The Ethical Butcher offer various barbecue boxes, from a BBQ Basics box featuring steaks, burgers, sausages and chicken thighs, to their Ultimate BBQ box which includes a spatchcock chicken big enough to feed 4-5, along with brisket, riblets, burgers, lamb and pork chops, and Frankfurter sausages. We particularly rated the chicken, which was marinated with Cajun seasoning, soy free, and made for an exciting outdoor Sunday lunch with a side of wedges. For high quality barbecue-ready meat, The Ethical Butcher boxes are not going to disappoint. Available from Ethical Butcher (from £55).

Rockfish BBQ box

We are big fans of Rockfish seafood which is sustainably caught off the south-coast of England, then shipped to your door with next day delivery. The barbecue box for the summer is a joyful range of Cornish sardines, scallops and meaty raw prawns ready to char on the barbecue and douse in lemon juice and salt. This incredibly fresh, local fish needs nothing more. The jar of Rockfish’s next-level garlic butter which is included is heaven lathered on top, though. For a bigger crowd, a second, larger option, The Rockfish Supreme BBQ box is available (coming online soon), and includes monkfish, sea bass, squid, scallops, prawns and that lovely garlic butter of course. Get ready for an easy, crowdpleasing seafood platter to wow! Available from Rockfish (from £29).

Provenance barbecue box

Living up to their name, Provenance sell meat with clear traceability, much of it sourced from 3rd or 4th generation farmers who use many of the same traditional farming and husbandry techniques their parents and grandparents did. The Provenance BBQ Box is a feast including succulent pork chops, incredible wagyu steak, sausages, chicken skewers, and burgers of different varieties. There’s an entire garlic and herb boneless chicken which will feed a big crowd, and tastes amazing when cooked on the barbecue. Also included is a tin of their house rub which will last you all season long. Available from Provenance (£115).

HG Walter Classic BBQ box

HG Walter’s meat supplies hundreds of restaurants, from the River Café to Kriket, so you can count on it being of the highest quality. The meat is often from native breeds, such as Hereford and Aberdeen Angus cattle or Hampshire Duroc pigs. The animals are reared on small free-range farms, and growing the animals slowly, with natural diets, makes for meat with excellent marbling and fat content, and most importantly, flavour. The Classic BBQ box features an incredible 500g rump steak, pork babyback ribs, burgers, chicken thighs, sausages and lamb steaks. It’ll feed a small army, and it’s fairly priced. Available from HG Walter (from £68.40).

Farm Wilder

Farm Wilder is a non-profit group of famers and butchers on a mission to ‘bring wildlife back to our countryside’ and sell top quality meat. There is a commitment to sustainability, focusing on regenerative farming methods that encourage biodiversity. All good news as barbecue season reaches its peak… You can create your own box of your favourites: look out for a butterflied shoulder of lamb, lamb and mint burgers, beef burgers, koftas, kebabs and 28-day aged rump steak – all pasture-fed. The meat arrives frozen in eco-packaging, is well-priced and of exceptional quality. The venison and free-range chicken are excellent too. Available from Farm Wilder.

Want something to drink with it? Try our round-up of the best cocktails in cans and bottles.