One Easy Aluminum Foil Hack Is A Total Grilling Game-Changer

Anything that can help you cut down on mess while cooking is a good thing. When you're grilling, it's important to keep mess to a minimum and watch out for cross-contamination. You also need to use your space efficiently since you often have less of it than in the kitchen. There's one simple foil hack that can help you do all three, and you'll be amazed you never thought of it before.

This trick is a little different from using foil to grill corn or as a pocket for vegetables. Line a sheet pan with not one but two layers of foil, then put your raw meat on the top layer when it's time to cook. Season your meat, then transfer your ribs, steaks, or whatever you're cooking onto the grill. Once the meat is transferred over, simply peel off that top layer of foil and toss it out. Underneath, you have a clean, foil-lined pan already waiting for the meat when it's cooked.

TikToker Jess Pryles shared the tip in a quick video, explaining that it lets you double down on cleaning. After you're finished serving the cooked meat off your second layer of foil, you roll that one up, toss it out, and that's it. The sheet pan is still clean, and the mess from dinner is all taken care of.

Pryles' foil hack is such a simple idea, but it's clearly one that many of us never thought of before. Lining a sheet pan with foil is not new, but the second layer is a brilliant addition; it's one of those things that's so obvious after you hear it. You have fewer dishes to clean, it minimizes the things you need to keep organized around your grill, and it eliminates the worry about cross-contamination. Once the first layer is gone, all trace of the raw meat and any bacteria it may have carried is eliminated.

We already know that foil has a few uses around the grill. If you plan to try this yourself, make sure you're using foil that is both sturdy enough and large enough for the job. Often, foil will only be about as wide as a sheet pan — sometimes just a little narrower. If that's the case, you may need to overlap each of your layers to prevent meat juices from running to the edge and getting underneath, contaminating either the layer below or the sheet pan itself. That defeats the purpose of the hack. You don't need a lot of extra foil — just enough so that the edges can be folded over the sides of the sheet pan. From there, you just need to make sure as you're rolling it up that none of the juices leak out.

The only other thing you need to pay attention to is how you handle your utensils. If you use forks, knives, or tongs for raw meat, do not use the same utensils for the cooked meat. Follow safe food handling practices, and this hack will help ensure you enjoy whatever you're grilling quickly, cleanly, and efficiently.