- We have Buffalo chicken dip in here and look at that condensation. It's hot. The dish is quite warm
and the dip is fine. (upbeat music) When the weather's nice, there's nothing like getting outdoors
with friends and family. - Yes, whether you're having
a barbecue, tailgating, having a patio party,
or even having a picnic, the right gear can make your
outdoor party even more fun. - Hannah and I have pulled together some of our favorite gear for
outdoor entertaining, from coolers to picnic baskets, even portable grills and more so you can decide what's best for you. - First up, Lisa! - First things first, coolers. Every tailgate party, picnic,
any kind of outdoor event is gonna need a cooler. And you wanna keep your
food and your drinks cold for hours and hours. We've tested so many coolers. Here is our winner, by Yeti. This is our best buy, by Coleman. The Yeti, it's great,
but so you really need to spend hundreds of dollars on a cooler or is the Coleman gonna be
the right answer for you? Let's get into it. This cooler is really terrific. It can keep cold food cold
for days and days and days. We've done all kinds of tests
where we put a weekend's worth of food in there for four people and it fit everything and it
kept everything nice and cold. We put soda in there, it
kept it below 40 degrees for five days. It's really what you
need if you're gonna be in a challenging condition
where it's gonna be hot or you need the cooler to last
you for more than one day. It's really perfect for that. It has great insulation. These latches really work
great to keep the lid closed. We have knocked this cooler off the back of tailgates onto concrete, we've pushed it off the
lab table, onto the floor, full of ice, full of drinks. It did not open, nothing spilled. That's really what you want
in a rugged outdoor cooler. You want it to be dependable, to stay closed when it's gotta be closed, and then, you know, when
you wanna get in there, you just use that to open and it's great. So, aside from the latches, we have these really great handles. They're made of rope
with these rubbery grips and so it's very easy to pull and lift this very comfortably. It's not a rigid, hard handle
and it's got a lot of give so you can get it at different angles. But the most important thing of all is that this has this amazing insulation. It's in the top, it's in all the sides. And we've cut these in
half with power saws to look at that insulation, measure it, weigh it compared to other coolers. One of the things about
this insulation is, aside from being fairly thick,
it's also not very dense. It has air pockets inside of it. And that's actually important because air is a poor conductor of heat. It doesn't allow the
heat in or the cold out. And this has got insulation
in the top, as I mentioned. some of the coolers we cut
up had nothing in the top. We put ice in all of the coolers and after several days
we poured off the ice and water to see how much
each had melted over time. You know, we died at blue,
so you could really see it. Most of them had a lot of
water and very little ice. This one had ice, ice,
ice, very little water. The downside is it is heavy. If you're carrying it from a car, it's kind of a two person job. But if you just want something that's really gonna keep everything cold and be tough and durable,
the Yeti is the thing to do. Okay, so let's talk about
our best buy by Coleman. You know, it's not a fancy, luxury cooler. It's a old household brand from way back, but it does a really good job. It has a lot of features that
make it easier to handle, including some wheels in the
back and a telescoping handle. So it makes it just easy to take with you wherever you're going
and roll it with you. And it has, you know, these nice, they're kinda molded in handles. They're not as big and easy
to grab as those rope handles, but then you've got the
wheels with this one. It seals pretty well. No rubber gasket, but a
nice, you know, tight fit. The top is just two layers of
plastic. It has no insulation. So like I said, it's not gonna
be quite as good an insulator as that Yeti, which is
insulated all the way around. That said, it has a great amount of space, it has a drain at the bottom, and these nice rugged wheels. It'll take you most places you need to go and it did a pretty decent job
of keeping everything cold. A portable gas grill is a great choice for picnics, tailgates, parties, or if you just have a small outdoor space and you don't have a big
backyard or don't need it because you're cooking
only for one or two people. Gas is a great choice as opposed
to charcoal, in this case, because when you turn it off, it cools down and you're good to go. You don't have to deal
with ash or hot coals at the end of the day. This is our winner by Char-Broil.
It's a nice compact size. What we were looking for in
a good portable gas grill are a few things. We tested a bunch of these
and we looked for ones that were easy to carry, easy to fold up and bring with you, easy to clean. Some of these grills are
a complete horror show to clean up when you're done, so being able to really
clean it well is important. So when you close this and
you're cooking, this is the vent. It's a very small slit
about a half-inch deep and about 12 inches long. And that's great because
the smoke will stay on your food and then go up the back. It will not come up unless
you stick your face in here, (laughs) it will not come out at you but it will stay on the
food and go out the back. And it won't lose too much
heat, which is a real problem with gas grills that have
too giant vents in the back. You want a small vent. We learned that with our
full-size gas grills, we saw it again here. Some of them don't have lids,
some have too big vents, and they just let all the heat out. So let's talk about how to
turn this on and get it going. This piece pops right
out and you can put it right inside the grill for transport, but when you're ready to
cook, the control's right here and there's a little nozzle here. I have a one-pound can of propane. You can get these at any hardware store and it attaches right
onto the back of this. You screw it on. Righty
tighty, there we go. So it goes without saying,
you want nice even, heating. We did a test where we put slices of bread across the whole surface after the grill was fully preheated and we looked at the toasting and whether it was evenly golden across the whole surface of the grill. That was totally not the
case with so many of them. This one did a beautiful
job with toasting the bread across the whole surface of the grate. The reason for that are a few. I mean, this has a very long burner that goes the full length of the grill. There's two rows of holes for
the gas flames to come out. These corrugations on the
grate also spread the heat, both sideways, you know, front to back and along the whole length of it. This is called a flame tamer. It goes over the gas flame
so you're not just getting those flames straight up onto the food. It goes under this little piece of metal and that spreads the heat down and across. So we get, really for a small grill, remarkably even browning and cooking and really great control on this heat. It's lightweight, it's portable,
it browns and heats evenly, it's very simple to set up and go. This is the best portable
gas grill that we found. Maybe you're famous for your
pie or your deviled eggs. This is the greatest way to transport it to a picnic or a party outdoors. This is a great device
because it's pretty big. It can hold even a six-inch tall, mile-high lemon meringue pie. But for storage it collapses
down to just about five inches. So you're not stuck storing
some great big dome somewhere. It's got three clips around the side and a good handle on top. The inside is a big sort
of pie plate-shaped device. And it has these little
rubbery silicone rings. So if you're gonna put a pie in there, it will not slide around and smash when you turn the corner with the car. We actually did drive around with these with pies in them, in our car and, yeah, a lot of 'em came out smashed. We took some hard corners, we
hit some New England potholes and all of our food was mushed. This one keeps the pie centered, it doesn't easily slide around, and your baked goods will arrive safely. They also have these really handy inserts for deviled eggs 'cause
who doesn't love them? These are the greatest thing. Double decker deviled eggs. So the little guy can go underneath and then this can sit right on top and you close that right
up and you're good to go. Some of the other pie
carriers that we tested were ridiculous. They were too small, they
didn't hold a tall pie. One was made of cloth. I mean, it wasn't really doing much. This one actually did
everything we wanted it to do. It protected food, it held a lot. We did have one little gripe. These latches, you have to make
sure they're really latched. They pop down, but you've
gotta just make sure they're lined up and that
they're really fully popped down or it may, you know, one of
them might not be fully closed. So once you make sure
that those are all closed, nothing happens. And this is our winner. It's made of plastic and
silicon, washes up very easily, carries very neatly, and won't
throw your baked goods around when you're in transit
to go enjoy them outdoors with your friends and family. You know how it is when
someone walks into your house when you're entertaining
and wants to use your oven to reheat something they brought over. It's just, like, throws everything off. Insulated food carriers
are exactly what you need. If you want your hot food
ready to serve on arrival, no reheating necessary. This is the Rachael Ray Lasagna Lugger and it has all the
features you really want in something like this. This has got a nice padded
handle that snaps closed. It's comfortable, no matter how
much lasagna you're lugging, a little pocket on the
outside for storing extras, serving utensils or whatever you brought. We have Buffalo chicken dip in here and look at that condensation. It's hot. The dish is quite warm
and the dip is fine. Down below, and this collapses. If you just have one dish,
this zips closed and, if you have two dishes, as we do. Lasagna, also quite warm. This is toasty.
(bell dings) (laughs) There you have it. This great big, easily
cleaned, insulated container. The exterior, which is polyester, does show a little staining. If you get anything on
there, mostly wipes off, but it's a small price to pay for the incredible functionality of this. It's a great device for taking hot food, or even cold food, to another destination and enjoying it at the right temperature. Now you've seen some of my favorite items for going outdoors and
enjoying delicious food wherever you are. Let's go see what Hannah's favorites are. (upbeat music continues) - When you're dining outside, you can grab stuff from your house, you can use disposable items, or you can buy a dedicated picnic vessel. There's all different kinds of containers that picnic gear comes in. We tested all of them, from
wicker baskets to backpacks to collapsible bags. We found a bunch of
similarities between models. They all come outfitted with gear inside, usually plates, utensils, napkins, cups. So there were a couple features that we wanted across any style. No matter the style, we
wanted roomy compartments that were easy to access. One model, actually,
the door would come down and bonk us in the head while we were trying to get in there. Not a big deal, but also
not very convenient. This backpack was our best,
most comfortable option if you're trekking or if
you just want something that's really comfortable to handle. This is a great option for
someone who's going on a hike or maybe even just not walking that far, but just wants something
really comfortable to hold. This is definitely our
most comfortable option. It comes with this little blanket that has a waterproof
layer in it, super handy. There's a wine bottle holder over here so you don't steal some valuable space from your chamber in here. I will say, one note about the gear that comes inside of all of these, like the cutting boards
or the wine opener, you know, these are not
high performance tools. These are not as good as
our winning wine opener, for example, but they're great. They get the job done. They'll get your bottle of wine open. I just realized this is a twist off. (joke drum set plays) (laughs)
- That's fine. - So now I wanna go over here to this Instagram-worthy model. It is so pretty, it's so gorgeous. If you were throwing a
beautiful park picnic, this would be such a stunning edition. It's not just the exterior of
this model that looks fancy, it's the interior too. These are real glass wine glasses. We have nice big plates. That was actually a point of differentiation between the models. Some of the models had
smaller snack plates, some had bigger dinner plates. We did slightly prefer the versatility of the bigger plates 'cause
you can have a snack-y picnic or you can have a real meal picnic. We like that. Another nice thing about
this model is the capacity. Let me pack it up and show
you what fits in here. Start with the wine. (upbeat music) (chip bag crinkles) Okay, so you saw that fit everything. Great capacity, super chic. I will say, though, like-- (grunts) This is heavy and it's not as easy to carry around as this one. We had testers walk all
around with these things to look at comfort and portability
and it really came down to you don't wanna go far with this one. This one, you can go as far as
you want, super comfortable. Doesn't quite fit as
much, but it still had a really nice, roomy chamber. I wouldn't necessarily put the chips and the crackers in this one, but it probably would fit everything else. And it was so comfortable. We absolutely loved that. So this is our winning most elegant option by Picnic at Ascot. And this is our winning
portable option by Sunflora. But let me introduce a third
option for those of you that might not have a
ton of storage space. (grunts) The collapsible picnic basket. So this was a really cute little option. This is also by Picnic at Ascot. It has two small pockets on either side that house silverware. And this opens up. Wine glasses in here. This has plastic. The nice thing about
this is it's collapsible, so if you don't have
a ton of storage space you don't want something
like this, you know, clunking up in your garage, this option smooshes
down to be much smaller, but you still get your
elegant picnic basket when you want it. Maybe not quite as fancy-schmancy as this one, but still pretty chic to bring cloth napkins to eat outdoors. Have you ever been at a picnic? You're eating on your lap and you have this floppy, dinky plate, you have this knife that
really can't cut anything. We've all been there. So we really set out to
test and find paper goods that can perform like real silverware. We really wanted these to perform just as good as the regular stuff. Let's start with the utensils. So as far as performance
and shape and design, really we preferred the
same things that we like in regular silverware. You know, you want them to stab
and cut and be comfortable. But let's get into the materials. In addition to the classic
plastic disposable options, we also saw some
environmentally-friendly options, more on that later, made
from things like bamboo or crystallized polylactic acid. For short, it's called CPLA. This is a commercially
compostable material derived from things like soy,
corn, tapioca, sugar cane, potatoes, stuff like that. All of these here, including
these disposable cups, which we tested as well, these are commercially compostable. You can't compost them at home. Your home compost pile
does not have the ability to break down these materials like a commercial facility does. So the bottom line is
compostable paper goods are only actually eco-friendly
if you compost them in a commercial composting facility. Let me show you how all these performed. This plate of nice
barbecue chicken over here. We really wanted something
that you could cut into so you or your guests won't have. I mean, I forgot that this was disposable. It's so sturdy. I'm
really forcing on here. Super comfortable. The knife has nice serrations,
it's getting through things, the fork is holding everything securely. Stab potato salad. Mm. We were skeptical of these CPLA options, but they were really great. They were really nice and
sturdy and they had all of those real silverware
qualities that we wanted. The bamboo ones weren't that good, from a user-experience perspective. They didn't cut that well, they
didn't stab food that well, the forks didn't. They also tasted like wood when
we were eating off of them. So we did not like those. We have a CPLA winner from Ecovita and then we also have a winning
plastic set from Diamond. Okay, now let's move on to bowls. We really tested the
heck out of these things. We came away with three winners here. The Dixie Ultra Heavy Duty
is great for bigger salads, the Dixie Everyday is
a little bit smaller, great for side dishes, and then the Stack Man is
a great compostable option. You know, you don't wanna do
super piping hot foods in it, but otherwise it was a
good compostable option. Now let's move on to plates. I don't have our winner here
because I forgot to order it. (laughs) But I have a
comparable option here and I wanna talk about why we love these heavy dutier plates. Sturdiness was number
one for disposable plates because you don't want it to flop. You don't want it to look at that. I'm having a hard time, you
know, getting this to flop. I'm gonna show you right here. So you could really saw. Just get in there and saw. I'm really doing this as hard as I can! Totally fine. Okay, so we really looked at heavy foods, piling your plate, hot foods, and then we also did a holding test. We filled the plates and then
let them sit for five minutes. Say, you forgot to get your beverage. This really separated
the good from the bad. Some of these were totally
sagged out in five minutes, and five minutes isn't even that long. That's totally reasonable. Someone stops you on
the way from the buffet, boom, you got a soggy plate in your lap. With all of this gear, you are all set for some awesome outdoor fun,
and we hope you have a blast. - For more information on all the gear we showed you here today,
check out the links below or go to americastestkitchen.com. - What's your favorite thing
to bring to an outdoor party? Do you have any more questions for us? Let us know in the comments. Like this video and hit
that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. (upbeat music continues)
