Transform Your Outdoor Cooking: 5 Game-Changing Reasons to Invest in an Outdoor Prep Station!

Oct 13, 2023by Chris Commins

Each time we set up an outdoor kitchen for Austin residents we emphasize the importance of having a proper prep station.

A cutting board on a table you took outside just won’t do, and it’s one of the outdoor grill kitchen mistakes homeowners keep making.

You need to specifically plan for an outdoor prep station, have it designed, and get all the necessary gear for it.

Thinking this through is as important as selecting your grill.

Here’s how a well-designed outdoor prep station will make your life easier:

Why Should You Invest in an Outdoor Prep Station?

Imagine hosting a summer barbecue or a cozy winter grill night in your backyard, and everything you need is right at your fingertips. An outdoor kitchen is incomplete without its crown jewel: the outdoor prep station.

This essential piece not only elevates the aesthetics of your outdoor space but also streamlines your cooking process, ensuring that every dish is a masterpiece.

Let's delve into the compelling reasons why investing in an outdoor prep station is a game-changer for every outdoor cooking enthusiast.

1. You will be faster

Admit it: you waste too much time and energy on all the back and forth on BBQ days. Just carrying things around, forgetting them, looking for them...

That’s all time you could’ve been with your friends and family.

From dropping your groceries right to your outdoor kitchen to taking the trash out - the logistics just become so much easier when you prep outdoors!

2. More efficient cooking

An outdoor prep station lets you cook more food and a greater variety of foods with less effort! It’s that simple.

When you are preparing everything right where you cook it, there are no lost jars, utensils, fewer dishes to do, less mess, and less confusion.

Picture a fridge outdoors, a sink, drawers & shelves, utensils, knives - everything you need for each BBQ party is separate and not mixing up with your home kitchen stuff!

3. You will have more fun

An outdoor prepping station has great entertainment and conversation potential.

If you need to do prep for your BBQ inside, you are sort of splitting the whole experience into the “boring” part (prepping) and the “fun” part (grilling).

It doesn’t have to be that way!

When you can do more stuff outdoors close to your guests and family, you increase the amount of quality time you spend together. You can have drinks, chat, and prep at the same time.

4. Reduce waste and cut your long-term costs

When you have a separate set of everything you need in your outdoor kitchen, you waste less resources.

Less water, fewer containers, ziplocs, plastic bags, - it’s the little things that add up!

5. Scale cooking into any direction!

Run your own cooking show for your loved ones …or perhaps for the whole world?

Hold a baking masterclass for a kid’s party without ruining your home kitchen?

Yes to both!

An outdoor prep station gives you freedom for culinary projects that can become side businesses and even careers.

Build or Buy Your Outdoor Prep Station?

By a prepping station we mean a wide countertop for groceries and cutting boards, a convenient waste access, fridges, built-in sinks, and storage spaces like shelves and drawers.

You can either get a ready prep & cooking station, like the Alfresco 30’’ prep cart & pizza oven, or you can have a custom outdoor kitchen with a prep section designed and built specifically for your needs.

Build a smart and versatile outdoor kitchen so you don’t have to rebuild and optimize later.

We sell and install top-of-the-line products in all these categories, so give us a call and we will help you set up an outdoor prep station.

What to Look for in an Outdoor Prep Station?

If you have never built an outdoors prep station yet planning and arranging one can be a bit confusing.

We’ve built hundreds, and here’s a set of practical things to looks for in an ideal prep station:

Easy to clean

Look for smart engineering - sliding cutting boards, elegant waste solutions, proximity to sinks, and so on.

As an example, this Alfresco built-in prep and waste station has proved to be extremely handy. The trash can edges are framed with stainless steel and there’s a sliding cutting board right over the waste chute. You can wash - cut - chuck anything without unnecessary movements.

Spacious

You need to have enough storage for all kinds of foods - even those that you don’t normally cook!

We know from customers’ stories how often life happens - people end up looking for extra storage space while prepping for large parties or processing hunting game.

Aesthetic and matching with the rest of your kitchen

This one seems superficial but iif your prep station is the odd one out - it gets on your nerves with time! Luckily we can offer design consulting to make sure all the pieces of your outdoor kitchen fit.

Multifunctional & scalable

You never know what exactly you will want to use it for.

Baking, salads, grilling, pastries, processing harvest - your outdoor prep station needs to be scalable.

Enduring and protected

Stainless steel and other durable materials that are hard to scratch work best.

Take a look at this double side by side burner from Lynx - it comes with a built–in prep station impossible to bend or spoil.