26 Must-Have Dollar Tree Finds for Your Next Backyard BBQ

If you’re planning the perfect summer barbecue, you probably have a lengthy to-do list. From choosing items for the grill, planning side dishes, and making sure you have plenty of activities ready to keep your guests entertained, there’s a lot to keep track of. Of course, as the list of items you need for your fun afternoon or evening grows, the overall costs increase, as well. Before you start panicking about how much you’re going to have to spend, though, you might want to take a trip to Dollar Tree.

Now, you may already know that Dollar Tree offers several must-have kitchen supplies. you can also find grilling tools, products to help serve guests, and maybe even some of the key food items you’ll need. With most items costing just $1.25 as of this article’s publication, Dollar Tree can help you pull off a budget-friendly event. Now, keep in mind that the quality of many items won’t rival that of their more expensive counterparts (which are often significantly costlier). However, they’ll get the job done for the cost, allowing you to focus on throwing a fun event for your guests instead of spending an arm and a leg.

We took a trip to Dollar Tree to check out some of the items that could potentially be the most useful when planning a cookout. Read on to learn which items you’ll want to make sure you add to your Dollar Tree cart to help make your barbecue a success.

Is it even a cookout without burgers? We don’t think so. Thankfully, with the budget chain’s hamburger patty press, you’ll be able to get your favorite burger recipes formed and ready to put on the grill in no time. After mixing the ground meat and seasonings, simply form them into a ball, then use the upper plate to press the ball down into the mold on the base to create a patty.

While you can make burger patties without a press, you might decide the added convenience is worth the investment of just over $1.00. Plus, because the press will help you create patties that are more uniform in size, it can ensure they cook evenly once you fire up the grill.

Dollar Tree carries packages of both hot dog and hamburger buns made by Gold Medal Bakery, each of which comes with eight buns per bag. At roughly 16 cents per bun, you’ll have a difficult time finding a similar value at your local grocery store — and if you’re inviting several friends to your barbecue, those savings can add up quickly.

Additionally, you can enhance the flavors of by brushing the buns with some butter and heating them up on the grill for a few minutes before adding any meat. In fact, once the buns are filled with a juicy burger or hot dog and topped with favorite condiments, your guests might not even suspect that you picked these up at Dollar Tree.

If you’re planning to cook some marinated steaks or chicken on the grill for friends and family, you should pick up a few packs of these marinade bags. Each bag is oversized and offers a 3.5-gallon capacity, allowing you to fit more meat in each one than a standard 1-gallon zippered bag.

The extra space for marinating meat make these a great addition when planning a party. Plus, the bags have an expandable bottom to help them stay upright for easier, less messy filling. Each package contains two bags, too, and have a zippered closure to prevent liquids from leaking out. Fill one up with a tenderizing steak marinade recipe, and the other with your favorite barbecue sauce for chicken.

Even if you cook the juiciest burgers and the plumpest hot dogs, your guests will be disappointed if you forget the condiments — or somehow don’t have enough for everyone to enjoy. So for a budget-friendly solution, head to the Dollar Tree. You’ll often find a wide selection of condiments from well-known brands, such as Hunt’s Tomato Ketchup, French’s Classic Yellow Mustard, and various Kraft barbecue sauces. Plus, with each bottle only costing $1.25, it’s generally more affordable to obtain a range of options from the store, ensuring each guest is able to find something to match their flavor preferences.

If you want to offer a range of drink options for your guests, you can’t forget to pick up a few bottles of soda while you’re at Dollar Tree. The chain offers various Coca-Cola products, for instance, such as classic Coke, Coke Zero, Diet Coke, and Sprite. With the available options, you can make sure your drink cooler is stocked and ready for any barbecue. And at $1.75 for each 1.25-liter bottle, you’ll be able to obtain an assortment of options for a reasonable cost.

When you’re at Dollar Tree, you might want to toss a few packs of deep dish paper plates into your cart. Beyond needing plates for your guests to eat off of, you’ll find these come in handy in other ways during your barbecue.

For example, you could use a few of these plates to serve food. With their deeper design and 10-inch diameter, you might decide to use them to hold burger toppings, such as sliced tomatoes, onions, and shredded lettuce. It could be helpful to have a few additional plates on hand if you have a lot of extra food left, and want to send some home with your guests (just don’t forget to have some foil or plastic wrap ready to cover the plates).

Do you want your guests to help themselves to the refreshing and delicious mint and melon fruit salad you prepared, but are nervous about bringing fancier serving bowls outside? Well, you can find a suitable solution at Dollar Tree. In fact, you can pick up a few plastic serving bowls for just $1.25 each.

You’ll find different color options, as well, to help you keep your serving table more exciting, or more easily distinguish different types of food. Plus, since the cost is so minimal, you won’t have to worry if a large gust of wind or an excited child accidentally sends these bowls flying off of the table and crashing to the ground.

If you’re making a pitcher of iced tea or lemonade, serving up sangria, or setting out some of those soda bottles we mentioned earlier, your guests will need something to drink out of — and Dollar Tree has you covered for cheap. After all, at just $1.25 for a pack of 16, these Everyday Cups are a great deal.

These plastic cups have a 16-ounce capacity, and come in a variety of color options, including blue, green, and purple. Having multiple colors available will help your guests keep better track of their drink, of course, though you should still have a permanent marker handy to let your guests label their cup to avoid mixups.

Since you can’t be a true grill master if you’re cooking food on a dirty — and potentially bacteria-laden — surface, keeping your grill clean is an important task. With this grill scrubber from Dollar Tree, you can make sure your grill is clean and ready to use every time before you fire it up.

The scrubber features an abrasive pad to help remove all that gunk off the grates. The pad is attached to the hard body with a handle, giving you better control over the cleaning process. Even if it only lasts a few uses, it merely costs $1.25, so you won’t be out a fortune.

Chances are good that you don’t want to pull out your nice flatware for an outdoor event. With that in mind, don’t forget to grab a few packs of plastic silverware from the Dollar Tree. Each 48-piece box of assorted cutlery sells for just $1.25, and will provide you with enough spoons, forks, and knives for 16 guests. We suggest erring on the side of caution when you’re calculating how many boxes you need, as well, and buying a few extra instead of coming up short.

While you can cook many foods directly on grill grates, smaller food items have a chance of falling through — thus burning and becoming inedible. However, you can still grill shrimp, scallops, chicken wings, and sliced veggies if you pick up some of these aluminum foil grill toppers at Dollar Tree. These toppers (there are two in each package) offer plenty of space to grill different items, increasing the potential menu options for your barbecue.

Whether you’re rotating hot dogs, flipping chicken breasts, or pulling corn cobs off the grill, a pair of BBQ tongs is a must — particularly when it comes to safety. After all, without this cooking tool, you’re much more likely to accidentally burn yourself reaching over a hot grill. Since they only cost $1.25 at Dollar Tree, you might even want to toss a few in your cart to have a backup pair at the ready.

Your guests might not like their baked beans to soak their hot dog bun — something that’s more likely to happen if they’re trying to cram everything onto a standard plate. Consequently, you might want to consider grabbing a pack of foam compartment trays to avoid this problem. Each of these foam trays has five compartments, and each pack comes with 10 trays in total. With these trays, your guests will be able to ensure their favorite foods don’t mix together.

Anyone working the grill needs a trusty spatula for flipping burgers, shifting food along the grates, and removing items that’ve finished cooking. Unsurprisingly, you can find this handy grilling essential at Dollar Tree for a mere $1.25. The long-handled tool features a slotted stainless steel head, letting excess grease run off of food items before you put them on a plate. The spatula also features a loop for hanging, and is dishwasher-safe for easy cleaning.

If you want your meat to stay moist without drying out while grilling, you should make sure you have a basting brush at the ready — and you’ll find a budget-friendly, long-handed option at Dollar Tree. This 14-inch basting brush will help you baste items on the grill, while still keeping your hands a safe distance away. It also features a loop at the top of the handle, so you can hang it up when not using it.

Preparing grilled corn on the cob with garlic butter for your cookout is certain to be a hit with your guests. But they might not be thrilled if they have to figure out how to hold a hot piece of corn while keeping the buttery sauce from dripping over their hands. Thankfully, you can prevent both of these problems by buying some corn holders for your guests from Dollar Tree. These packs have eight holders (or enough for four pieces of corn), and beyond being functional, their corn-shaped design is also fairly cute.

These metal skewers from Dollar Tree will be a huge help when you’re preparing a mix of meat and veggies to make a batch of BBQ kebabs. The pack includes four skewers and only costs $1.25, so you may want to consider picking up a few packs to make enough grilled chicken and vegetable kebabs to serve a crowd. Since these skewers are metal, they can also be washed and reused, helping you get the most out of your purchase.

Spending time outside with your guests is great. But being swarmed by pesky flies? Not so much. Thankfully, you can make sure you’re ready to fend off any pests with these fly swatters from Dollar Tree. Each set comes with two colorful fly swatters to help you and your guests prevent any annoying flies and bugs from ruining the barbecue. With an open loop at one end of each swatter, it’s also possible to hang these in a convenient location, while keeping them off the table and away from the food.

If you’re planning on serving hot dogs or hamburgers in a basket with some fries or chips, you might want to check out these waxed basket liners from Dollar Tree. They offer a classic white and red checkered pattern, and are precut and ready to use. Each pack includes 14 liners, so you can stock up, and remain ready to serve everyone at your next cookout for just a few bucks.

These extendable BBQ forks can be found at Dollar Tree to help you cook during a backyard barbecue. This tool’s telescoping handle enables you to reach any food on the grill to flip or remove without getting your hands or arms too close to the hot flames. The design is also ideal for hanging out around a campfire and roasting marshmallows, which is why we suggest picking up more than one of these. You need to be ready if your guests want to transition to the fire pit as the evening progresses, and those marshmallows won’t roast themselves for s’mores, now will they?

Dollar Tree often sells a few pairs of standard tongs, as well, which can come in handy when serving food away from the grill. These could be used to serve a salad, or kept by corn cobs and hot dogs for guests to use. These particular tongs have a 12-inch length and are made from stainless steel.

Additionally, the handle is coated with plastic to offer a more comfortable grip. It also helps prevent heat from traveling up the metal and making the tongs too hot to handle. Dollar Tree sells these with either a red or a white handle, which can help if you want to color code them for more streamlined use.

You can find bamboo skewers at Dollar Tree if you’d like, as well, which offers two reasonably priced size options: Skewers that are about 1 foot long, and ones that are more than 2 feet long. Consequently, whether you want to cook some beef kebabs or roast marshmallows over a fire, you’ll be covered. The shorter-sized set comes with 100 pieces, while the longer (and thicker) option includes 12 skewers.

One problem with outdoor parties is dealing with bugs. They always seem to land right on top of the food you want to serve, making it less and less appealing to guests. But you don’t have to let bugs ruin your event. In fact, Dollar Tree sells food tents that you can use to deny the bugs access to your hot dogs, baked beans, potato salad, desserts, and other delicious offerings.

Each tent is fully enclosed, with one zippered side to let your guests access what’s inside. One side of each tent is made from mesh, so your guests can also see what’s inside without bugs getting to it. The tents are also available in a range of color options.

This 3-in-1 grill brush is another tool to grab for your backyard barbecue. As the name suggests, it combines three different tools into one innovative design. The tool features an integrated scraper, which can help get rid of grease, ash, and other debris building up on the surface of the grill. There’s also a wire brush, giving you the power to eliminate stuck-on gunk that’s accumulating over your grill’s grates. Finally, the tool offers a scouring sponge to give your grill a more detailed cleaning, and make sure it’s ready for you to host the backyard barbecue of your dreams.

When it comes to a backyard barbecue, the ambiance is almost as important as the food itself. You don’t want your guests eating over a boring plastic table or an old wooden picnic table, do you? So to avoid that situation, pick up some of these red and white-checkered plastic tablecloths to set the mood.

Each rectangular tablecloth is 108 inches long and 54 inches wide, making them a good size that fits most tables. Because they’re made of plastic, you don’t need to worry about any spills, either. After everyone has finished eating, simply ball them up and throw them away — along with any food scraps or other messes.

Guests generally like to walk around and mingle during a barbecue. Of course, if they’re holding a flimsy paper plate, preventing their food from slipping off may not be an easy feat. Rather than put your guests through the frustration of trying to avoid losing their plate of food, pick up some of these paper plate holders from Dollar Tree.

With a $1.25 price tag, you’ll get a set of four holders, which will offer better support, and reduce the risk of a thinner plate from collapsing on your guests. The holders are available in several different colors, too, meaning your guests may be able to express themselves with one of their favorite colors, as well.

To put together this list of barbecue essentials to consider buying from Dollar Tree, I took a trip to the store to evaluate the various products it offers, and considered a few factors when making these selections. First, I considered how useful a given item would be when preparing, cooking, or serving food for guests at a cookout. I also evaluated the relative quality of each item, looking to see if it felt like a good value for the $1.25 (or, in a few cases, higher) price tag.