To provide a cooking appliance providing uniform distribution of heat over the entire surface of a griddle plate to overcome uneven heat distribution associated with heating elements used in conventional grills.

The cooking appliance 10 for grilling food has a griddle plate 11 and a heating assembly 20 having a non-contact infrared heating element to achieve a uniform plate temperature, fast initial warming time and heat recovery time. The heating element is located in a cavity 29 formed by a heat insulating material 27 in the assembly. When the assembly is fixed to the griddle plate, a space is provided between the heating element and the griddle plate, and the griddle plate can be heated by infrared heat transfer. The heat insulating material has a relatively high insulating coefficient to minimize heat loss and to reduce energy usage.