Having the right kitchen utensils and appliances is essential for home cooking. There are some underrated gems out there you might not have considered, from thermometers to mandolines. Find your new favorite gadget for your cookery arsenal with our guide to the best kitchen gadgets.
There are a whole bunch of crazy kitchen hacks to make you a kitchen maestro, but sometimes kitchen hacks aren’t enough. To get the cutting edge you need an arsenal of kitchen equipment to cut corners and save time. These are the 17 best kitchen gadgets for 2021.
Instant Read Thermometer
Easily forgotten, but undercooked food is dangerous as well as far-from-tasty: It contains harmful bacteria and could put you well on your way to a spell of food poisoning.
Save yourself from those painful symptoms and use an instant-read digital thermometer to tell when your meat is good and ready. At only a few inches long, these are compact and incredibly accurate. Great in the oven as well as on the grill.
We recommend: Lavatools Thermowand (See prices on Amazon)
Mandoline Slicer
Cutting, cubing and julianning food is difficult to do with machine-like precision unless you’re a seasoned cooking veteran. Luckily for us amateurs there’s the mandoline. This brilliant gadget allows you to create perfectly symmetrical slices and cubes of food, and is brilliant easy to use.
The thickness of your slices can be easily adjusted, and can be done with a range of blade edges and styles of cut, and allows you brilliant flexibility to produce the kind of cuts that you want.
We recommend: PL8 Professional Mandoline (See prices on Amazon)
Santoku Knife
These Japanese equivalents of the modern chef knife are a lot lighter and thinner than their Western counterparts, and will offer you greater variety in your cooking preparation.
What benefits do santoku knife offer? Their beveled blade improves their cutting performance, especially for fish, and makes it easy to release thin slices of meat. A must for the modern kitchen.
We recommend: Wusthof Santoku Knife (See prices on Amazon)
Knife Sharpener
On the outset these may seem like heavy-duty and specialist pieces of machinery, but modern knife sharpeners are now very easy-to-use, safe, and compact enough not to dominate space on kitchen counter.
Many of the best knife sharpeners offer different stages in order to perfect the cut and finish on your blade, and have a set angle to make it easy on the most novice users of us. These machines will ensure your knives last for years, and in the best possible shape.
We recommend: Chef’s Choice EdgeSelect (See prices on Amazon)
Blender System
Blending up fresh fruit and vegetabes to make juices and smoothies is one of our favorite things to do, but what so often puts us off is the arduous cleanup operation after. It messy and it takes forever.
The Nutribullet eradicates almost all of this, making it our favorite by far. It’s a very compact number that offers you the best of a juicer and a blender in one, and is brilliant at breaking down skins, seeds and stems as well as the main body of each piece of fruit.
We recommend: Magic Bullet Nutribullet (See prices on Amazon)
Zester & Grater
Classic cheese graters are old fashioned. Sorry to tell you that. You need something that can go beyond mere cheese.
With a zester-grater combo like this you can easily zest lemons and oranges, or grate ginger, parmesan or garlic. The grip is comfortable and sturdy, easy to put away, and dishwasher safe.
We recommend: Microplane Zester (See prices on Amazon)
Salad Spinner
Who said salad spinners are pointless? The simplest tools are often the most effective. A good spinner will quickly dry your greens, removing all the work and leaving you with a freshly mixed bowl of veggies.
We recommend: OXO Steel Salad Spinner (See prices on Amazon)
Garlic Peeler
Peeling garlic cloves is the bane of any home cook’s life. It completely slows you down as you prepare your recipe, and everyone is always looking for a quick kitchen hack to get around the chore. That’s where a good garlic peeler comes in. A quick roll over cloves of garlic and it strips them of their skin, leaving you with a naked and fully prepped clove. Completely saves you from the irritating task of individually peeling the cloves and from getting the smell firmly under your nails.
We recommend: Zak Designs Garlic Peeler (See prices on Amazon)
Measuring Cups
Now something to correct a crime that I’m constantly guitly of: Being overgenerous with my portions. Getting these wrong can be disastrous, and can ruin a dinner.
Get it spot on every time by using precision measuring cups. Their build makes them much better than their plastic counterparts, plus they don’t look too bad either.
We recommend: Bellemain Measuring Cups (See prices on Amazon)
Tenderizer
A kitchen essential, a meat tenderizer will effortlessly cut through tough meat and help dramatically reduce cooking time, giving you a much more juicy and tasty cut of meat.
It works on a large range of meats, from steaks to tenderloin, and will allow fantastic penetration for your marinade to soak through.
We recommend: XSpecial Tenderizer (See prices on Amazon)
Pizza Stone
It might seem like fairly reasonable logic that any wooden board will do, but oh no. The best ones have deep grooves that collect any juices that run off your meat. This will keep your kitchen counter surface clean, as well as help you recycle the juices for later.
Leaving your meat or pizza on the board for a few minutes away from the heat of your oven will also help prevent the juices from escaping, keeping your food moist and fresh.
We recommend: Old Stone Oven Round Pizza Stone (See prices on Amazon)
Hamburger Press
Modern store-bought beef patties are hardly healthy, some even pushing 50% fat. It’s time to take back control over what you put in your body by making your own.
A hamburger press allows you the option to adjust the thickness, as well as a handy ejector to budge the patty out should it get stuck.
We recommend: Weston Burger Express Hamburger Press (See prices on Amazon)
Multifunction Pasta Server
You need to streamline your kitchen tools, and this pasta server does just that. Not only does it help you measure dry pasta as well as served it once it’s cooked, but you can also grate parmesan cheese along its side. It’s sleek and modern, and won’t look out of place in any modern kitchen.
We recommend: Sagaform Stainless Steel Multifunction Pasta Server (See prices on Amazon)
Wine Aerator
Too often we serve straight from bottle to glass to mouth, when in fact your best red wine needs to breathe in order to open it up and taste better.
A wine aerator is an easy and convenient way to speed up this process, giving you a much more smooth and rich tasting wine to have with your meal.
We recommend: Vinturi Wine Aerator (See prices on Amazon)
Cocktail Set
They say that every man should know how to make one good cocktail. It’s time to get practicing, and where better to start with a cocktail set? Put the fun back in the kitchen and get mixing.
We recommend: Oggi Cocktail Set (See prices on Amazon)
Spice Rack
Any good cook worth his salt always has an arsenal of cooking spices at his disposal. But they don’t need to be hidden away in a corner cupboard. Show them off and do with style with a spice rack.
We recommend: Olde Thompson Spice Jar Rack (See prices on Amazon)
Popcorn Maker
Because why not?
We recommend: Cuisinart CPM-700 EasyPop (See prices on Amazon)
Citrus Squeezer
Ever since then I know Matt’s been working really hard on his range of kitchenware – including an actually usable spirzalizer (!!!) – and it’s awesome to see one of his first offerings from his Fresh Menu Kitchen range. As Matt himself says: Premium stainless steel citrus juicer allows you to juice lemons, limes, and even oranges with ease. Enjoy a healthy, fresh glass of juice daily, or add some extra citrus flavor to your favorite dishes.
A little while ago I was lucky enough to contribute a guest post to Matt’s site over at Fresh Menu Planner with a pan-fried chicken recipe.
We bonded over a shared hatred of (most) spiralizers, and I was really grateful to be featured on his site. Especially when Matt’s extensive culinary training and knowledge puts my limited skill to shame!
