Underrated Kitchen Products

Aug 23, 2024

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Introduction
 I wanted to make a simple post about some kitchen products that I find helpful and use all the time, but might not be obvious to the novice cook. None of these products are sponsored (let’s be honest, this has 3 viewers lol), but I hope this can be of use to someone.


Kitchen Products



Food Scale
 A kitchen scale is the single most important item in my kitchen. I use it every day, multiple times a day. For baking desserts, cooking dinner, preparing breakfast, or for portion control (nuts in particular), a food scale is crucial. I like to bake/cook in weight measurements (grams), as opposed to volume measurements (cups and tablespoons). This is because weight/mass is more accurate, and dirties less dishes. It’s much easier to have a bowl on a scale and dump in exactly how much you need by weight, than dirty 3 different measuring cups to get a less accurate result. My exception to this is spices and any measurements less than 1 tsp, as I find it easier to just do those by volume instead; it’s too small for a scale to accurately pick up.


 Here is the one that I own. Unfortunaly, it is currently unavailable on Amazon; just look for something that goes down to 0.1 g and is under $15.


Chef Knife
 Outside of a kitchen scale, a good chef knife is the most useful thing you could have in your kitchen. A better knife is one of those things you don’t think you need until you try it out, and you realize what you’ve been missing. Cooking at other people’s houses with dull knives and crappy cutting boards makes cooking (something I love to do) into a boring chore. A sharp knife is crucial, allowing for quicker and safer chopping.


 It doesn’t need to be anything fancy or expensive. I got this one on Amazon for less than $15. Just make sure to take good care of it; sharpen it often, and only hand wash it.


Knife Sharpener
 A simple pull through sharpener is a great gadget to have in the kitchen. I got mine as a gift, but something like this should do the trick. Aim to sharpen your knife every few days. If you find you’re squishing tomatoes or crying from onions, your knife is due for a sharpening.



Cutting Boards
 The logical next step from knives is cutting boards. Having a nice large, heavy cutting board to fit all your vegetables is such an improvement over a tiny, flimsy board where you’re cramped for space and that slides around. There are 3 typical types of cutting boards, and unfortunately I have issues with all of them.

 First up is glass. I’m not gonna beat around the bush; I hate glass cutting boards. Everything slides around, making cutting anything way more difficult and dangerous. Plus, glass dulls knives a ton. It’ll turn your chef knife into a butter knife in no time.

 Second is plastic. Plastic cutting board are personally what I use (this set and this one specifically), but I’m looking to upgrade. Plastic is easy, cheap, and convienient; however I’m personally weary of the harm of using plastic to cut my food. These types of cutting board wear away after a while, and I would prefer not to be consuming microplastics. To be fully transparent, I know next to nothing on this issue, but my intuition would tell me that plastic cutting boards are probably not good for your long term health.


 Finally, we have wooden. It doesn’t dull knives like glass; it doesn’t cause microplastics in my food or get food stuck in it constantly like plastic. Then what’s my problem with wood? I’m lazy (lmao), and I don’t want to hand wash it (I’m also prone to extremely dry hands, so hand washing dishes is a no-go for me). When I eventually find a nice large wooden or bamboo cutting board that can be safely used in the dishwasher I’ll be ready to upgrade. They can also be quite pricy. I’m all ears; let me hear your recommendations.


Food Processor
 I use my food processor all the time; debatably too much. All the time I’m either making spreads and sauces like Natural Nut Butter or Creamy Roasted Beet Hummus. I also use it frequently for healthy baking and protein baking, such as with Almond Date Brownie or Protein Banana Nut Bread. The food processor I currently own is this one. It’s 8 cups, powerful, has a cheese shredding attachement, as is dishwasher safe (top rack only). When this one eventually dies though, I want something like this, which also has an attachment for making zoodles.



Vegetable Chopper
 A simple vegetable chopped can range from manual to electric. It makes finely dicing onion or nuts so much easier, and I use mine fairly often. My parents have a manual one (something like this), and I have an electric one (like this one). Bonus points for my chopper also having an immersion blender, a very useful tool from time to time. My immersion blender gets used most for No Sugar Added Apple Spread, instead of transferring the apples to a full on blender.



Blender
 Between my food processor for heavy duty large jobs and my electric veggie chopper for quick and small things, I don’t use my blender too often. But most people probably use a blender more than me. I went on a big smoothie kick in high school and college, and my Ninja Blender definitely came in handy there. Vic likes to make smoothies every week or 2, and a blender is perfect for that.



Air Fryer
 Air fryers are immensely useful, and mine gets used nearly every day. It’s great for making Baked Sweet Potatoes and Breaded Chicken Cutlets, reheating frozen leftovers (such as Freezer Chicken Nuggets and Air Fryer Broccoli Fries), as well as single-handedly replacing my toaster oven. I even make my Hard Boiled Eggs in the air fryer instead of on the stovetop. This is the one that I have, and it works like a charm. You can also dehydrate in it too, as I did in my Air Fryer Chicken Jerky.



Silicone Liners
 Silicone liners are great to have around. They make cleanup so much easier, and they cut back on waste, as opposed to using disposable parchment paper every time. I have ones for both my oven sheet pans and my air fryer. It’s especially useful when using the air fryer, as it’s handwash only. Pop one of those instead, and the air fryer stays totally clean. Same thing with pans. As long as the pan doesn’t get dirty, just a light rinse will do; no need to fully wash it.



Pots and Pans
 Having a good simple set of pots and pans will make your life much easier. I tend to opt for nonstick or ceramic for ease of use, but I also keep some stainless steel pots and pans around. A cast iron would be great too, but they can be a lot of work to maintain, as you need to season and hand wash them.


 The main pan I use for sauteeing is this 12” nonstick pan. I like to use 12” pans for most bigger cooking, and 10” for more single serving. My main pots for sauces and rice are these 2 and 4 quart ceramic saucepots. It’s good to also have some stainless steel lying around too (both pots and pans), as you should never use metal utensils on ceramic or nonstick cookware, such as when using a potato masher (for jams or mashed potatoes) or immersion blender. It’s also good to make sure all your pots and pans have corressponding lids.


 As for cookie sheets, and old metal baking sheet will do, and the bigger the better (as long as it fits in your dishwasher). A some good sizes are 18x12”, as well as both 15x11” and 13x9”.

 For other baking pans, I’ve been either glass or metal will do. Examples include 9x13” casserole dishes, 8” square cake pans, 9x5” bread pans, and muffin and mini-muffin pans.



Wooden Spoons
 As mentioned above with pots and pans, you should never use metal utensils on nonstick or ceramic cookware. That’s why my go to cooking utensil is a simple wooden spoon. You can get them pretty cheap, they last a while, are dishwasher safe, and can be used with anything. I have this 6 pack that I got on Amazon for only $9.



Silicone Spatula
 Silicone spatulas are great to have in the kitchen. They’re useful for scraping the edges of bowls and food processors, mixing, and flipping vegetables. Look for anything that is BPA free and heat safe. A set like this one would be great.



Instant Thermometer
 An instant read food thermometer is crucial for cooking meat, but I also use it to check for doneness in breads and cakes as well. They’re simple, cheap, and invaluble in your kitchen. The one I own is this one, and I like how it also has a meat cooking temperature guide right on it. For breads, they’re typically done around 200F. No more toothpick check!



Oil Spray Bottle
 I’ve always kept a disposable bottle of olive or canola oil spray next to my oven for greasing pans, but recently I’ve switched over to a refillable bottle. This is the one that I own, and I use it all the time for a light spritz of oil. That way, I can always be using high quality extra virgin olive oil with no additives in my cooking, instead of lower grade olive oil or canola oil. I haven’t done the math, but I’m guessing it would be cheaper than buying the disposable spray bottles.



Measuring Spoons and Cups
 Although I do predominately use a kitchen scale for my measurements, I do occasionally use measuring spoons and cups. Cups get used less often, but I use my adjustable measuring spoon pretty often for spices. It has measurements as small as 1/8 tsp and as large as 1 tbsp, meanining I only need to dirty 1 dish instead of 4 measuring spoons. It’s also good to have a set of measuring cups or a liquid measuring cup lying around.



Air Tight Containers
 Often overlooked, food storage containers are very important. What’s the point in cooking if you have no where to put it? Most of the time, I store my food in these cheap plastic storage containers, but I also have a set of glass ones that I use for when I want to heat up my food directly in the container. Plastic is not microwave safe (no matter what it says), but glass is, so these glass containers are great for bringing into work and heating up a single serving of food (just don’t microwave the lid). I also have these larger food containers that I like to use for salads and storing bigger batches of food.



Salad Spinner
 Speaking of salads, having a good salad spinner is crucial to making salads that you want to eat. A salad spinner not only dries your washed veggies, but it also doubles as a bowl to store the salad in your fridge. Check out my guide You’re Doing Salad Wrong for tips on how to build your perfect salad.



Oven Mitts
 Am I the only ones who seems to notice that a lot of YouTube chefs don’t use oven mitts, and instead use towels to take pans out of the oven? My old ones I would joke are “mildly heat resistant”, as I could definitely still feel the warmth through them. I got these oven gloves as a gift for Christmas, and they’re much better than my old crappy ones. These ones are really good; I don’t feel anything through them, and the addition of fingers makes handling dishes so much easier.



Dough Scraper
 If you enjoy making your own bread (like 100% Whole Wheat Bread), then you should get yourself a dough scraper. They’re great for mixing doughs in a bowl, scraping the dough off of your counter, and cutting it into smaller pieces. I’ve also used a dough scraper for scraping vegetables off my cutting board as well.



Bread Lame
 A bread lame, grignette, or razor blade is also a great tool to have for breadmaking. It allows you to get pretty looking slashes on top of your bread, making everything look more artisan and impressive with little effort. Just check out the cross in my Whole Wheat and Oat Flour Irish Soda Bread or the diagonal scores on my Whole Wheat Sweet Potato Loaf.