Dishwasher. I hate washing dishes by hand.
Maybe not the most glamorous thing—I mean, there are people out there who take their specific kitchen knife or stand mixer really seriously—but in terms of the actual improvement to my life, I have a hard time saying that anything else competes.
I am with you! Lets add the fridge to the list too haha I would say that one is even more important and also a lot more used.
But otherwise would I also pick dishwasher
They’re also a lot more efficient in water and (depending on how you heat your water) energy usage.
I like my bench scraper so much that when I moved house recently to a temporary place with minimal kitchen space, it was one of the things in my “kitchen bare essentials”.
I mostly use it for scooping up stuff from a chopping board to transfer into bowls or a pan. It’s also really good for baking, especially if you’re working with a high hydration dough.
Mostly though, it just makes me feel good. I feel powerful when using it, even if the efficiency gains from it are probably quite minor.
A sharp knife. If that doesn’t count, my knife sharpener then.
Sink with running water, not having to go pump water.
My hand made for me chef’s knife.
Same. It was absolutely worth the money.
Food processor. I have issues with my hands and the ability to slice, chop, and blend items with minimal hand use is just fantastic.
electric kettle
Kettle with a keep warm setting
Fridge. I’m always using it.
but the differences between fridges can be spectacular. i had a fridge where carrots go brown and become rubberlike within 2 days, and now they are kept fresh for a week and longer.
don’t be cheap on your fridge!
On the flip side some of the cheapest refrigerators have the most reliable compressors. LG freezer on top iirc where their more expensive french door models and what not are absolute trash.
$25 breadmaker I got at a thrift store. I buy local fresh wheat flour in bulk and make two delicious loaves a week for my family. Total cost is like 15 minutes of labor and less than 50 cents in ingredients. I’ve made well over 200 loaves in this thing by this point and have saved at least a thousand dollars in crappy storebought bread.
Actually, as much as I love my breadmaker, I think the best answer here might be my Instant Pot. I use it almost every single day for basically every hot meal under the sun, and its magical ability to fully cook dry beans in less than a half hour is such a huge money and time saver on top of everything else it can already do.
(NOTE, however, that kidney beans are still mildly poisonous when cooked this way in an Instant Pot - they need the full, extended cooking session to become fully safe to eat. We usually just use the Instant Pot for pinto and black beans.)
Most loved? My knife. It’s a good knife. It can dice strawberries, it can peel potatoes, it can cut tomatoes.
I am personaly not a fan of kitchen gadgets. Many of them are less versatile reinventions of knifes. Nothing wrong with using them, but I am not the target audience, me thinks. :)
Fuck… I just realized my potato peeler is likely one of these less versatile reinventions of a knive. sigh I got got.
A potato peeler is an excellent invention, because it reduces the time I spend doing something I hate.
However, I have an even better method: don’t peel your potatoes. You can eat the peel, it’s even very tasty in pretty much all non-mashes uses.
Can you do that with all potatoes? My parents gave me the impression that some kinds of potatoes need to be peeled before consumption
All I can say is that I can do it with every type of potato I’ve tried it with.
Oh my, this might become my new fave timesaver since laughing out loud became lol. :D
Gotta be my cast iron pans.
But for the unexpected item I can no longer function without: it’s the boiled egg slicer.
I have to agree with cast iron pans, especially old ones. They’re versatile, durable, and I don’t have to worry about Teflon flaking off.
I’ve heard carbon steel is great too, but I love the properties of cast iron so I don’t feel the need to get anything else.
Ditto. I love cooking with my cast iron, best pans I’ve got. The carbon steels were super nice too, but I liked the raised edge design of my cast iron just a little bit more!
Carbon steel is great, but honestly the main advantage over cast iron is weight and that most modern cast irons (I’m looking at you lodge) have a surface that is a lot rougher. Neither is better than the other, but those differences can make some difference in what you’re trying to accomplish.
Also, and this is very personal experience and could very well be that my seasoning on the lodge I have is not great, but I find that I can stir cook some tomatoes on carbon steel and the seasoning remains great, but I get a metallic taste when doing the same on my cast iron.
They’re just good pans. They’re not that hard to take care of, though I screwed one up by blitzing it to 600F on the BBQ by accident, but I’ve pretty much cleaned it up and it’s back to normal rotation.
Even my expensive non-stick flakes. It’s inherently disposable.
I miss my cast iron. Got a set of rusty saucepans and a rusty frying pan in a garage sale about forty years ago. Scrubbed and cleaned and seasoned them and used them to feed the family, took some camping and cooked over a campfire, they were so durable and reliable. Gave them away a few years ago when they got too heavy for my arthritis to be able to handle them.
Sorry to hear about that, have you considered getting some Carbon Steel? They’re thinner and therefore lighter but have very similar performance and characteristics
Thank you, I’ll go looking!
Recommend the brand Merten & Storck as they’re very light and fairly inexpensive. I’ve also used fancy French pans like DeBuyer and they’re much thicker, nearly as heavy as cast iron.
I love my “As Seen on TV” egg cooker. Up to 14 perfectly boiled eggs every single time with minimal effort.
boiled egg slicer
So what do you use this for? I mean, what do you use the egg slices for?
I put them on salads and toast
Dishwasher. I hate washing dishes.
Garlic press. I love garlic
Me too! I use a helix garlic press because it’s easier to press and does a better job.
Like this one:
Also, if you don’t have one of these silicone garlic peeler tubes, get one! It makes peeling garlic super easy.
I’ve never seen that press before, but my other press did come with a silicone tube like those. I use it 50% of the time.
I haven’t seen this one mentioned yet: Chef’s Press. They’re interlocking stainless steel weights.
I was a bit nervous buying them as they aren’t cheap and I wasn’t sure how often I would use them but they’ve proved to be one of my most used kitchen gadgets. I use them a few times a week.
They’re great for keeping steaks in contact with the pan when searing or keeping bacon from curling up. I use them to weigh things down in water for thawing or cooking in the sous vide cooker. They’re good for pressing cheese or tofu.
They have built-in handles that make them easy to pick up, stack, and interlock.
They’re dishwasher safe.
Perfectly designed for their job.
