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.
A sharp knife. If that doesn’t count, my knife sharpener then.
Sink with running water, not having to go pump water.
This tiny rice cooker:
I live alone, so it easily makes exactly two meals worth of cooked rice (tonight’s and tomorrow’s)
Or I can just make one whole meal, with rice, frozen veg, satay sauce, and peanuts, or any other variant of a one-pot rice cooker dish. Super simple operation, just one button .
Easy to store away when I’m not using it, which is rare. Only cost $15.
It was a Technology connections video that convinced me to buy one. I then bought another one, a 12-cup rice cooker, for meal prep.
For me it’s our Tefal easy fry dual air fryer. It’s changed our lives. We barely use the oven anymore.
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.
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.
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.
electric kettle
Kettle with a keep warm setting
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.
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
