I will confess I am all about kitchen gadgets. I am instinctively drawn to the kitchen tool aisle of every housewares department, and I fight the temptation to buy and try them all.
Because, while I know fancy-schmancy tools are not necessary to produce amazing meals, I also know the right tool can make the process a lot faster and easier.
If you spend a lot of time in the kitchen, here are 5 simple and inexpensive tools you need to add to your cooking arsenal…
Pastry Cutter
Pastry cutters, (some call them pastry blenders,) have been around for a long time, and yet I’m startled how many people have no idea what they are or how to use them. Pastry cutters have so many uses in the kitchen. They are perfect for blending flour with butter or shortening for pie crusts or biscuits. We probably use our pastry cutter most often for mashing avocados for guacamole, but you can also use it to make a small batch of mashed potatoes, or riced cooked cauliflower.
Herb Stripper
You can strip leaves from herbs with only your fingers, but some herbs are harder to work with than others. Curly parsley is easy to strip, but herbs with more tender leaves, like cilantro, can be more of a challenge, particularly if your bunch has lots of small leaves. I use cilantro a lot, and with my herb stripper I yield far more good leaves with little to no stems.
Cookie Scoop
If you’re a cookie-baker, you need a good cookie scoop! There are multiple sizes available and they’re all very useful, but a 1 1/2-inch scoop is really ideal. A scoop makes for nice, uniform cookies, and it prevents a lot of mess.
But even if you don’t make cookies often, the scoops have lots of other uses. They make filling muffin cups so much easier and less messy. You can also use them to make meatballs and sausage balls, and to neatly fill deviled eggs.
Avocado Slicer
I love my avocado slicer so much I just had to share! We eat diced avocado often, and we make a lot of guacamole. The avocado slicer makes slicing avocados so much easier. Removing the pit is a breeze, and scooping/slicing the flesh from the peel is quick and easy.
The avocado slicer can be used to slice and scoop the flesh from other soft fruits as well. And if you’re making twice baked potatoes, (otherwise known as potato skins,) this little tool is great for scooping the cooked flesh from your potatoes!
Vegetable Dicer/Chopper
This little tool is such a time saver for me! I use diced onions in almost every dish I cook. Seriously. And we make a giant batch of pico de gallo almost weekly. My vegetable dicer makes the dicing process so much faster and easier, and I love all the uniform little chunks I’m left with in the end. It also collects all the vegetables in a built-in container. Mine comes with two extra blades for chopping vegetables in larger sizes, and I love using it to dice or chop veggies for soups or stir-frys.
I’ll admit it took me a little time to master use of this one, (some vegetables chop easier if turned a certain way. Just try it yourself… you’ll get the hang of it!) and cleaning it immediately after use is almost imperative, (mine came with a mini-tool to help with that,) but the time and effort it saves me overall is well worth it!
You know what makes these tools even better? In addition to being handy helpers in the kitchen, all of them are dishwasher safe! Can’t beat that, right?
So do you have any favorite kitchen tools that didn’t make my list? Please feel free to share!
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