If you're starting to cook more in the kitchen or recently moved into a new house and need to stock up on the essentials, making a variety of dishes, especially nutritious ones, can be quite frustrating if you don't have the right kitchen tools. When moving into any new kitchen, it's crucial to stock your space with quality essentials that will ensure all of your recipes are successful. Keep scrolling to discover which kitchen essentials you should invest in to ensure that your first home-cooked meal is delicious.
Before you begin, we'd like to point out that it is unnecessary to purchase all of these items at once. Instead, we recommend slowly starting to use your kitchen and evaluating which items you need over time. If you have equipment that is no longer working, gradually swap it out for newer versions. Or, if you recently started from scratch, begin with the basics and start building up the perfect set of kitchen tools.
To give you a head start, we've outlined a list of our kitchen must-haves. Let's get started!
Kitchen Must-Haves
Chef’s Knife
To us, a chef's knife is one of the biggest game changers when it comes to cooking. If you've ever tried to cut a raw vegetable like a sweet potato with a dull knife, then you understand the struggle. While it's not impossible to use a dull knife, it does make preparing your meals a bit more time-consuming (and dangerous). Instead, we recommend investing in a quality chef's knife. Doing so will help you prep and cut your foods at record speed!
While there is a wide array of knives to choose from, If you're a novice cook, then a standard chef's knife is the best choice. A standard chef's knife works well when cutting just about anything, plus it will keep your kitchen minimalist and manageable until you've decided which other knives you need.
Cutting Board
Take care of your knives and your countertops by investing in a quality cutting board. Not only will a cutting board help you transfer food from the counter to a pan, but it will also work to keep your knives sharper longer. Plastic, bamboo and wood are excellent cutting board materials. We recommend steering clear of cutting boards made with glass or stone. These boards will do more harm than good as they will dull your knives much quicker than a soft surface would.
Cast-Iron Skillet
A cast iron skillet is an ideal tool for cooking a variety of meals like bacon, eggs, fries, pork chops and veggies. It is a kitchen tool that can honestly do it all. Aside from your knife, your skillet is likely to be the most used piece of kitchenware. Their heavy-duty nature makes them an excellent investment and a kitchen tool that will last for many years!
The size of the skillet depends on how many people you cook for regularly. For most families, a 10-inch skillet is a preferred size.
Saucepan
Investing in a small saucepan is an essential part of stocking your kitchen. Saucepans can be used for anything, from steaming veggies to boiling soups and sauces. Again, depending on the number of people you're cooking for, a medium-sized saucepan will likely work best.
Meat Thermometer
While a meat thermometer might not be the first tool you think of when stocking your kitchen with essentials, it will surely be one of the best investments you make. When first learning how to cook, determining when meat is done is often a trying task. While consuming undercooked meat can be dangerous, overcooked meat will end up dry and tasteless. To ensure that your meals remain stress-free even when they're packed with protein, purchase a meat thermometer. Doing so will help you know the exact temperature of what you're cooking so that you have one less thing to worry about.
Measuring Spoons and Cups
We've already talked about measuring the temperature of the meat. Now, it's time to talk about measuring ingredients! If you're following a recipe, measuring both wet and dry ingredients correctly plays a crucial role in how it will turn out. When searching for essential tools to stock your kitchen with we highly recommend purchasing a set (or two!) or measuring cups!
Again, it's important to remember that not everything on this list needs to be purchased at once. The tools that you decide to invest in depend entirely on your preference. Maybe you're a fan of baking and are eager to buy measuring cups, or perhaps you love grilling and know that a meat thermometer is essential. No matter what you decide to cook, we suggest purchasing the tools from this list that you find necessary and growing your kitchen from there!
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