12 Vital Kitchen Utensils Every Home Cook Should Have

Equip­ping your kitchen with the right tools is the first step toward good food. Whether you are orga­niz­ing your kitchen for the first time or need to replace any worn-out things, invest­ing in these kitchen items will make cook­ing a fun and sim­ple hob­by that you will love. Here are some of the essen­tial kitchen uten­sils every cook should have.

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#1 Chef’s Knife

If you are going to cook, you will need a knife. A home chef’s best friend is a good knife, and it is one of the few items you will be glad to spend mon­ey on. Choose a knife that you seem to be com­fort­able with because you will be using it a lot. It should feel bal­anced, com­fort­able to grasp and han­dle in your hand, not too heavy, but not flim­sy. Car­bon-plat­ed stain­less steel knife will keep its sharp­ness over time.

If you have mon­ey and space for one knife, get a chef’s knife. Because you will be using this knife for 90 per­cent of your food prep, get a decent one and take care of it. I also sug­gest get­ting a ser­rat­ed knife and a par­ing knife, as they serve dif­fer­ent pur­pos­es. For exam­ple, ser­rat­ed knives are suit­able for slic­ing toma­toes and bread, while par­ing knives are ide­al for small­er, more del­i­cate tasks where a large knife would be ineffective.

#2 Kitchen Shears

Even if your kitchen is entire­ly stocked with the lat­est and great­est in cook­ing uten­sils, it nev­er hurts to have a cou­ple of shears around just in case. These ver­sa­tile scis­sors are indis­pens­able when it comes to all kinds of dif­fer­ent tasks. For exam­ple, you will need shears on a dai­ly basis to open pack­ages, cut herbs, slice through piz­za, remove fat from meats, and even cut the back­bones out of chickens.

#3 Kitchen Spatulas

When pur­chas­ing new kitchen spat­u­las, the mate­r­i­al is first to con­sid­er. How much time (or patience) you have to hand wash tools will deter­mine which mate­r­i­al is best for you. Some mate­ri­als, such as sil­i­cone, can be washed in the dish­wash­er. On the oth­er hand, wood­en spat­u­las should nev­er be put in the dish­wash­er. How­ev­er, you must con­sid­er the type of cook­ing you will be doing as well as the pots and pans you will be utilizing.

A stur­dy met­al spat­u­la should be part of any cook’s toolk­it. It is often called a turn­er or flap­per. It is used to turn or move food when­ev­er you work with met­al cook­ware. A robust met­al spat­u­la is essen­tial for flip­ping, toss­ing, and serv­ing many kinds of foods. Con­sid­er scram­bled eggs, puffy pan­cakes, roast­ed veg­eta­bles, cooked meats, baked salmon, etc.

But for use with ceram­ic Dutch ovens and non­stick pans, you will need sil­i­cone or wood­en spat­u­las. A sil­i­cone spat­u­la is what you will use to scrape off every last drop of cus­tard, bat­ter, or sauce from the inside of a pot or bowl, rather than just turn­ing and flip­ping with it. How­ev­er, if your spat­u­la is made of rub­ber instead of sil­i­cone, it may melt when exposed to intense heat.

#4 Cooking Tongs

Tongs are like an extra pair of hands that come in handy while cook­ing. As well as assist­ing with flip­ping ingre­di­ents in fry­ing pans or on sheets of alu­minum foil, they may be used to stir pas­ta, open wine bot­tles, serve sal­ad and even reach those hard-to-reach places in your cup­boards with them. They are also per­fect for serv­ing fam­i­ly-style dur­ing a din­ner par­ty or pic­nic. If you use them, you will avoid numer­ous cook­ing mishaps.

The 12-inch tongs are suit­able for reg­u­lar use, while the 14-inch tongs are per­fect for grilling. It is also crit­i­cal that they have sil­i­cone tips to min­i­mize scratch­ing and a high lev­el of heat resis­tance so that they do not melt away after repeat­ed usage.

#4 Y‑shaped Peeler

A Y‑peeler is a veg­etable peel­er with hor­i­zon­tal blades at the top of a y‑shaped han­dle. The edge of this peel­er is per­pen­dic­u­lar to the han­dle, unlike most oth­er types. The peel­ers may save you time while peel­ing pota­toes, car­rots, or oth­er veg­eta­bles. How­ev­er, the one with ser­rat­ed blades comes in handy for peel­ing soft­er skins and slic­ing cit­rus fruit. Always ensure you have a nice, sharp peel­er that could shave off the cheese or make veg­etable rib­bons while mak­ing up a fan­cy and healthy meal.

#5 Can Opener

A can open­er is an essen­tial kitchen tool that you should always have on hand when­ev­er you need to open a canned prod­uct. The main thing to con­sid­er while pur­chas­ing a can open­er is that it should be capa­ble of open­ing a can eas­i­ly,  do not cre­ate hand pains, and do not leave sharp edges at the top of the can is to con­sid­er. First, it is a sim­ple request, but many can open­ers on the mar­ket can­not do it. Sec­ond­ly, it must be easy to set up and use with no com­pli­cat­ed process­es, and final­ly, it should be long-lasting.

#6 Medium Box Grater

Graters are that may be an asset in any kitchen, from slic­ing cheese to minc­ing gar­lic. The typ­i­cal box grater has two sides with holes for grat­ing (one large and one small), one side is for slic­ing like a man­do­line, but not as sharp, and the last side has tiny punched-out holes for zest­ing or very fine­ly grating.

It is sim­ple to store and use box graters since they are resilient, light­weight, dish­wash­er safe, and can be used for var­i­ous pur­pos­es. Box graters are sim­ple to use but can be chal­leng­ing to clean. Food can quick­ly accu­mu­late on the sur­face of the grooves, which can be dif­fi­cult to reach. Cheese, for instance, clings to the box grater and, if left too long, it hard­ens. Clean it quick­ly after each usage to keep it in good con­di­tion. Wash with a brush or rough sponge in hot, soapy water.

#7 Garlic Press

A gar­lic press is a use­ful cook­ing gad­get that you will use more often than you think. It came out use­ful for pro­duc­ing even­ly “minced” gar­lic that is con­sid­er­ably small­er than what we might do by hand. A gar­lic press also comes in handy when we need to crush a large amount of gar­lic together.

It is per­fect for those of us who adore gar­lic fla­vor in every meal or if you are a lit­tle self-con­scious about your knife skills. Toast­ed gar­lic bread, gar­lic shrimp, and oth­er quick and easy dish­es ben­e­fit from the con­ve­nience of this portable tool.

#9 Measuring Spoons

A mea­sur­ing spoon is a kitchen uten­sil rang­ing from one table­spoon or 15 ml in size. It holds a spe­cif­ic amount of dry and liq­uid ingre­di­ents. The small­est spoon mea­sure­ments are a smidgeon, a pinch, and a dash. Oth­er sets include tea­spoon (tsp) and table­spoon (tbsp) mea­sures. They come in many dif­fer­ent sizes and mate­ri­als, and typ­i­cal­ly, they are con­struct­ed of plas­tic or metal.

#10 Measuring Cups

Mea­sur­ing cups are used to mea­sure out the prop­er amount of ingre­di­ents that one might need when cook­ing. A num­ber of things should be con­sid­ered when buy­ing kitchen mea­sur­ing cups. First, you need to decide if you need to mea­sure dry or liq­uid ingre­di­ents, the mate­r­i­al it is made from (plas­tic, met­al, and glass), and the ease of use (for exam­ple, does it have a han­dle or a pour spout). Next, con­sid­er how accu­rate they are (mea­sur­ing liq­uid or flour) and how easy they are to read.

#11 Instant-Read Thermometer

In any home kitchen, an instant-read ther­mome­ter is essen­tial. This tool assures that every­thing you are about to eat or serve has been cooked to a safe tem­per­a­ture, safe­guard­ing you and your fam­i­ly from food­borne ill­ness­es such as sal­mo­nel­la, etc.

#12 Colander

Essen­tial cook­ing equip­ment, the colan­der, is most often used for rins­ing veg­eta­bles or strain­ing pas­ta. It is sim­i­lar to a strain­er and is usu­al­ly com­posed of a light met­al like alu­minum or thin­ly rolled stain­less steel. How­ev­er, it can also be con­struct­ed of plas­tic or sil­i­con. A colan­der is pierced with a sequence of tiny holes to allow the liq­uid to drain while the par­ti­cles remain inside the sieve.

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Final Thoughts

Kitchen­ware does not have to be dif­fi­cult or expen­sive to fill a min­i­mal­ist and effi­cient kitchen. You can end up with a ful­ly stocked kitchen that will last a life­time by pur­chas­ing only high-qual­i­ty mul­ti-pur­pose goods with a strong val­ue proposition.