Your kitchen should have the right tools. Welcome to A Guide to Gearing Up Your Kitchen, a series where I help you outfit the space with all the small appliances you need (and ditch the ones you don’t).
Welcome to our kitchen appliance buying guide. I consider the kitchen a laboratory or workshop of sorts. Just like a carpenter might need to consider a new-school reciprocating saw, I want to keep you up to date on the right cooking appliances you could use to make your time in the kitchen easier and fill your bellies faster (and the bellies of those you care about).
Just like there are basic tools that every cook needs—knives, cutting boards, and pans—there are also key appliances every kitchen should have. Whether you’re outfitting your first kitchen or you have the irksome feeling that cooking should be easier than it currently is, these four gadgets are clutch for everyday cooking, and make life in the kitchen easier so you can stop dreading it.
A speedy air fryer
Maybe you’ve resisted this handy countertop convection oven for years. That’s not unusual; I did too. Cooking on the stove and in a conventional oven works just fine, so why get another clunky appliance? Well, I have an air fryer now, and I’ll say this: You can try and pry it out of my cold, dead hands.
This machine uses a fan to circulate hot air rapidly around the basket and cook your food quickly. (Read here for more info on how air fryers work.) It’s ideal for smaller batches of food and only takes a minute or two to heat up. Compare this to the conventional oven that can take ten minutes to heat up a comparatively huge space just to cook a batch of french fries, wings, or two roasted peppers.
Then there’s the actual cooking time. Where a tray of baked potatoes will take nearly an hour to cook through in the conventional oven, they take about 25 to 35 minutes in the air fryer. Getting frozen French fries to actually cook past the point of flaccid strands used to involve flipping them multiple times and perpetually adding 10 minutes to the timer, only to get dehydrated potato sticks. That’s not my life anymore. Now I put French fries in the air fryer for 10 minutes and open the basket to crisp spuds every time.
Potatoes aside, you can make so many things in an air fryer that, I dare say, every person will find it useful. I love to use mine during Thanksgiving to roast up some veggies while my oven is occupied, and equally as much on an average day to warm up leftover pizza. Whether you’re living dorm life, teaching an after-school cooking class, or a person who needs an extra oven for weekly dinner parties, make some room for an air fryer. You won’t regret it.
Air fryers to consider:
For an oven design: Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer
For the basket style design: Instant Vortex Plus 6-quart Air Fryer
For a basket-style with window: Cuisinart Air Fryer Oven 6-quart
The classic toaster
A toaster. Really? Well, yes, I’ve come here to defend the humble toaster and all it works for. After all, this whole post is about the most essential appliances any kitchen needs, and it doesn’t get more essential than this. The toaster is devoted to a singular purpose: crisping and browning your bread in the best way possible. It performs this task better than an air fryer, a conventional oven, a frying pan, or any other appliance for that matter.
A toaster toasts the outside of bread to perfection while leaving the interior hydrated. It works because of where the heating elements are placed—up close to both sides of the bread. Air fryers, conventional ovens, and toaster ovens, have eight to 15 inches of air space between the heating element and bread, and I’ve gotta tell you, air isn’t exactly known for its ability to conduct energy. Air fryers will whip hot air around and the oven will take extra time to even tinge your bread brown. Both of these will dry out a slice of toast into a dusty cracker.
If you’re toasting sandwich slices, bagels, or just reheating a biscuit over the top, the toaster is the unsung hero of every day eating.
Here are some toasters to fit your needs:
For wide bread slots: Breville Bit More XL 2-slice Toaster
For extra long slices of bread: Breville XL Smart Toaster
If you must have a toaster oven: Black and Decker Toaster Oven
The efficient food processor
A food processor might seem intense for some home cooks—the giant blade, feed tube spout, and heavy base—I get it. It can be intimidating. However, while chopping foods with ye olde knife is effective for some cuts, it’s simply not feasible for everything. When it comes to convenience, efficiency, and versatility, the food processor wins.
A food processor is similar to the concept of a blender, but with a wide container instead of a tall narrow one. It’s a simple difference, but it changes everything. The container’s wide shape and longer blades allow the machine to chop ingredients more evenly because the blades can access more of the container at once. A regular blender will chop what’s at the very bottom of its cone-shaped container first, and if there’s not a good amount of liquid involved, it can over process the material at the bottom. Furthermore, many food processors come with multiple blades or discs, changing the functionality from a chopper to a high-powered grater, mandolin, or shredder. You can shred carrots for a cake, and then switch out the blade for puréed cauliflower soup immediately after. Say “goodbye” to 20 minutes of julienne hand-chopping, now your famous broccoli slaw can be made in five minutes.
Food processors have been around for some time now, so it’s easier than ever to find one that fits your needs. I live in a small apartment with limited cabinet space and nearly no counter space so I appreciate that my Ninja breaks down into parts that can puzzle together with other tools in a low cupboard. Where budget is concerned, many brands offer models that have fewer attachments or less power for a more affordable price. If you have a bigger budget, you can opt for the larger model, the more powerful engine, or more attachments.
Consider a food processor that fits your budget and needs:
For a smaller footprint: Ninja Professional Plus 9-cup Food Processor
Highly rated at an affordable price: Hamilton Beach 10-cup Food Processor
Highly rated for a larger budget: Breville Sous Chef Pro 16-cup Food Processor
Handy hand mixer or stand mixer
Even though the stand mixer upstaged the humble, gangly hand mixer a couple decades ago, I think they’re both relevant in our modern kitchens. Whether you make sourdough on a weekly basis, or only break out the mixer for boxed birthday cake, you should probably have one of these (if not both) available in your kitchen.
A stand mixer works independently on the counter and can handle tough mixing jobs. It has a mixing bowl that sits under the head of the machine (this might be a tilt-head or fixed). This is where the engine and controls live, and where the mixing attachments (whisk, dough hook, or paddle) connect. The shape and weight of the machine paired with how the attachments are designed make this machine a powerhouse for large batches or stiff doughs.
They’re great if you like to multitask. As long as there's no risk of overmixing, you can load it up and carry on doing other things, checking in every now and then. They’re helpful for doing work that would likely tire your arms out, like mixing eight pounds of Thanksgiving mashed potatoes, a triple batch of meatloaf, or kneading a double batch of pizza dough.
Average weight: 15 to 25 pounds
Average power: 350 to 500 watts
Average price range: $100 to $700
Stand mixers to consider:
For a tilt-head design: KitchenAid 4.5-quart Stand Mixer
For a fixed head: KitchenAid 7-quart Stand Mixer
A hand mixer is lower profile. The beaters click into the base, and the whole thing can fit in a small box to stow inside a cabinet. The entire engine is included in the handle, and it’s light enough for the average person to control. Unlike with the stand mixer, you have to be present while using it, since it has no stand (ah ha!) to hold it steady and move it around the bowl. The small shape, light weight, and long lever of the beaters give the hand mixer less leverage to tackle thick batters. Instead, use it for light jobs and liquidy batters, like cake batter, whipped cream, or whipping egg whites.
Average weight: 3 pounds
Average power: 200 to 300 watts
Average price: $30 to $150
Hand mixers to consider:
For a splurge purchase: Breville Handy Mix Mixer
For a highly-rated, affordable model: Hamilton Beach 6-speed Mixer
When deciding which one you need, consider the physical differences, price, and what you usually make. Are you the kind of person who makes a single serving of pancake mix on the weekends, or are you considering opening a natural dog biscuit business? Do you have ample counter and cupboard space? If so, maybe you can have both types. Either way you choose, both machines can take a load off your cooking routine.