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Kitchen gadgets that save time, not drawer space
15
items Fifteen kitchen gadgets picked on one test: do they actually save time, or just take up a drawer? Fast prep tools for chopping, zesting and garlic, small fixes for everyday annoyances like draining pasta and opening cans, a couple of batch cooking ba...
I'm a Gold Amazon Influencer with 1,100+ product review videos and a mom of three, so I spend a lot of time sorting what's worth the money from what isn't, and cooking for five leaves no room for gadgets that slow you down. I haven't tested every ite...
Contains affiliate links, so I may earn a small commission at no cost to you.
I'm a Gold Amazon Influencer with 1,100+ product review videos and a mom of three, so I spend a lot of time sorting what's worth the money from what isn't, and cooking for five leaves no room for gadgets that slow you down. I haven't tested every ite...
Contains affiliate links, so I may earn a small commission at no cost to you.
Sections
4
Prep shortcuts
Small fixes for daily annoyances
Batch cooking basics
Bigger buys for people who cook a lot
Prep shortcuts
The tools that cut the slowest part of cooking: chopping, zesting, garlic and citrus. All small, all under $35.
The push-down chopper with swappable blades for dicing onions, peppers and carrots fast, and everything drops into the container below instead of across the counter. Fullstar now sells several versions; this is the original with the most reviews. The...
Fullstar Original Vegetable Chopper with Container
Handles unpeeled cloves and has a built-in cleaner that pushes out the bits stuck in the holes. If garlic shows up in most of your recipes, this cuts out the fiddliest step.
OXO Good Grips Garlic Press, Self-Cleaning
The zester a lot of cooks end up reaching for daily: lemon and lime zest, hard cheese, garlic, ginger and nutmeg. It's razor sharp, which is why it's fast, so watch your knuckles as you get to the end of a lemon.
Microplane Classic Zester Grater, Black
Splits, pits and slices an avocado in one tool, so there's no knife anywhere near the stone. Small, cheap and fits in a drawer. Works best on ripe avocados; very firm ones are harder to slice cleanly.
OXO Good Grips 3-in-1 Avocado Slicer
A solid metal citrus press that gets more juice out of a lemon or lime with less effort than squeezing by hand, and it holds back the pips. This is the large size, which takes both lemons and limes. It costs more than most squeezers right now, so it'...
Zulay Metal Lemon Squeezer, Large
Small fixes for daily annoyances
Cheap fixes for the small jobs that slow dinner down: draining pasta, opening cans, cutting pizza, drying salad and checking if the chicken is done.
A pizza wheel with a protective guard that also handles quesadillas, flatbreads and pastry. It comes apart for washing, which most cheap cutters don't, so food doesn't build up around the blade.
Kitchy Pizza Cutter Wheel with Blade Guard
Cuts around the side of the can, so the lid lifts off with no sharp edge. It takes a couple of tries to get the hang of compared with a classic opener, but once you have it, it's the safer choice, especially if kids help in the kitchen.
OXO Good Grips Smooth Edge Can Opener
A silicone strainer that clips onto the side of your pot, so you can drain pasta or veg without carrying a heavy pan to a colander. Stores flat in a drawer. Check it against the pots you actually use, since it suits standard pots and pans best.
Kitchen Gizmo Snap N' Strain Clip-On Strainer
A salad spinner with a stop button and a bowl that's nice enough to serve from. Properly dry leaves mean dressing actually sticks, and salad stops being a chore. Its rating is a little lower than other picks here, so skim the recent reviews before yo...
Cuisinart Spin Stop Salad Spinner, 5-Qt
An instant-read thermometer for chicken, steak and bread, so you stop cutting food open to check whether it's done (which is what dries it out). Same model that used to be sold as ThermoPro, now under the TempPro name.
TempPro TP19H Instant-Read Meat Thermometer
Batch cooking basics
Two unglamorous basics that make cooking once and eating twice actually work: containers that don't leak and measuring jugs that go from microwave to dishwasher.
Five clear, leak-proof containers with lids (ten pieces in total) that stack neatly and go from fridge to microwave. A good starter set if you want Sunday batch cooking to actually work; a family meal prepping for the week will probably want two.
Rubbermaid Brilliance 10-Piece Food Storage
Three heatproof glass jugs (1, 2 and 4 cups) with clear markings that go in the dishwasher and microwave. They double as melting and mixing bowls, which is why they earn their cupboard space.
Pyrex Essentials 3-Pack Glass Measuring Cups
Bigger buys for people who cook a lot
Three bigger buys that only make sense if you cook most nights or batch cook for the week. If that's you, these save the most time of anything on the list.
Cuts long-cook dishes like stews, beans and risotto down to a fraction of the usual time, and it's still the most reliable starting point for pressure cooking. One honest caveat: it takes a while to come up to pressure, so the time saved is biggest o...
Instant Pot Duo 6 Qt 7-in-1 Pressure Cooker
A big 14-cup processor for slicing, shredding, dough and batch prep. Overkill for one weeknight dinner, a real time saver if you cook in bulk or prep for the whole week. It takes up a lot of counter space, so measure under your cabinets first.
Cuisinart 14-Cup Food Processor (DFP-14BCNY)
An electric three-stage sharpener that brings a dull knife back to a proper edge in a couple of minutes. It's a splurge, but a sharp knife speeds up almost every prep job in the kitchen. Worth knowing: it converts knives to a 15-degree edge, so the f...
Chef'sChoice Trizor XV 15XV Knife Sharpener