Today, we’re going to be talking about ten kitchen utensils that I find really helpful in cooking and serving food. I don’t like having a ton of stuff, especially gimmicky things, lying around the kitchen. Good utensils have got to be simple, fit into the drawers, and really be super helpful. There are no affiliate links with these – these are just things that I have in our home that I find helpful.
The first one is a sturdy whisk – a nice solid whisk that’s not flimsy, and doesn’t break easily. You’ve got to work hard with those when you’re whisking things – custard, eggs, sauces like cheese sauce, or even just whipping some cream by hand. A whisk is great. I use it a lot, even when we’re making something like mushroom sauce in a pan, and we add a little bit of thickener, or when we’re making gravy. It’s really great to have a couple of sturdy whisks for that.
Number two is a slotted spoon. I’m sure you’ve seen the large, round, slotted spoons which you can use to scoop things out of boiling water, or slowly lower things into the water, like an egg to be boiled. I also like to use these when serving food, because it’s great to be able to get your bolognese out of the pot with a little less water in it if you’re having it on wraps or rolls, and it’s so great to have less liquid on your plate. Again, if it’s something like stroganoff, maybe you want a little bit less sauce. A slotted spoon is really helpful to use for anything that you want to get out of the container onto your plate that requires not too much liquid.
Number three is a spaghetti spoon. Recently, we had pasta when we had friends over, and they were surprised to see the spaghetti spoon, and expressed an interest. It’s really great for lifting spaghetti or pasta out of the boiling water. Also, most of them have a hole in the middle which shows your portion size when you’re cooking spaghetti for one person. It’s just a great tool for working with pasta. You just need to be careful not to squish it. If the pasta’s well cooked, and you’re mixing it with a spaghetti spoon, it can get crushed, so be careful of that. But this spoon is generally very helpful when you’re cooking your pasta and you want to taste some to see if it’s ready; you can scoop some out easily.
Number four is a mini grater. You get those flat graters that you only have to hold in one hand over your food, and then you grate from there, and it’s a really quick way to put some cheese on your meal. Then you get ones that are zesters for maybe lemon peel or orange peel. Adding that to soup, to dessert, or to ice cream is delicious. And then you get the small hole grater as well, for if you want to put some parmigiano reggiano on your meal, some parmesan or other cheese, or anything that’s good in a small grated size. It’s really helpful to have the tiny little graters that you can use over your food instead of using a whole big one with a plate every time.
Number five is a cheese slicer. This is a simple one, but so useful. It makes those lovely thin slices of cheese, and then you can quickly get some onto a plate to serve with a meal. I really enjoy our cheese slicer. It’s so great for fancy cheeses as well, because it slices them so nice and thinly.
Number six: a pair of tongs is so useful in the kitchen. I like the ones that have silicone covers over the tong parts. These are so useful for many things. You can use them if you’re cooking something and you need to take it out piece by piece, or you need to put things into boiling water. You can use them with the grill, you can use them when serving food. If you’re serving a stir fry mix with cabbage, or a salad, tongs are so useful for serving. I really enjoy my tongs.
Number seven is a silicone pastry brush. This is so useful for putting egg wash on pastry, or sauces on meat. I find it’s much easier to clean than a wooden pastry brush, and it really works well. So, it’s good to have a silicone pastry brush, or sauce-on-meat brush.
Number eight is a few silicone spatulas. These are so great for wiping out bowls when baking, for scraping things into containers, or even deglazing the bottom of a pan a little bit. I find the silicone is so helpful because it won’t melt, and it works really well to scrape and clean.
Number nine, which is similar to that, is a silicone egg lifter. I find these so helpful, because often I’ve had rubber or plastic ones that you can’t really use in a hot pan because they’ll melt. I’ve also had ones that have got plastic handles that melt when you put it on the side of the pan. Or sometimes you get the wooden or the metallic egg lifters, and those can damage the pan, especially if it’s a non-stick pan. We use diamond coated pans, and they can be damaged with the wrong implements, so we like to use the silicone for those. It works great, and it doesn’t damage anything or melt.
Then lastly, number ten is the vegetable peeler. You can use this for obvious things like peeling carrots or peeling potatoes. But what I really enjoy is when we want to make zucchini ribbons or carrot ribbons, the carrots for a carrot salad, and the zucchini to steam, the vegetable peeler is really great at making those just the right thickness for a nice side dish.
Then one more – it’s not actually a utensil, but I find it very useful, and that’s silicone muffin cups. I find the silicone muffin trays too bendy when you try to lift them out the oven, and they’re all wobbly. I guess you can put them onto a baking tray and use that, but I like to use ordinary muffin trays with the silicone muffin cups in them. Then you can take the muffins out individually in the cups, and you can peel them out of the cups. These are obviously reusable and easy to wash, and they’re really great healthwise; much better than the paper ones. It’s great to have silicone muffin cups for muffins, for breakfast eggs, and for any kind of cupcakes. They really work well.
Those are just some things that I’ve really enjoyed using to make life easier for me in the kitchen. They’re not expensive at all, and they’re quite easily available – perhaps you could add some of those to your Christmas wish list.
Then there are some larger items that I really enjoy using in the kitchen as well. A sieve is great, but I enjoy one that has legs – a standing sieve is so much easier to use. It can be used in a way similar to a colander to drain pasta and other food, or it can be used by placing it in a bowl, and then sieving your flour or whatever. It’s so much easier to balance than having to hook the sieve on and hold it while you sieve something.
A citrus juicer is so useful. My favorite one is one that you put on the counter, and then you cut the citrus in half and just juice it on there. The liquid collects in the bottom, and you can pour it out into whatever you’re making. I do prefer that to the handheld one, but that can also be useful to juice over a pot or anything that needs to have the juice in it, when it’s on the stove or something. A citrus juicer is very useful. I put lots of lemon juice on fish when I’m cooking them in a casserole dish.
Then silicone baking mats are very useful. Instead of using parchment paper on a baking tray, you can use a silicone baking mat, and then wash it in between uses.
Another great thing to have in the kitchen is a pair of herb scissors. If you like to chop your herbs with a knife, that’s great. I know the best way is to roll them up and then slice them, but sometimes that can cause the liquid to come out of the herbs, and it bleeds a little bit on the chopping board. You probably get more fragrant results if you use herb scissors. It’s basically a pair of scissors with more than one blade on each side, and it chops quite a lot of herbs at a time. Those are quite fun to have.
Then a vegetable spiralizer is great fun. We’ve had various kinds over the years. It’s great to be able to make strings of zucchini, carrot, or even cucumber. Those are really nice for adding to a pasta dish, or using them instead of pasta or, even in a salad. But the thing about these spiralizers is they can become quite clunky, and take up a lot of space. You do get ones that are simpler – I prefer the simpler kind.
You also get a julienne tool, which is a tool that has nine holes, which you push a vegetable through, and it’s got blades at the top, so it slices the vegetable into julienne size pieces, which can be quite fun.
Lastly, a stainless steel vegetable steamer is great. I don’t like to use those on the stove because of how forgetful I am. Often the water runs out, the pot burns, the vegetables burn, and they taste terrible. But I recently discovered that you can put a vegetable steamer into an instant pot and then the water won’t run out, because it’s got an off switch. You set it for a time, and then it turns off. Also, because it’s closed, the water stays inside.
To steam vegetables in the steamer, you would simply put one and a half cups of water into your instant pot. Then put the vegetable steamer in, and whatever vegetables you’d like to steam on top. Then you simply set it to pressure cook for zero minutes. Most vegetables will work with this time, though for some of them you may need one to five minutes. Potatoes would need 5 minutes, and carrots would probably need 3 to 4 minutes, but most vegetables will be soft with 0 minutes on the clock. What that means is that you start the pressure cooker, you set it to 0 minutes, and then it brings itself up to pressure over about 10 minutes, and then it brings the pressure down. You can leave it to release for about 10 minutes, and then release it yourself. Then your broccoli or cauliflower or zucchini should be the perfect softness. There’s also asparagus and green beans – they’re all delicious.
Then you can add a little butter and salt when you’re done. That’s a really great way to steam vegetables if you don’t have a vegetable steamer, or like mine, if it’s starting to not work so well after about 20 years of use.
I hope you’re inspired by some of these. Remember that you don’t need fancy things to be a great cook, but sometimes these things are really helpful. Remember to look for the video on YouTube under Family Food for Moms.
