Most Underrated Kitchen Items That Every Cook Should Have

It’s a good day and you feel like spending time in your kitchen and prepare something new for your family or friends. You browse through the internet for a new exciting and mouthwatering dish, scan through its delicious images to the kitchen tools required. Then alas, you don’t have that specific tool and you being resourceful can’t even think of any workaround, will just have a look of dismay and move on to a new dish to prepare instead.

Sometimes we think that the kitchen tools we have is enough for all the dishes to prepare but more often than not, we tend to forget those little essentials that must be present in our kitchen to get the job done.

Read though this article and you might learn a few tools and utensils that sometimes be left out of the usual discussion but really a difference maker.

Instant-Read Thermometer

Instant-read thermometer is a simple yet important tool to quickly and accurately know if your dish is cooked and/or baked perfectly, from steak, to roast chicken, to all other mouthwatering dish that you are preparing for your family and friends. They provide you with an accurate temperature of what you are preparing and know if your dish is about to come to its perfectness. This tool is usually forgotten as more often relies on their instincts on the status of what they are cooking. More often, this led to you cutting what you are roasting or baking to see its doneness. And to save time and preserve the beauty of your dish (no need to cut it to check), this simple and cheap tool is what you need.

Kitchen Shears

Kitchen shears are one of many underrated kitchen tools as most people tend to ignore this and be contented in using knife or a cheap pair of scissors that is free on your knife-block set. This tools sometimes categorized as “Optional” in terms of must-have kitchen items. Actually, this is true but having a pair that costs only for around $10 to $15 can do magic! We know the basic use of kitchen shears such as snipping herbs, cutting open food packaging (that sometimes we use knife instead, and it is very unsafe), and cutting down poultry. But often most don’t know other magic of kitchen shears such as screw cap and jar lid opener, nut and shell cracker (crab’s tough exterior is no match), bottle opener, screwdriver (yes, you heard it right! Screwdriver to tighten lid’s handle and the likes.)

Chef’s Knife

All of us use knife for cutting, chopping, slicing and dicing but sometimes just barely getting the job done. That is because most don’t know that there are special kind of knife that gets the job done easily and effectively. Enter the chef’s knife, the higher quality of knife designed to improve your chopping skills, get the job done quicker with less effort. A chef’s knife is versatile and effective knife you can have in your kitchen. It is a large knife usually ranges from 8 to 10 inches in blade length with 8 being the most versatile. It has a broad and sharp blade that has a wide range of uses. Try one and you’ll cut through the difference with your ordinary kitchen knife.

Knife Sharpener

Of course, having a chef’s knife doesn’t do all the trick. You also need to have a sharpener in your kitchen drawer. You don’t want to interrupt your cooking moment due to a blunt knife and bring your knife to the nearest grocery store or anywhere where it can be sharpened. Don’t settle for a dull knife and be frustrated while preparing, instead have this knife sharpener and maintain your smile and enthusiasm cooking for your loved ones.

Immersion Blender

You might say that immersion blender is anything but a blender and that we can just use the conventional blender instead. You are absolutely right! This means that if you need to puree a piping hot soup, you need to transfer it to the blender from the pot, then pour it back to the pot afterwards. But ideally, this should be not the case. Immersion blender, also known as hand or stick blender, is another option. It is best suited for making small batch recipes as they are compact. Using this will eliminate complicated shifts from container to another container thus saving you time.

Your kitchen tools roster solely depends on the type of cook you are. And the tools you own usually grows in number over time when you encounter recipes that needs a specific tool. Having said these, it’s really optional to own above mentioned underrated kitchen tools but if you have the budget, this is a great “thinking ahead” tools that you will definitely be using as you explore new dishes to cook. Think of it as a fun investment that will save you time and effort in the future.