Hello my fellow foodies! Today on Great Food 4U, we're exploring 10 kitchen must-haves and food prep products you may think are gimmicks, because we did too, till we tried them and found they are essential! And you know that if I, the quintessential bargain basement princess recommends them, they have to be good! They may be a little more expensive but don't skimp on quality. Use your rewards programs, coupon, sales etc., to save money, not a cheaper alternatives. So here are 10 food prep products, in no particular order, that we can't live without. I'll save the best and most surprising for last!
- A good knife sharpener. We love our "beaver teeth." These four-slot (and multi-stage) pull-through sharpeners are designed to handle different blade styles—typically featuring separate coarse and fine slots for both Western/European-style knives and Asian/Santoku-style blades (which require different sharpening angles). Some popular models offering this multi-stage setup include:
ZWILLING 4-Stage Pull-Through Sharpener Wusthof 4-Stage Universal Knife Sharpener
- A quality knife set with magnetic knife block. For decades we resisted buying the more expensive Japanese knife set until we did and then wondered why we'd waited so long! I got a five piece set from Amazon for around $40 and these knives are so much sturdier and user-friendly! I also began using a magnetic knife block to save space and keep my knives sharper. And I'll never look back to the cluttered jumble I used before.
- Anchor Hocking Batter Bowl with lid. I got a lidded batter bowl from Bed, Bath and Beyond ages ago and it is indestructible and indispensable. At under $20 on Amazon, it's a great value. You can mix, pour and store with it. It's microwavable so you can melt butter and things like that. If you're a KitchenAid stand mixer fan, the batter bowl pairs nicely with this machine.
- Glad Press 'n Seal. Yes, this is more expensive than cling wrap and yes it is worth it. It was introduced to me by my then 4 y/o daughter who, while shopping quoted advertising she'd seen on Arthur, saying "Mom, get Glad Press 'n Seal! It also makes custom bags!" Actually the product spokes-child sold some nearby shoppers on it as well! We use it for everything we can't use aluminum foil for, even those custom bags!
- Dawn Power Wash. At first when I heard about this spray cleaner I thought, meh, just watered down dish soap which I could make myself. But Dawn Power Wash has a "secret ingredient" (don't laugh, it's true) that does cut grease and gook on pans better than just soap. We spray it directly on scraped pans and let it soak in. Then, voila, with just a tiny bit of gently scrubbing the pans comes clean. I especially Dawn Power Wash for cast iron pans, grills and outdoor ceramic coat griddles.
- Cast iron cooking pans. I was Team Teflon for the longest time. Don't judge, we didn't know 40 years ago how bad it was for us or at least I didn't. Anyway, then I switched to ceramic and copper cooking ware and I do still like that. Then our daughter gave us a Martha Stewart cast iron set with frying pan and Dutch oven. And we found that for most things, cast iron rules supreme, especially frying. And yes it is heavy as sin. So we clean our cast iron pans and leave them on the stove because we are old and don't have the strength to haul them out of the cupboard. And daughter bought them in pretty teal so they look nice on the stove and no one knows they're not accessories but laziness workarounds, LOL (shhh, don't tell!)
- Lazy Susan: Speaking of laziness, a few good ole' Lazy Susan multi-level revolving shelves, are essential must-haves for a "step saver" kitchen, as my grandpa dubbed ours. We cram an entire arsenal of spices and vitamins onto two separate ones and reduce cupboard and countertop space to a fraction. We also use a single level one on the (equally small) kitchen table to corral condiments, napkin holder and the two-level produce baskets with banana hook (another must-have, bonus, yay!)
- Cheap folding single- step stool. I bought one for $6 on Amazon Haul and it paid for itself in a few uses. My grandson Emmett adores it and insists on taking it out and using it each time he visits. So we have several, one in each bathroom and in the kitchen. Because along with being small, our kitchen's designer was a giraffe who built the cupboards several feet above my head. 🙄 So the step stool is for safety as well as functionality.
- Hamilton Beach Toaster Oven. So my husband insists that the Air Fryer is most useful, but I've been a loyal devotee for the old school GE Toast-R-Oven for about 60 years or, since my granddad first made me toasted cheese sandwiches in his. Hamilton Beach bought the Toast-R-Oven name and it functions the same. You can bake, roast, toast, broil, even boil in this multi-tasking wonder. You just need an oven safe Pyrex baking dish or metal cooking pan. Aluminum foil works, too. I love it so much more than the microwave oven for so many reasons: safer, more natural food taste and steady convection cooking. And it saves SOOO much energy over the full size oven and cuts costs dramatically.
- Crock Pot style slow cooker. This uses a fraction of the energy to slow boil full meals. The slow cooker is perfect for "fix it and forget it" meals because it can safely simmer all day. I have the biggest size available and it cooks pork loin, meatballs, boiled dinners and pot roast beautifully. I've even made casserole type dishes. We love coming home fragrant house and a hot and ready meal with only a little morning prep. I can see I'm going to have to do another article on small appliance must haves alone.
- Baking soda. Yep, cheap, safe, versatile bicarbonate of soda. Some of you may remember the Arm & Hammer commercials which showed you hundreds of ways to use baking soda around the house, to deodorize, clean, freshen, scrub, you name it. We keep some in the microwave to prevent that yucky "microwave smell." Use it in the fridge to quell freezer burn smell too. But my favorite use of baking soda is as a cheap, scratch-free scrubbing powder. I use it to clean baked on stove strike plates, flatware (sooo much safer than silver polish), the oven, stovetop, porcelain, glass, pots and pans (it does cast iron beautifully). Baking soda with vinegar or even just water cleaned the griddle where nothing else would. I make a paste and leave it on for awhile. You can see it working when it starts to turn brown. Then a little elbow grease and your pans sparkle!
