Essential Kitchen Appliances
...and some to avoid...
Not every new gadget deserves a space on your counter. No matter how much (or how little) space your kitchen has, make room for the multi-tasking essentials and ditch the one-trick-ponies.
Coffee Maker
The most important kitchen appliance is a coffee maker. Whether you are a giant, antique brass cappuccino, drip, espresso, french press, or pour-over fan, without a coffee maker your day will never get started. Nothing deserves a space on your counter more. I will not be entertaining any contrary opinions at this time.
Toaster Oven
The toaster is dead. Long live the toaster (oven)!
The days of the antique toaster are over. Modern toaster ovens can do everything you need from a toaster, an oven, and an air fryer. Don't even get me started on air fryers. What a waste of money and counter space! A good toaster oven with convection cooking can do the same thing...unless you are baking giant pizzas, in which case a full-sized oven does the trick too.
Food Processor
Here's a confession: I'm old enough that the only food processor we had was a meat grinder clamped to a table. Modern food processors do so much more. Aside from grinding meat, it also slices, dices, grates,and mixes. If you get one with a blender jug attachment, you can preserve even more counter space. Speaking of which...
Blender
See food processor above!
I have gone for years without a functioning blender. Almost anything I would want to blend was placed in my food processor. Kinda chunky, never smooth, but I made do. Now that my food processor has a blender jug attachment, I can have a smoothie that is actually smooth...and without having to sacrifice prescious counter space.
Instant Pot
Yes, I know the company went bankrupt, but I'm still grateful for the Instant Pot. Old stovetop pressure cookers were responsible for a lot of kitchen explosions. That's a mess I can live without.
There are other brands of "programmable pressure cookers" but I can't cook without my Instant Pot. Perfect rice every time, and a wide variety of recipes in a fraction of the time and effort. Set it and forget it. Worthy of the counter space.
Stand Mixer
Excuse me while I date myself again, but I still refer to this as the "Mixmaster." There is only one now: KitchenAid. Not even going to discuss it. If you ever bake anything, you simply need this.
Crap You Can Live Without
Waffle irons, juicers, stick blenders, ice cream makers, and pretty much every other single-tasking gadget. You'd better eat waffles and drink juice every day to justify wasting your money on this sort of thing. There are workarounds and easier ways to become a good (dare I even say GREAT) home cook!
And yes, I do have a waffle maker. It's gathering dust in a cupboard.
