8 Kitchen Tools I Couldn’t Do Without
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So we’ve established that a big part of living a healthy family lifestyle, especially if you are on a budget, is having a well-stocked pantry. But what about what you cook those things with? Is that important? I believe it is. In fact, the kitchen equipment listed below is stuff that saves me time daily, and I believe much of it saves me money in the long run as well.
But honestly? This list may look different for you. And it may be that it doesn’t save you as much time and money simply because you don’t eat the same things or cook and bake the same things or as much as we do. But I’d wager a lot of these things would be helpful.
I am a big believer in spending more upfront if you believe it will cost you less in the long run. It’s why we used reusable nappies for our children. It felt like a huge amount of money to spend at the time, but even just with 2 children so far, we have saved so much. We went back to disposables for a few months when my son was a newborn, and were spending £40 a month at least. Considering most kids are in nappies 2-3 years, I’d say it’s worth it!
I take the same approach with many things in life (if and when we can afford it that is), but nowhere is this more obvious than in my kitchen. Because a huge huge part of eating well and looking after your family’s health is cooking as much as possible from scratch, and life is busy when you have children, we felt that it was 100% worth the investment in these products in order to save ourselves time and money and invest in our health long-term.
Big picture, right?
So here they are, the 8 things I simply couldn’t do this healthy lifestyle without:
1) My Slow Cooker(s)
Although this list is not actually in order of usefulness, this would easily be #1 if it was. I use this weekly, sometimes several times a week, for various things. While it doesn’t necessarily offer a massive variety in the foods it produces (a lot of stews and soups come out of it), if you want to live healthily as a family on a budget, it is a must. It is inexpensive and will last you a lifetime. It uses less electricity than a lightbulb, and can transform cheap cuts of meat and budget ‘ugly’ veg into a truly delicious meal.
Why it’s useful:
It can make breakfast for you while you sleep, provide you with homemade sauces or jams, and even make sure you never need to buy yogurt again! Some clever people have even figured out how to make desserts in it. Halve the sugar or swap half/all the sugar for xylitol in recipes and you even have slow-cooker lower sugar brownies! For £25 to £65 depending on your needs, bearing in mind the massive savings on these things if they are made from scratch and not in an oven, it earns its keep many many times over. I actually own 2, this one and this one, and use them both regularly depending on the particular need. This one in particular is a brilliant one, as it can be used on the hob as well as having a timer and keep warm function and being big enough to cater for many people. Perfect.
What I wish I’d known before buying:
I wish I could go back and tell myself “buy one with a timer”. I ended up later getting a plug adaptor that can be programmed to turn it on/off and effectively do the same thing, and eventually ended up buying a bigger one with a timer anyway, but it would have been nicer just to get the timed one in the first place. That way you literally just have to dump ingredients in, maybe do a little stirring, and then leave it be while it cooks you dinner. Your very own personal chef! It pays to think about your future needs. This one was perfect when it was just me and my husband, and was still good when our daughter was a baby and ate little. I still have it and use it for yogurt and smaller meals, but our newer one with a timer is just so much better now that we have a bigger family and are more busy so have less time to keep an eye on things. The other thing I wish I’d known was that the Keep Warm setting on the digital slow cooker can only be on for 2 hours. It makes sense, as it is for health & safety reasons. But when I finally caved and bought an Instant Pot (which you can safely cook meat from frozen in, unlike the slow cooker), I was astounded at the 10 hour Keep Warm setting that meant I could make overnight breakfasts or keep a dinner ready for evening even if I was out all day.
What to make in it:
Try our favourite vegetarian lasagne or a big batch of sugar free Bolognese sauce to freeze in portions for the month ahead!
2) My KitchenAid Artisan stand mixer
Ok, so this one is less affordable for all, but this is my pride and joy when it comes to the kitchen, and has been well-worth the hefty price tag, although I am not sure it will completely “earn it back” in terms of money spent for quite a long long time (it has already earned back quite a bit in bread though). It is on daily in our house, so it’s definitely well-used, and honestly, I would buy it again given the chance to go back and change things.
Why it’s useful:
Bread can come with a significant price tag considering the cost of making your own, not to mention the fact that many commercial loaves contain a fair bit of sugar. When you also throw in shop-bought vs homemade cakes and sweet bakes, or preparing bigger batches of things, then this is certainly a useful time-saving tool for those of us trying to keep our sugar intake down! I make bread in this several times a week, pizza dough at least once a week, and usually a low sugar baked good of some sort most weekends. I whisk eggs or whip cream in it (to make my sugar free ice cream). There are attachments (although not cheap) that allow you to mince your own meat, cut vegetables, and various other things. It is expensive, yes, but it is heavy-duty and will be used daily for a long long time! Some people have even handed stand mixers down through generations, they are that sturdy, so I fully expect mine to get handed on to my daughter and even grandchildren one day.
The KitchenAid is also great if you have children. My kids love to help me in the kitchen, and having a sturdy, unbreakable metal bowl that they can fill before the actual mixing, kneading or whisking is done by the machine is really really helpful!
What I wish I’d known before buying:
Ok, yes, I love having a KitchenAid because they are iconic and pretty, but also because they supposedly last for many many years, decades even! So for me, when we had some money that was set aside as a one-off opportunity for my husband and I to spend on one expensive item we really wanted, this was always going to be mine, particularly when I found it at the lowest price I’d ever seen in a flash sale in a cook shop one day after a tonne of research trying to find it that cheap (my husband’s expensive item was a custom-made kilt… each to their own).
However, although the one I have now is amazing, works smoothly and is one I wouldn’t exchange, the first KA mixer I bought was faulty, and it took 2 years, some excruciatingly bad customer service, some massively inconvenient failed deliveries (apparently DPD do not believe in ringing doorbells) and a couple of threats to get KitchenAid convinced that it truly was faulty and I wasn’t being a total idiot enough to replace it. It was frustrating and if you had asked me back then if I would change my mixer for another, I may well have said yes and requested this one which is far cheaper and still sturdy, although might not last quite as long. (If you are after a cheaper but lasting one, I’ve heard great things about this one since purchasing my KA, and wish I’d heard those things a while ago! KitchenAid is the one with the longest warranty by far though!) But now that I have one that I can actually leave to knead bread for me while I play with my children, I would take that back. When you get a working one, it works like a dream and is totally worth it. And if you get a lemon? Well, push hard my friends! The customer service was pretty dire, but if you chase and demand and assure them (and their engineers) it truly is faulty, they will eventually deliver a shiny new one to your door and you should never need to contact them again!
What to make in it:
A stand mixer fitted with a dough hook is perfect for taking all the work out of our 90-minute bread recipe. Or why not whip up a batch of one of our sweet treats, like some gingerbread men or a one-bowl chocolate fudge cake. Or knead some dough for pizza night. On a hotter day, try the whisk attachment for our sugar free ice cream, which I always make in this!
3) My Cast Iron Pots & Pans
I do believe that long-established well-reputed companies are worth the price tag if there is not a better, cheaper alternative available that is supposedly as good. So when some Le Creuset cast iron pans came up on Gumtree in our area a few years ago for only £75 for the set, I jumped at the chance (I think I literally jumped in excitement)! And I have not been disappointed. There is no replacement for these, but it’s ok because it is another hand-down-through-generations kind of product that have been known to last 75 years or longer, so for me, it is 100% worth the cost. I think I would even have paid more, and that was for used ones! These came from someone whose grandmother had owned them, and despite a couple of small scratches, were (and are) in perfect working condition and I still anticipate handing them down to my children and grandchildren myself one day.
Why it’s useful:
Cast iron has a great reputation for performance, flavour and longevity, and these enamel-coated pans have all the benefits of cast iron without the faff of seasoning and caring for cast iron that its reputation gives it.
What I wish I’d known before buying:
Actually, I did know it. I did not buy cast iron on a whim due to the price tag, so I knew full-well that cast iron equipment takes a bit of looking after. Fortunately, I went for enamel-coated ones which are a bit less finicky to take care of. Still, these will only be hand-washed, take occasional extra care, and are very heavy to carry. But in my eyes, they are worth it. I would never change them, and hopefully should never need to. Even second-hand, they will be passed to my children, I am sure of that!
The only thing I knew about but would have changed if this opportunity had not been too good to miss is that my pans have wooden handles so are not suitable for oven-use. Not all cast-iron or even Le Creuset pans are though. And to be honest, I have a separate big cast-iron pot that I use for oven-use, so have never actually needed them to be oven-safe! I have included links to new sets of Le Creuset pans, but for your sake, I have to be honest: just get second hand. Unless you have the money to spend and particularly want brand new ones (in which case, go for these), these pans are sturdy things that last for a very long time, and generally I found that keeping an eye on eBay or Gumtree gave me better prices with the same results!
What to make in it:
Anything you can make in a saucepan! Particularly great options include our one pot 3-bean chilli, jam for our sugar free Jammie Dodgers, sugar free ketchup, our indulgent low sugar hot chocolate, or even pizza sauce.
4) My Magimix
I was given a great old simple food processor by my mum when I left home (a Kenwood a bit like this one) that she had already owned and used for a good few years, and it did well for a few further years in my care, but sadly, as with many mixers, it did die a rather slow and prolonged (and frustrating) death. When I starting cutting back on sugar, I started making things like nut butters to replace jam, my own baby purees instead of buying shop-bought ones with juice in them, homemade low or no sugar sauces, and occasional smoothies to replace juice. As a result, I found if I didn’t want it to take forever or cost an absolute fortune in the long run, the best way to do this was going to be to buy a good mixer. I mean a really good one. One of the ones that come with a really long warranty and a fantastic reputation for lasting so long it may even outlive me. With this in mind, there was only one option without going over-the-top expensive or getting a million gadgets for a million different things (or possibly having to deal with KitchenAid’s horrendous customer service again): I bought a Magimix.
Why it’s useful:
Like my KitchenAid, I use this daily! Sometimes a few times a day. I mean I am really getting my money’s worth out of this machine! You can use it for so so many things, and aside from my slow cooker, I would probably count it as my most useful piece of kitchen equipment and again, alongside my slow cooker, one that everybody should have in their kitchen. Any mixer is good, but if you want a really great one that can do things like nut butters (without starting to smell of burning) and will last for a long long time, Magimix is tried, tested, and terrific (and comes with a 30-year motor warranty).
The other great thing about this particular model is that it comes with 3 different sized bowls, which means less washing up! You can make 3 different things before any dishwasher-loading is needed! Ah, the things that will sell something to a tired mum like myself!
What I wish I’d known before buying:
Nothing. There is nothing to regret, it is ever so simple to use and wash, and it’s perfect for what I want to use it for. If I’d had a little more money in the budget, I may well have gone for the model above (my mum now has this one), as it would have been much better in terms of the amount it could do, the power of the machine, and the quantity I could make. That would have been wonderful, and I wish I could have, as it would have been a better investment long-term and not hugely more expensive upfront. But sadly that was not an option, and that’s ok. Because I get what I need to do done. And I am deliriously happy with it. As are my children, who adore making smoothies and sauces or grating and slicing items for dinner by shoving food in the top and pressing on. Honestly, this might be the best thing about this item. It means my 3 and 5 year old can essentially do all the prep for me!
What to make in it:
So so much! I most often use it for chopping/slicing/grating items so that the machine essentially does my meal prep for me. It saves a lot of time and a lot of tears where onions are concerned! It also means I can prep a load of veg for the next few days in one go and save myself prep time. It is great for blending soups and sauces, making pastry or biscuit doughs (try our gingerbread men or oatcakes in it), for making homemade wholegrain flours, for nut flours, milks or butters, for grinding fresh spices or making pesto. It even comes with attachments to whisk eggs and cream and to knead bread dough, although I personally find the results are nowhere near as good as using my KitchenAid for these so I tend to stick with the stand mixer for them.
5) Our Coffee Machine
Some of the things I love in our kitchen were presents. The KitchenAid was, in a way, from my late father-in-law. A gift I would gladly return to reverse the circumstances, but I know he would have approved. He loved quality and I learned the true value of spending a little more for better, longer-lasting products in part from him. Our coffee machine was another gift. My parents are avid coffee drinkers, but they would rather bypass it altogether than drink instant. My father-in-law was the same, as are my husband and I. We are coffee (and tea) snobs, and proud! Since cutting back on sugar in our diet, drinks can be a difficult area to navigate, but this machine makes it easier. We use our caffetiere a fair amount, but nothing beats this for speed and versatility. They originally got us a simpler one (at our request) and it did us well for a few years, but this one is a revelation in that it can make bean to cup proper coffee in no time that tastes amazing and should hopefully last us a long long time to come. Cappuccino with breakfast? Yes please!
Why it’s useful:
You can create coffee-shop-standard coffees in your own home for a fraction of the cost and in mere minutes! Plus, my kids loves “frothy milk” and it’s a great way to help them feel they are getting a special drink when juice is not an option in our house.
What I wish I’d known before buying:
Nothing! Our simpler model served us very well for a few years and I didn’t see the need to upgrade, but I have to say, now we have a longer-lasting, more expensive one, it has convinced me that it’s worth the extra money.
What to make with it:
Try our sugar free pumpkin spice latte, or simply pour yourself an espresso, or froth some milk for your choice of cappuccino, latte, or any other fancy coffee, hot chocolate or tea latte that takes your fancy. And use the extra milk to make your children a babyccino topped with a pinch of cinnamon, pumpkin spice or cacao powder.
6) Our Kettle
Everyone has a kettle. But after having yet another electric one break on us less than a year after getting it, we had had enough. We had some vouchers left over from our wedding presents that we had saved for just such an occasion, and we wasted no time going out and buying a beautiful and hardy Le Creuset stove top kettle. Many years later, having been used several times a day every single day, it still sits proudly on our hob and shows no signs of slowing down.
Why it’s useful:
Stove top kettles are noisy. The whistle can be piercing if left for more than a few seconds. But that is a very small price to pay for something that is used every day several times a day for tea, yeast for breads, pasta, soups, rice, coffee, sterile water for babies, infant formula, and pretty much anything else you can think of that requires boiling or hot water! It takes far longer for limescale to build up and is easier to clean when it does get it (we’ve had it for over six years and I’ve had to clean it with vinegar twice in that time, at which point it has gone back to being absolutely fine to use). And it is really robust. Other than being in dire need of a clean on the outside (I’m a mum, there are more important things to do with the little time I have), it shows little sign of wear. The lid has been dropped a few times and so has a tiny dent that means it sometimes takes a little longer for the whistle to blow, but for so many years of use and many more to come, I’m over the moon with it.
What I wish I’d known before buying:
I already knew it, but it really is a piercing whistle. And it can take a bit longer to boil than your standard electric kettle. But since I mostly put it on when I am around to use it, neither of these things particularly bother me. Certainly not enough to consider going back to electric. It won’t last forever – it’s been well-used and is getting a little old, but when the time comes to replace it, I imagine we will buy another stove top. Because judging by our past experience of electric kettles, we’d have to buy several for the use we’d get out of one of these. It costs a little more (although not a huge amount), but it earns that money back (and then some) in longevity.
What to make with it:
Boil some water for spaghetti and make our vegan pumpkin bolognese. Or replace the stock with water to make an even simpler version of our squash & apple soup.
7) Our Knife Block and Sharpener
A must-have in any kitchen, I use these several times a day, and sharpen them regularly. We were given them as a wedding present 3 and a half years ago, and they are probably the most-used item in the kitchen.
Why it’s useful:
Well hopefully this one is obvious! Chopping, filleting, crushing garlic, slicing, dicing, julienning, or whatever other fancy things you want or know how to do with knives…
What I wish I’d known before buying:
I recently discovered that it is more hygienic to have a magnetic strip on your wall for your knives than to keep them in a block which is impossible to clean. Still, knife blocks are often cheaper than buying individual ones, so it might be worth getting one anyway and getting a separate magnetic strip like this one if you want to go that route. Also, I have heard that ceramic knives are both healthier and longer-lasting, since they are not as easily corroded by food being chopped. If I ever find myself needing to replace my knives, I will probably opt for just a few and choose ceramic instead. It means hand-washing, but since they should last for far longer and supposedly never need sharpening, it feels worth it!
What to make with them:
Anything you can chop! Seriously, anything. Why not chop some veg to put on a pizza? Or make a loaf of normal or even chocolate bread and get out the bread knife.
8) My Instant Pot
I’ve saved the best ’til last. Seriously. I held off for so long. I kept seeing people rave about their Instant Pot and bloggers claiming you could cook anything in no time at all in it, and I knew I wanted one. I sold a few recipes and saved some money up and finally, the day came where I could order one. So I did. And boy, did it not disappoint! I still use it all.the.time. It can cook an entire chicken in 22 minutes, make veggie chilli in 5 minutes, and just generally saves my life on a daily basis. On those days (and there are many), where I panic at 5pm because I totally forgot to prep for dinner and no longer have time to make it, I can just whip out the Instant Pot and put my feet up, knowing that the cooking time has just been halved. I.love.it. And it seems to just keep getting cheaper on Amazon!
Why it’s useful:
It is super fast (seriously – a whole chicken in 22 minutes!!!), has one-click buttons for everything you could need it to do, can cook single ingredients or entire dinners in one go, can batch cook dinners, can cook from the freezer, keeps food warm for up to 10 hours and can pressure cook, steam, slow cook or sauté. Seriously.
What I wish I’d known before buying:
That it would be worth the extra work, saving up, and spending money I could have invested elsewhere. It was worth every penny, and I would probably have saved more quickly and bought it a long time ago if I’d realised.
What to make in it:
My chicken & bean soup is still one of my favourite (and simplest) dinners, and can be made in 25 minutes. My sweet potato & black bean chilli is delicious and takes just 5 minutes to cook. I cannot get over this method of cooking a whole chicken (and the pesto smothered over it is wonderful). And Pinch of Yum has put together a list of 12 healthy freezer meals you can prep and bag in advance, and dump straight in the Instant Pot from frozen. WIN.