27 Easy Kitchen Items If You Are Overwhelmingly Busy

Buzz Feed

6 days ago

An Instant Pot, because it is the epitome of "set it and forget it." (Though who can ever really forget a delicious-smelling dinner?) This friendly robot can help you whip up everything from soups and stews to a whole chicken (!!) — just find your new favorite Instant Pot recipe online, pop in your ingredients, set the timer, and voila! It's kinda like takeout... except it came from your kitchen??
Promising review: "This product is my best friend and I would marry it and grow old with it if I could. I've put pork loins, potatoes, yellow bundt cakes, rice, corn on the cob (look up INSTANT POT MILK CORN ON COB and you will never eat it any other way again!). I've made pierogies, lasagna, apple dump cake, a whole chicken, bone broth, chicken noodle soup... and more. This is all in less than a month. I'm eating healthier. Eating out less. Cleanup is easy. The food tastes awesome. The pork loin never dried out after it sat on the serving tray." —sugabugaGet it from Amazon for $69.99+ (available in three sizes).
An herb stripper, so you can stop living the dinner prep nightmare of stripping a serving of kale or other greens by hand. You're peeling, you're ripping, you're getting so bored that you try to remember every Gossip Girl character by memory. With this, make quick work of the prep so you can get to the good part (cooking your kale in various sauces until it no longer tastes like kale).
A veggie chopper because, not to be overly dramatic, but cutting vegetables up with a knife and a cutting board takes roughly 1,000 hours, and you will always have a few pieces that go rogue and end up hiding behind your radiator. But not with this chopper! Dicing and chopping peppers, onions, tomatoes, or any other fruit or veg is done in seconds — and it also protects your fingers from dinner-ruining cuts.
An electric potato peeler that can peel any fruit or veggie with a tough outer skin. Because there's nothing more relaxing than some delicious mashed potatoes at the end of a long day, but messing around with a traditional peeler? Waaaaay too much to deal with.
A rice cooker because rice always seems like it should be a simple, easy thing to whip up... until you accidentally burn it and end up with half of your rice stuck to the bottom of your pot. With this basic cooker, your days of scorching half of your starch on the stove are gone. It cooks up fluffy rice in just a few minutes and has a "warmer" feature to keep it hot and tasty until you're ready to chow down.
A two-tier stackable steamer for anyone who wants to start eating more veggies... but not badly enough to boil a pot of water, get out a steamer basket, and keep checking on it to make sure you didn't oversteam. Just plug this baby in, add water and your food, and wander away to live your best life while it makes your meal for you.
A silicone snap-on pasta strainer because you are here to carbo-load, not to poke through all your cupboards for your strainer and then accidentally scald your hand with hot pasta water! This attaches directly to the pot, so just snap it on, lean your pot over the sink, and commence snacking.
A "Gracula" garlic crusher that quickly and easily accomplishes two key dinnertime goals: 1. it produces finely crushed garlic with almost no effort from you, and 2. it gives you a lil' giggle. You work hard — let Vlad here be your sous chef and the entertainment at the end of the day. Plus, reviewers say it works for crushing nuts, too!
A Beautiful by Drew Barrymore dual-compartment air fryer, because yes, that means that you can cook two different foods at the same time. And not only that — you can cook them at different temperatures. The future is now, my friend!
Plus, if needed, you can remove the divider to give yourself a single compartment with nine quarts (!!) of cooking space.Promising review: "Absolutely fantastic air fryer - makes my counter look gorgeous too! Love the colors, the design and the extra room it makes it so easy to cook for my entire family! Dual zones so you can cook two different things at once, a broil setting baking setting, reheating setting and even dehydrate setting!! Best appliance I've ever bought!" —StaceyGet it from Walmart for $139 (available in seven colors).
A Chopula cooking tool that is (infomercial voice) two, two, two kitchen tools in one! But seriously, what could be simpler than no longer having to switch between a ton of different kitchen implements? The Chopula is a flexible spatula to loosen whatever food has decided that the surface of your pan is its new home; it's also a chopping tool that can even cut meat! Plus, it has a curved design that will keep it from dripping food all over your counters. That's also one less utensil to wash (and one less counter to wash).
A hands-free pot stirrer because sometimes, dreams really do come true (soup-based dreams, anyway). All you have to do is clamp it to the side of your pot, set the speed, and let it get to work while you do something more fun than stirring, which could be... literally anything.
A set of toss-and-chop salad tongs, aka "salad scissors," so you can make restaurant-quality salads at home quickly and easily, instead of putting in tons of effort and just ending up with a weird, sad pile of spinach and croutons. These scissors will chop any veg or protein you throw into them while also mixing up the ingredients better than you would with big, clunky salad tongs. And you can chop right in the bowl — so that's one less cutting board to clean. (And truly, is there anything worse than washing a cutting board?)
A stainless-steel avocado tool because trying to get that pit out with just whatever knives you have lying around the house is a fool's errand — and attacking the skin with spoons and knives to scrape out those last dregs of 'cado is even worse. This tool will help you remove the avocado's skin and pit and then slice it for a visually appealing presentation...or smash it up to make some delish guac.
Promising review: "Avocado? Yes, Please! This tool is awesome. Easy to cut open the fruit. Pit remover works well, just push onto the pit and give it a twist, and the pit pops right out. The best part is the slicer. Makes beautiful slices for a great presentation. The tool can then be used to scrape any remaining fruit out of the skin. Really happy I bought this!" —NPR ManGet it from Amazon for $9.99.
A microwave pasta maker, so if you get into that "too exhausted to even deal with bringing a pot of water to boil" headspace, you'll have options. Just put your pasta in the container, add water, pop it into the microwave, and when it's done, use the container to strain it. No mess, no extra cookware — just you, chowing down on spaghetti in less than 10 minutes, like the universe intended.
A microwave potato cooker because a baked potato should be the perfect convenience food (tasty, good excuse to eat sour cream, etc). The only flaw? It takes a very inconvenient 45 minutes to an hour to bake them. But no longer! With this handy-dandy sleeve, you can have a baked potato in 2–4 minutes, aka the exact correct time frame. Simplicity itself! Plus, it can bake up to four potatoes at once and make corn on the cob!
A breakfast sandwich maker so your stomach can have a new best friend. This miracle machine cooks every element of a breakfast sandwich in a single place, all at once. So no more "eggs in one pan, bacon in another pan, bread in the toaster, oh my god, what's that burning smell??" — only morning deliciousness.
A rapid defrosting tray because your whole dinner plan shouldn't have to be overhauled just because you forgot you were supposed to take the chicken out of the freezer three hours ago. Don't fear! This tray uses natural aluminum to defrost your frozen goods way faster than just leaving them out on the counter. I don't understand how it works! I just know I don't have to wait until 10 p.m. to have dinner now, and that's good enough for me!
A set of four nonstick, heat-safe sheet pan dividers so you no longer have to figure out how to cook your main and sides all on a single pan. Stop wasting valuable time worrying, "Will the rosemary chicken get covered in asparagus juice? Will the asparagus get covered in rosemary chicken juice?" Instead, just pop it in the oven, and brace yourself for deliciousness.
A Dash rapid egg cooker because, honestly, is there such a thing as a time of day that isn't right for an egg-based snack? (I swear, an egg did not pay me to say that.) This handy kitchen buddy can hard boil, soft boil, poach, or scramble up to six eggs — it can even whip up omelets! All you have to do is add as much water as instructed, add in all the eggs you want cooked, and, bam! Your fave protein, cooked your fave way.
The internet-beloved ceramic Always Pan from Our Place that basically does it all: it steams, sautés, fries, and braises, all with one pan. That means fewer pans to clean, fewer pans to store... just fewer pans to deal with.
A Beautiful by Drew Barrymore electric griddle with a removable stainless-steel backsplash because it will ensure that you have an easy-breezy morning cooking experience, instead of starting your day with a cooking accident where an egg or sausage takes a swan dive onto your stovetop or (gulp) floor. Plus, reviewers say it's easier to cook (and clean up) different foods on this griddle than using several pans.
Promising review: "10/10 will repurchase if needed or to gift someone. It's easy to use, clean and make any type of foods like breakfast and hibachi. This is perfect if you just want to make 2–3 things at the same time instead of using pans. Looks just like picture. Highly recommend buying this product and trying it out. It will not disappoint you." —anonymousGet it from Walmart for $49.96+ (available in eight colors).
A hands-free plastic bag holder that will vastly simplify your life if you're cooking a stir fry or any other multi-ingredient dish. Just pop those bags open with these, and you won't have to worry about cross-contamination — or having the outside of the bag get all slippery because you touched it with olive oil hands.
Promising review: "I used three of these to help me make freezer meals for after I have a baby. I can honestly say I don't know how I would have filled the freezer bags without these ingenious baggy holders. I was able to dump veggies, spices, meat, and cans of heavy beans and tomatoes into the bags, and they stood up the entire time without sliding or spilling. One of the bags I stuffed literally to the brim, as full as it could go, and the bag did not fall down. I would definitely recommend these." —Grace S.Get a pack of two from Amazon for $11.99+ (also available in packs of four and six, as well as individually).
A microwavable sandwich press, because you want a nice, crisp grilled cheese, but you don't want to deal with a big, heavy, hard-to-clean electric sandwich press, or go the traditional route (i.e. butter up a pan, flip the sandwich with a spatula, accidentally burn your first attempt at a sandwich, etc). Reviewers say this tool can whip up a crispy grilled cheese or other hot sandwich in the microwave in minutes, no spatula or tears required.
Promising reviews: 'I was unsure how well this would work, when I first saw it. However it works great. I made crispy on the outside and gooey cheese inside sandwiches. I am going to try it with other ingredients. I put it in the top rack of our dishwasher and it cleans beautifully." —M Smith"Just enter the time and that's it. Doesn't get any easier for consistently good sandwiches. What's not to love? I definitely would recommend this product." —BobGet it from Amazon for $23.99.
A spill stopper that does exactly what it says — place it on top of your pot, and if any water happens to boil over while you're not looking, this device will catch it. What a relief to no longer have to babysit that pot of ravioli.
A bagel guillotine because bagels are delicious and fun — but sawing one in half with the pathetic little bread knife you have at home? Way less fun. Pros use a bagel guillotine like this, which will cut your bagel into perfectly even halves in an instant, so you can get to the important part (simply drowning both halves in scallion cream cheese).
An egg separator for anyone who's ever emitted an actual groan when a recipe called for separating an egg white from a yolk. Well, groan no more! This tool makes it easy to remove the yolk, without accidentally popping the yolk or getting a million little shell pieces stuck in your egg.
Promising review: 'Love, love, love! In the fall of 2020, I made macarons every Friday. So, I needed to separate four eggs per week. Using this device has made that process much easier. Simply place an egg in the device, swirl it around a little, and ta-da! The only time I have ever had a broken yolk while using this device is if the yolk broke when I cracked the egg before I put it in the device. Reliable, easy, and worth every cent.' —Marielle DurrettGet it from Amazon for $7.95+ (available in one or two packs).
A microwave bacon cooker because for such a simple, delicious treat, cooking bacon is messy and complicated. Avoid that splashing grease! Make sure you remember to flip! Ugh, forget it. But with this simple tool, you just set the microwave for 30–60 seconds per strip and you're on your way to Breakfast Happiness.
Promising review: "I absolutely love this. Makes breakfast so easy . Bacon always crisp and after I take bacon out I crack an egg or two in the tray . The eggs are delicious dont taste greasy. Use it almost every morning." —REGINA PELLMANGet it from Amazon for $16.49.