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Probably just my chef knife. But that's an obvious and boring answer.
My choice would be my hand blender. I use it for making any dips, many sauces (it is made out of metal) and it also got a blender attachment for shredding vegetables. One of the best investments I made for my kitchen.
Yeah, I love my chef's knife too. I recently received a hand blender secondhand but I am yet to use it!
I second the hand blender. It's just so versatile. I'll add soups and mayo to your list too.
Anyone here that hasn't said silicone spatula better get online shopping right freaking now. SILICONE SPATULA SUPREMACY 🙏🙏🙏🙏
Good call! Most grocery stores carry them too, that's where I got mine. I picked up two, one with a scoopy end and another with a regular spatula end. They're so nice!
My 10" cast iron Lodge skillet. It's great! And don't believe all the people who claim that you have to devote most of your life to taking care of your cast iron. They're cast iron for God's sake! Pioneers took them all the way across America in their Conestoga wagons. Just don't leave them wet or stick them in a dishwashing machine, and you're fine!
An unexpected one for me was my air fryer. I thought it would be very situational and gimmicky, but I use it all the time. It's basically a small second oven that cooks food faster, uses less energy, and doesn't take forever to preheat
And things come out more crispy due to the increased air circulation. I wouldn't have guessed i would use it so often too.
Appliance: Electric kettle. (they are uncommon in the US) It's well worth the counter space and easier to get boiling water than a pot on the stove, or to pre-heat water I add to a pan.
Non-appliance: Cheapo but sharp chef's knife, spatula, and kitchen tongs (great for grabbing hot lids too!).
As a Briton, the lack of electric kettles in US kitchens astonishes me - I can't imagine getting by without one. But I remember hearing somewhere that it was related to the lower mains voltage in the US, meaning that they take longer to boil in the US?
US electrical is weird.
We have 240v mains in basically every house (a very small percentage have 480v, which is normally reserved only for industrial buildings).
However, that 240v gets split at our local transformers into two 120v phases, separated by 180° phase. This allows either 120 or 240v (120+120) in our homes.
So yeah, most plugs including those in our kitchens are 120v.
However! A 120v electric kettle still blows out any other heating method, especially gas, gas is soooo slow. Some high-power induction stoves can keep up, because they can dump boatloads of power into a kettle and are really efficient, and honestly even small induction hobs like mine aren't much slower (5 mins instead of 3). But an electric kettle is like $25 and uses less power. They're so useful!
Only slightly longer than a 240v kettle, but still much faster than a kettle over a gas range.
Real reason is that most people in the US don't drink tea and don't have a need for quick hot water on demand.
I would probably hand over my beloved grind and brew amazing coffeemaker that also had a timer (it’s also my alarm) well before the electric kettle. Not only for tea, pour overs, kombucha, head start on quinoa, pasta, etc, blanching, and so on.
My electric kettle is almost always on. One with stay warm function and temperature control is great to accommodate the different temps I may want for various teas or coffee. It's also useful for speeding up cooking when I need to get a pot of water boiling.
I can't necessarily recommend a specific one though, my old gooseneck spout kettle was great for pouring but the screws holding the handle in place rusted out and the plastic clips broke. My current one is insolated to help stay warm longer which is nice but the plastic lid has begun deteriorating. The only advice I could really offer is find something with as little plastic as possible in it's construction, especially where it may touch water or steam.
I got a really simple one, but it's been incredibly helpful. Get the biggest damn bowl you can find, like unreasonably large, that is your new mixing bowl. I always find myself half way through a recipe with no bowl space left, therefore more dishes. My bowl looks like it could be an outside dogs water bowl it's so big. Now with big bowl, I grab it every time and never have to switch, the only downside is finding somewhere to hide it.
Oh yes! I love my giant bowls for washing voluminous leafy greens and fermenting fruit vinegars.
My carbon steel pans are used almost every day. I've got a 32 cm wok for stir frying, deep frying and blanching big portions. And i got a 28 cm debuyer mineral b for searing meat and fish.
After years of thinking about getting one, I got a cheap ($12) japanese rice washer. It's amazing! I make a lot more rice than I used to and the washer is so simple and just works so well. It also doubles as a regular colander whenever needed.
Me too! I've also used it as a colander, and I used it to catch a small lizard that found its way into my house a couple weeks ago.
If only it didn't come with a sticker on the bottom that resists removal...
I own very expensive knives. I bought them when I was single and had a good income. I have taken very good care of them and they are great knives to this day.
The first knife I always reach for is my $15 Chinese cleaver.
I've been using a Lido 2 hand grinder for coffee every morning for almost 12 years now. More recently (~7 years) I've settled on using a Chemex to actually make my coffee. I'll likely keep using this setup for the rest of my life.
I also have a cast iron and I struggle with seasoning because all the burners I've ever used are just a bit too small for it (common electric ones). Soon I'll buy a torch (like for making Crème Brûlée) and maybe some sunflower oil to experiment on getting a reaallly nice coating on it. Sunflower oil has I higher burn temperature, so I'm thinking it will improve the longevity of the coating, but we'll see.
A ramekin full of salt on the counter.
In order: Drip coffee pot so old the label is gone and I have no clue what brand it is but the little champ keeps going, the flexible cutting board my brother in law got us, and the kitchen knife with a bent tip that somehow cuts better than all the other knives even when the other knives are freshly sharpened and it isn't.
I have become an air fryer believer. Yes, it's basically a convection toaster oven, but SOMEHOW it works 100x better. That, my instant pot, and my stand mixer are my life. Air fryer to quickly make chicken nuggets for my picky children, instant pot for rice and beans, and my stand mixer for bread. We love carbs.
Microplaner.
I love throwing garlic in my food. Grab two pieces, put them through the planer, and bam, you got fresh garlic paste.
Plus hard cheese, citrus zest, all the good stuff. Cleaning is also a breeze.
I've got Zojirushi instant hot-water maker and their bread machine that both get a lot of use. And I recently picked up some random brand one-top induction cooktop that has taken most of the action away from our older electric stove. But the one thing you would have to pry from my cold dead hands would be the rack of cast iron cookware. At least one or two of the pans there get used every day.
My Breville Toaster Oven. I rarely use my regular oven since it's so much more efficient, and fits 90% of what I cook in a house of 2 people. The air fryer function works really well (obviously not quite as good as a dedicated one).
My 10 inch cast iron pan
Skillet and sharp knives!!
I'm embarrassed, but...my microwave gets a lot of use. I meal prep and reheat a lot, though sometimes I get fancy and finish in the toaster oven. I also bake all my bread, and the kitchenaid is invaluable for kneading all that dough.
The most esoteric tool I use on the reg is probably the whirley pop, it makes the best stovetop popcorn, which I snack on at least a couple times a week.
Nothing wrong with microwave cooking. You'd be surprised how many things you can cook with one. Old school microwave cookbooks from the 70s are awesome.
I love my microwave too. Had to get a new one recently as our old one bit the dust. It meant a whole week without microwave lentils or precooked meals that I'd frozen. I was so lost! I'm not a huge fan of cooking so the micro is my friend.
Kitchen Aid mixer. Versatile as hell, we use it for so many things. Making pulled meat is a LOT easier to toss into the bowl and flip a switch than it is to do by hand.
My rice cooker! It takes the guesswork out of making brown / mixed grain rice and the cleanup is 123!
I’d say aside from my chef knife and various coffee related implements, the MVP in my kitchen is undoubtedly my enamel cast-iron Dutch oven.
I'll go with: High quality burr coffee grinder.
I bought it in 2004 or so, it gets used daily, and still works like new.
Only thing I've ever done is replace the burrs a few weeks ago cause they were getting dull. Was an easy job and the burrs were pretty inexpensive.
Just going to save some people some research and say: just get a Baratza Encore. Good enough at it's price point to make great filter, cold brew, or aeropress coffee, and every part that could possibly break can be ordered directly from the company and repaired yourself (although a lot of people go 5-10 years with their machine in perfect condition). If you're doing espresso, there's the encore ESP, and if you really want the highest quality burrs for the price, you can go for a hand grinder from any number of companies, such as 1zpresso
Baratza Encore
Sounds like a great deal. Mine's a Rancilio Rocky, but I didn't specifically suggest it as I knew the market would have changed in the past 20 years.
Yessss, grinding your own beans is the single best thing you can do to make better coffee.
Every morning, we rotate between a Bialetti moka pot + an Espro P3 french press for coffee depending on what level of expression/mouthfeel we're craving out of our beans that day.
For cooking uses, my most used gadgets are:
Also coffee related now that I'm thinking on it...
Holy Jesus, I will be shit out of luck during the next power outage that happens.
My cast iron pan. I use it for everything that doesn't need to be done in a pot. Even things I probably shouldn't do in a cast iron like stir fry I do anyways because it's just already there and convenient.
My coffee grinder, french press, and electric kettle.
My most used kitchen items are also my coffee setup. Gaggia classic and eureka mingon. Used at least once a day
Recently made the leap to get a relatively expensive ($60NZD / $40USD) variable temperature kettle. Being able to keep the water warm while I take a shower or get coffee/green tea at the right temperature has been such a quality of life improvement!
Chefs knife. It’s virtually the only knife I use outside of a bread knife.