Some people dread cooking, spending as little time in the kitchen as possible by eating microwavable everything. Others love cooking and make daily cuisine their craft. Whether you enjoy cooking or not, a few small kitchen appliances can make cooking easy—and even fun!
With the proper electric appliances in your kitchen, you’ll cook like a pro with just the press of a button.
Here are eight underrated electric appliances that you need to make cooking a breeze:
- Stand Mixer: Say goodbye to stirring and kneading with your hands, with a stand mixer. Hands-free and mess-free, stand mixers help you bake delicious breads and cakes, whisk eggs perfectly, or evenly mix meatballs and mashed potatoes. Most stand mixers last a long time too, so they’re a kitchen appliance you can rely on.
- Panini Press: Take your simple sandwiches to the next level with a panini press. Heating up more rapidly than most grills or griddles, a panini press is great for meals when you’re short on time. This small appliance is great for grilled sandwiches and other hot meals on rainy, cold, or rushed days when grilling outdoors isn’t in the cards. The possibilities are limitless—anything you can make into a sandwich you can make into a panini. Outside of sandwiches, use your panini press to quickly grill vegetables, omelets, chicken, quesadillas, hash browns—even shrimp.
- Blender: With advancements in recent years, speedy, high-powered blenders are more affordable and easier to use than ever! Blend, whip, chop, and puree in an instant without a hefty device that takes up a ton of counter space. Healthy smoothies, vegetable soups, and chopped veggies are made easy with a small electric blender.
- Food Processor: With a food processor, chopping and grinding by hand is a thing of the past. Save money by making your own nut butters, regular butter, hummus, whipped cream, salsa, pureed soup, and baby food. Chop fresh vegetables in just seconds without dirtying a cutting board and knife. Most food processors come with several tools to shred, slice, blend, and press, so the cooking possibilities are endless.
- Toaster Oven: Toaster ovens have all the ease of microwaves with the cooking power of an oven. Toaster ovens are more time- and energy efficient than using a full-scale oven, and are a convenient size. Toaster ovens are great at heating food evenly and browning food like no microwave can. And unlike your regular oven, there’s little to no time spent waiting for it to pre-heat.
- Rice Cooker: A rice cooker can do so much more than cook rice. Don’t get us wrong, rice cookers are great at cooking rice—these handy little appliances consistently and effectively cook basmati, jasmine, brown, or white rice perfectly without water boiling over. But you can also use rice cookers to steam vegetables, poach fruit, slow-cook soup or beans, and make hot oatmeal.
- Programmable Slow Cooker: Perhaps the easiest way to prepare food, slow cookers allow busy home chefs to literally walk away from their cooking and return to a fully cooked meal when it’s finished. Simply dump the necessary ingredients into your slow cooker, then plug in and program the appliance to meet the recipe’s specifications and come home to a hot dinner ready to eat! Great for workdays.
- Spiralizer: Searching for a healthy alternative to pasta? Electric spiralizers make vegetables exciting and kid-friendly with a fun new shape. Turn vegetables into noodles to create a specialty-diet approved, nutrient-dense, delicious dinners! While hand-cranked spiralizers will get the job done, electric spiralizers make life much easier.
Great food doesn’t necessarily come from complicated cooking. With a few of these small electric cooking appliances, you can kick your kitchen up a notch. If you have an electrical outlet in your kitchen, you can prepare delicious meals that you’ll enjoy and that will impress your guests. (When you really just had to press a button!)
To ensure your electronic devices are safe for your kitchen, call Mr. Electric for electrical safety inspections, wiring upgrades, circuit breaker replacement, and more.
