Cooking

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Highly underrated, but a good thermometer can help a lot with cooking meats. Getting the right temp is much more accurate than cooking by sight or feel, and having one that reads in under a second is super convenient.Typhur makes some quality ones that I like to use

Zojirushi rice cooker

My vacuum sealer, for sure. It's not only great for prepping to sous vide, it gives me extra room in my tiny freezer if I seal stuff instead of putting it in a container or even a plastic bag. And bonus, I haven't had a single case of freezer burned meat since I started using it.

Haven’t seen it mentioned yet so I’ll throw out a digital scale. Ours isn’t any special brand, but I picked it specifically because it measured to the tenth of a gram and not all scales will do that. I use it all the time, for baking, brewing coffee, portioning things out, making consistent sized burger patties/meatballs etc.

Not a gadget exactly, but I love my chef knife! It's a Kan core chef knife. I have had it for several years now and enjoy using it every time. It is very sharp and is easy to keep sharp. It was not cheap, but not terribly expensive when compared to other professional quality knives. I use it almost every day and it has never disappointed me.

For actual devices in the kitchen, I would say my Kitchenaid stand mixer is my favorite.

I'd say it's a toss up between my rice cooker and air fryer/toaster/convection oven.

Food processor.

Dicing things with a knife takes forever. But the processor does it in like 3 seconds.

My Vitamix 5200 is the only blender that doesnt suck to use

Victorinox Fibrox Pro Chef's Knife, 8-Inch That thing is a beast. Only needs sharpening every few years.

Big cast iron pan & small cast iron pan. They get the most use.

Actual gadgets - 3-stage knife sharpener.

Ninja Foodi combination pressure cooker and convection oven. It also incubates yogurt. Fucking love that thing

I don't know if I'd call it a gadget, but I absolutely LOVE the only round handled wooden spoon we have. Best. Utensil. Ever.

If we're talking just electronic gadgets, I personally like using ( but Hate cleaning ) the food processor. That's mostly my fault, though, since I almost never fully rinse it out because I'm usually busy doing a lot more cooking afterwards that takes away all my attention. Saves me from having to do things like chopping up onions.

Second in line would be a kitchen-aid stand mixer. Saves me time not having to shred chicken by hand.

I got this knife sharpener recently. Cost €8 / about $9 USD. Absolutely incredible find. Every knife I own is now razor sharp which I love.

If you're buying it yourself watch the video that they link in the instructions and have patience on first sharpen from dull.

My Benriner mandoline slice. Given how much I use it, and sometimes isn't careful enough, it's a surprise I still have all of my fingertips

Just got a sous vide circulator and vacuum sealer, they go hand in hand. Game changer. Chicken is perfect every time. No more weird chicken.

Kenwood Kitchenaid-type thing. Pretty heavy duty, because it's mostly used for bread dough.

I learned to make breads without it and still occasionally do (well... Mostly when I'm somewhere else, I guess), and there is nothing wrong with kneading by hand.

It's just so much more convenient and so much less cleanup to let the machine do it. Especially the cleanup part is huge.

Between my old school pressure cooker, mini toaster/ airfry oven, cuisinart food processor, kitchen aid mixer, scales, thermometers, kitchen knives, pasta machine, coffee and spice grinder, fermenting vessels, rice cooker or Ooni pizza oven I'd also rate my emersion blender with the mini food processor attachment one of the most used items in the kitchen. From 3 minute hollandaise to instant curry pastes it has changed my approach to so many things.

Literal Gadget, the big KitchenAid mixer. I got one that can handle my 2 kilo of sourdough dough, it's glorious.

MVP? The iron skillets, hands down. If I had to build a kitchen out of fewer than 10 items the medium and oldest one would be first on that list.

Bread guillotine gets the most use by far, but the toaster oven and bread machine would be next. Instant pot after that.

My only complaint about my immersion blender is that the part at the bottom is 100% metal, which sounds good, but it makes me paranoid to use it in my enameled pots for fear of scratching up the enamel. I wish I had one with nylon or silicone overmolding.

In terms of really simple "gadgets", my favorites are wooden spoons that are flattened and almost sharpened like a chisel. They are great for scraping the bottom of pots/pans to get up fond.

In terms of more complicated stuff, I really like my Anova oven. It's basically an overbuilt convection toaster oven that has a thermometer for wet-bulb temperature and a water tank to create steam. You can control temperature to the degree, and humidity in 10% increments. It also has a built-in probe thermometer. What this basically means is that you can set the oven to a strict temperature to hold with steam and convection, and you can cook a roast to an exact temperature for an exact amount of time (which they call sous vide, even though there's no vacuum sealing involved). You can then set it to automatically ramp to a high temperature for browning.

It's really nice for baking bread.

They made a new version at double the price with even more advanced features, but they've given it the nebulous "AI" treatment, so it might be enshittified.

Gotta give both rice cooker and cast iron skillets, because they were part of a huge change in what and how I cook. They’ve also both become central to cooking

defenately not the mandolin slicer. Asshole appliance.

Immersion blender is great functionality for a small size / cost. But for a more gadgety choice, I'd go for my sous-vide / immersion heater. Got gifted it a few years back, but didn't get round to using it for ages, partly cause I suspected that it was too much of a hassle and wouldn't make a huge difference to quality.

In reality, it's really not a lot of trouble, especially if you vacuum pack meat and stuff for storage anyway. And I've made all sorts of different meats and marinade and they've been reliably great. For something like a pork chop, that can risk be a little dry, but you don't want undercooked, being able to precisely control the temperature has given me the best, most tender and flavourful pork chop/monkfish/venison I've ever eaten.

Similarly, stuff for the bbq, deepfried chicken or even chunky côte du bœuf, where I really want a crispy sear but still need the middle to hit the right temp have all been made so much easier. Really surprised how much use I've got out it!