10 Things Every Chef Should Have in Their Kitchen

You may not be a professional chef yet but you certainly want your meals to be just as attractive and tasty as those made by a professional. But it’s kind of hard to reproduce those mouth-watering dishes you see on TV when you don’t have the right tools to do it.

Getting the right things for your kitchen is not that hard and it does not have to cost a lot of money. You just need to know what to prioritize. To help us narrow down to the most essential things needed by every kitchen, we asked the advice of a few professional chefs.

Here is a compilation of the things they say you should have in your kitchen.

1.    Three knives

If you already own the full knife set on a woodblock, great! But if you don’t, you may not need one. Three knives are all you need for all the cutting you will ever have to do in the kitchen. These are a chef’s knife, a paring knife, and a serrated bread knife. When buying knives, always choose forged knives over stamped knives. The former has better quality and last longer.

2.    A wooden or plastic cutting board

Glass and stone cutting boards look nicer on your kitchen counter. But if you want something that is not just for showing off but will actually make your life easier, choose wood or plastic. Glass and stone will dull your knives and they are not suitable for heavy chopping. Your kitchen knife will cut grooves in them and they will harbor bacteria. You don’t want that.

3.    Knife sharpener

A blunt knife wears out faster than a sharp one because of the greater friction on its edge. To help knives last longer you should sharpen them regularly and for that, you need a chantry knife sharpener. Depending on what you’re cutting and how often you use them, knives – particularly your chef’s knife – will need sharpening once a week. If you don’t use the knife often you can get away with sharpening it every two weeks.

4.    Non-stick pans

A couple of non-stick pans are essential equipment for any chef’s kitchen. Non-stick pans let you cook different things – especially eggs – with little or no fat added. They don’t make a mess since your food won’t stick to them, meaning you will have an easier time washing up afterward. When buying a nonstick pan, try to look beyond the standard Teflon coated products to ceramic pots. HomeDesignX has a great comparison of ceramic versus nonstick cookware.

5.    Blender

You actually need two types of blender: a standard blender for making soups and purées, plus an immersion blender for those times you want to make a smoothie or frothy drink. Don’t go cheap when buying a blender. A cheap blender gives you service worth what you paid for them. If you think getting a regular blender and an immersion blender at the same time is too much, start with the immersion blender.

6.    Cast iron pots

Cast iron pots conduct heat really well and they will retain that heat for a long time. Cast iron pans are almost mandatory for cooking things like steak, chicken breast, or something similar. They can hold an enormous amount of heat to thoroughly cook the inside of your meat. Yet the pot won’t heat up so quickly that your food gets burnt. You can season a cast iron pot to make it non-stick. Although the process takes a lot of work it is well worth the effort.

7.    Set of stainless steel cookware

This is what you will use for most of your cooking. Stainless steel pots and pans conduct heat well but can be a bit unwieldy due to their weight. They are also harder to wash because the food will stick to them. But you can expect them to give you good service for a long time. When buying stainless steel cookware, look for products with heavier-gauge stainless steel, they cost more but will last even longer.

8.    Pressure cooker

A pressure cooker will shave precious hours off your cooking time. Things that would normally take one hour to cook with a pot will cook in as little as twenty minutes when you use a pressure cooker. Although it takes time to get the hang of it, with a pressure cooker in your kitchen you will no longer dread making those delicious but time-consuming meals.

9.    Food processor

No, this is not an error. Although food processors are often confused with blenders, they are actually different. Unlike a blender, food processors will not blend things smoothly. They are for those times when you want to chop things coarsely.

10. Wooden spoon

Plastic spoons will melt if they get hot. You can’t use them to stir food on a very hot stove. For that, you need a wooden spoon. Wooden spoons are tough enough to handle high heat yet not hard enough to scratch your pan. A wooden spoon with one flat end will let you scrape things from the bottom of the pan without any trouble.