12 Kitchen Tools for the New Chef

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Junior year of college, my roommates and I officially moved into our first apartment. We rounded on Walmart and Target with hopes and dreams of domesticity. After we decided on a zebra print shower curtain and hot pink bath mats, we descended on the kitchen section. But there are so many kitchen tools!

This is my list of kitchen tools you absolutely need and why. Whether you’ve Marie Kondo’ed your way to an empty kitchen or are brand new to cooking, let’s talk about these 12 must-haves.

1. A Good Set of Pots and Pans

Let’s start with your pots and pans. Even if you’re regularly making Top Ramen and boxed macaroni and cheese, you need pots and pans. I definitely recommend having a small saucepan, a medium saucepan, a small sauté pan, a large sauté pan, and a soup pot.

The small saucepan is good for canned soups as well as for melting butter and chocolate for some fabulous brownies. I also use mine for making just enough rice for two and cans of beans. It fits nicely on the small back burners, and doesn’t take too much effort to wash.

The medium pot is better suited for making that box of mac and cheese we mentioned, but it also works well for the bulk of your stovetop cooking. More likely than not, this will end up being your most-used pot. Ours sees meatballs in marinara, boiling pasta, pudding, custard, double-boiling, and more.

The small sauté pan is also known as the omelet pan, and for good reason. It’s best for making eggs. Even if you’re not an omelet master, it’s still good for any kind of eggs you like. Its small size is great for keeping them from running too thin. I like mine for browning butter, too.

The larger pan has a wide range of uses from pounding out butterflied chicken breasts for schnitzel to frying it up. This is the one you’re likely to reach for the most for cooking dinner.

The soup pot is the best for boiling spaghetti (which needs lots of room to circulate), hard-boiling eggs, making chili and meat sauce, and of course, soup. I’ve even used mine to brine a chicken and make mulled wine (not back to back, though). It gets a lot of use!

2. Proper Mixing Utensils for Every Occasion

Second in importance to having pots and pans to cook in is having the right kitchen tools to mix, flip, serve, and so forth. You don’t need a lot, but there are a few things you definitely need.

• 2 or 3 Spatulas
• Rubber Spatulas
• Wooden Spoon Set
• Ladle
• Whisk
• Tongs
• Slotted Spoon

I have 3 different spatulas, but each is just slightly better for a certain purpose. My slotted spatula is best for flipping foods that are frying in a light layer of oil. There’s a wider one that’s best for pancakes, and I have one that’s really thin and flexible that’s best for fried eggs and transferring cookies off of the sheet.

Rubber spatulas are crucial when it comes to baking. Any time instructions say to fold such-and-such in, you’re going to use a rubber spatula. Its flexible, blade-like structure allows you to cut into the mixture and gently incorporate without losing the air or building up unwanted gluten.

When it comes to the majority of my stovetop cooking, I usually rely on wooden spoons. They’re sturdy, but they’re also gentle on my non-stick pans. I also just feel like an old-world cook when I use one.

Don’t forget a ladle. If you’re making soup, sauce, chili, or whatever, this will come in handy. It took me a really long time to finally find a ladle that I liked. I’m really picky. This brand, OXO, is always spot on with their kitchen tools, though. They develop their products for arthritic users so they’re always more comfortable and user friendly.

If you just get one whisk, make sure it’s a silicone one. I know the metal/wire kind are classic, but they’ll also do some damage to your bowls and pots. My mixing bowls look pretty ragged after years of metal whisking.

Rubber or plastic tongs are safer to use with your non-stick pots and pans, but they’re also really helpful for turning things when a spatula doesn’t have enough control. Tongs are also great for portioning out noodles.

The last thing is a slotted spoon. There’s nothing like spooning out green beans and a ton of water onto your plate and getting everything all soggy. You can drain it off in a strainer, or you can get a nice slotted spoon. It’s nice to have.

3. 3 Sizes of Mixing Bowls

Any given recipe may ask you to have a small, medium, or large mixing bowl on hand. That’s why I ended up getting this set of Pyrex bowls… and then buying a second set because they’re also really good for storing large portions of holiday leftovers, too.

The small one fits onto my saucepan so I can use it as a double boiler. Plus, it’s heat resistant, so I’m not worried about it cracking. Otherwise, they’re mixing bowls that are sturdy and last forever. I love mine and wanted to share, but otherwise, let’s keep this section short!

4. Strainers and Sieves

Not many of these items are particularly exciting or sexy, but a nice strainer is where you can start to exercise some creativity. I definitely understand that storage space is at a premium in most kitchens, especially if you’re just starting out. So, when I tell you that a strainer and a sieve qualify as essential kitchen tools, I say this with all respect to your storage space.

First, the sieves. A fine mesh sieve is going to be great for a lot of things. For great rice or quinoa, you need to give it a nice thorough rinse first. That’s where the fine mesh works great. You’ll also find that for most baked good recipes, you need to sift the dry ingredients. Yes, there are flour sifters with cranks and whatnot, but a sieve is a multifunctional tool.

And then there are strainers. These are great for draining pasta and washing fruit, but they are also wonderful as fruit bowls to keep on the counter. But be careful with the pretty ones because they need to hand washed and promptly dried. I definitely rusted one of these out by using it hard and putting it away wet.

5. A Quality Box Grater

Any old crappy box grater is fine for the short term, but I want you to be cooking and baking with me for a nice long time. So, here’s the grater I’ve got albeit the newer up”grated” version… see what I did there?

I like having the little attachment measuring cup because it keeps cheese from going everywhere. Honestly, I don’t often measure my cheese accurately, though.

So, the new version is really cool (and I’m about to replace mine, now) because the zester side comes out. That’s wicked nice for usability.

6. Basic Rimmed Baking Sheets

I have four baking sheets, but if you’re just starting out, you just need one. I like this one because it’s good quality and it comes with a wire rack. Why do you need a wire rack? That wasn’t on the list! Hear me out.

If you bake up a batch of chocolate chip cookies, or really any cookie recipe, you need to cool them on a wire rack. Now, that seems pretty self-explanatory. But did you know that you need a wire rack that fits into your baking sheet for perfect fried chicken?

Even if you achieve a great crust on your chicken, it can get really soggy if you don’t keep it warm on a wire rack in the oven. The baking sheet beneath will catch oil drips so they don’t end up in your oven.

But there’s one more accessory that you need for your baking sheets.

7. Silicone Baking Mats

I list these as required equipment for most of my cookie recipes. Yes, you can buy and use parchment paper, but you’re going to be creating a lot of waste, and that’s not what you want.

The silicone mats keep your food from sticking to the pan, and they are really easy to clean. Most of the time, you can get away with wiping it down with a warm, soapy, sponge and rinsing it to clean it. Some are even dishwasher safe, though.

I think they’re the better choice over parchment paper most of the time. I do still have parchment for lining cake pans, but anytime I need to line a baking sheet, I’m using a silicone baking mat.

8. Measuring Cups and Spoons

For just about everything, you’re going to need to measure the ingredients, especially when you start cooking at first. There’s a certain point when you can eyeball some things, but no matter how good you get at baking, you still need to measure.

Baking is more of a science that requires your measurements to be close to exact. So, I would get a nice set of cut measuring cups. I like these ones from KitchenAid because they come in cute colors. It’s also nice because the cups and spoons come in the same set. That’s really convenient.

I will also recommend that you get a set of glass measuring cups. These are really great for scrambling eggs, making custard sauce for bread pudding, and I use mine every time I need to bloom yeast or mix a buttermilk substitute.

9. Can and Bottle Openers

There are two different kinds of can opener that you need in your kitchen tools arsenal. One basically doubles as a bottle opener, but it’s got a pointy end to pop holes into cans of tomato sauce, pineapple juice, condensed milk, etc. It’s also got an end that will open beer bottles. So, you need that one for sure.

There’s also the crank kind for canned vegetables. Honestly, I have the hardest time with this one because I bought a lot of really expensive and nice can openers, and they all sucked. They all stopped working after a year of use. Meanwhile, this cheap little thing has lasted us since before we got married.

And just as an extra mention, get a wine opener. The night of my twenty first birthday, I picked up a bottle of wine and got home only to realize we didn’t have bottle opener. My roommate and I spent half an hour creeping around our building to see if anyone had one.

These days, I have the standard corkscrew, but I also have a Rabbit that gets the most use. My fancy wine opener does take up some drawer real estate though, so if you’re in a small kitchen, a standard one will work great for you.

10. Dish Towels, Potholders, and Oven Mitts

Now, let’s discuss dish towels, potholders, and oven mitts. These can be ridiculously cute or super pared down. It’s all about your style. For me, I like all my dish towels to be red. These are my favorites for sure. They’ve lasted ages, and they look really nice despite dozens of washings.

That’s a little boring for some people, so stretch your creativity with dish towels. Enjoy the fun seasonal prints available and have fun using your towels to decorate!

For potholders, mine double as trivets because that’s just how I roll. Again, this is a fun way to express yourself and get something fun for your kitchen. They don’t have to be expensive. I prefer the plain cotton kind, too. The silicone catches lint in the washing machine, and the silvery stuff eventually chips off. I have these in red, but they come in other colors and fun prints, too.

Now, oven mitts are a little different. Yes, I have a couple of cute decorative ones, but I don’t use them. They hang on the wall and look cute. The oven mitts I have for real use come up over my wrists. I like the sturdy kind that I know aren’t going to let any heat through to my hands.

Yeah, a lot of my recipes bake at 350ºF, but I also make pizza weekly. That means that I’m regularly handling a pizza stone that’s been heated in a 550ºF oven. Cute oven mitts don’t really hold up to that kind of heat.

11. Quality Knives

If you’re starting out in your first kitchen, you may think it’s safe to buy a cheap set of knives just for now. I was all too excited to buy a knife block with pretty red knives for our first apartment. They were pretty inexpensive, but to be fair, the handles were plastic.

The blades held up just fine for a few years. But, because I got the cheap set, I found that the pins in the handle weren’t set firmly, so there was a bit of wobble, and the blades dulled easily.

I could do a whole post (and I might) about how a dull knife is more dangerous than a good sharp one. You are at a higher risk for injuring yourself because you focus more on the brute strength to cut through something and less on making a precision cut that won’t take off a finger.

A good sharp knife will cleanly cut through anything without much effort. If you’re smashing a tomato on a single cut, the blade is not sharp enough. It doesn’t require some mail-order-samurai knife, but it does require a quality set.

Spend the money on good knives, and you’ll never have to replace them. This should be the number one in kitchen tools that you throw down real money on. Remember to wash them by hand, dry them promptly, and store them safely every time. Sharpen them regularly, and they’ll last forever.

12. Sturdy (and Washable) Cutting Boards

And finally, the last of the kitchen tools you need are cutting boards. A sturdy wood cutting board is beautiful for pictures and great for bread or cheese, but let’s be honest. You need something that is easy to wash. Unless you’re vegetarian, at some point, you’ll be putting raw meat onto these surfaces. DO NOT EVER CUT RAW MEAT ON A WOODEN CUTTING BOARD.

I know a ton of famous chefs who do, but they also have the equipment and crew to sanitize their fancy Boos Boards for them. You, my friend, do not need to be messing with the boiling water it takes to kill the crazy bacteria on your wooden cutting board. Instead, focus on easy to clean boards.

So, for just starting out, I’d recommend getting the kind of cutting boards you can either wash in the sink or throw in the dishwasher. If you’re particular, too, you can get the color-coded kind so that a board is only ever used for meat or veg, but never both.

Final Thoughts on Kitchen Tools

Obviously, there are a dozen other things I think you need in your kitchen, but if you can have nothing else, these are the kitchen tools I couldn’t function without. These are the very basics to help you cook or bake any recipe on this site.

In some of my recipes, you may see fancy equipment noted. That’s topic for another blog (which is definitely in my drafts list right now). I know some of my readers are just starting out and getting into their first kitchens. Y’all, I wish the very best for you, and I hope you’ll be back every week to cook and bake with me.

I also know that some of my readers want to cut back what they have and simplify. I am so proud of you! These essential kitchen tools will definitely get you by. Though, I still may recommend keeping some of the other nicer equipment (especially if you have a stand mixer… do not part with that!).

No matter where you are on your cooking or baking journey, I’m so happy you’re taking me with you.

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