18 Kitchen Gadgets Professional Chefs Say You Absolutely Need To Have

10. Food Processor

If you have the money, Nitahara recommends getting both a blender and a food processor because they both perform different tasks. A blender is ideal for smooth purees while a food processor is best for coarse chopping and grating. “If I had a choice I don’t know which one I would choose because they both are essential,” he says.

11. Pressure Cooker

A pressure cooker might seem intimidating at first, but once you get the hang of it you’ll realize how much easier they make your life and how much time they can save you in the kitchen. They cut the cooking time of several dishes by half or even more!

“I make wild rice in 20 minutes, whereas if you make wild rice in a pot you’re looking at cooking it for over an hour,” says Nitahara.

12. Digital Thermometer

One of the most difficult aspects of cooking, especially for novice cooks, is getting the temperature of meat just right. Most of the time, you may end up overcooking your meat, leading to a dry and tasteless meal. You can save yourself a lot of trouble by investing in a digital thermometer – even a cheap one will do the job, but you can go for some of the fancier ones as well.

“If you want to roast a chicken or you want to cook meat to a certain done-ness or whatever, an instant read is great,” Sexton says.

“I love digital thermometers that have a probe with a cable so that if I’m roasting something, I put that thermometer into the roast, throw that in the oven, and keep my thermometer outside the oven and set the alarm to go off when I have a target temperature that’s reached,” says Nitahara.

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