12 Kitchen Tools That Make Wirecutter Staffers More Confident Cooks

New York Times

11-07-2025

There's a common kitchen adage that a dull knife is a dangerous knife. Using a dull knife can contribute not only to careless accidents but also to poor, sloppy knife cuts.
Yet you don't need to shell out big bucks to score a quality chef's knife, as Wirecutter writer Alexander Aciman can attest. He has been the proud owner of a Victorinox Chef's Knife, the budget pick in our guide to the best chef's knife, for nearly a decade.
This great knife is durable, comfortable to use, and pretty sharp. And it costs less than $75.
'It can glide effortlessly through meat and vegetables,' Alexander wrote in an ode to the Victorinox knife. 'The blade feels far more nimble than anything in this price range should.' In fact, he said he occasionally finds himself chopping twice as many potatoes and onions, simply because he enjoys the task so much.
We love this knife because the grippy handle helps you get a good grasp, and the strong blade holds a sharp edge for a long time.
Mise en place — a French culinary term that roughly translates to putting everything in its place — is the process of prepping ingredients and your workstation so everything is ready to go before you start cooking.
Mise en place spares me from having to make last-minute, mid-recipe grocery runs (no more forgotten ingredients) or from chopping a clove of garlic while the food in the pan burns. I rely on Libbey Small Glass Prep Bowls with Lids to keep everything neatly separated until I'm ready to toss it all into the pan or incorporate it into the recipe.
These small, durable bowls come in a pack of eight and are dishwasher-safe, so cleanup is easy. They're big enough to hold about ¾ cup of prepped ingredients (think eight plump cherries or a handful of shredded cheese). And they come with lids, so you can stash any leftover ingredients (if you miscalculate how much you need).
Before I worked in the restaurant industry, I was a much messier cook. Then I discovered a bench scraper, which I've been known to call a 'chef's best-kept secret.' And ever since, this tool has helped me navigate cooking tasks much more efficiently, nimbly, and tidily.
This multipurpose bench scraper has a wide, flat stainless steel surface with a sharp edge that's ideal for a number of kitchen tasks, from slicing to scooping.
A bench scraper is a flat, sturdy multipurpose tool that's helpful for scooping, slicing, and portioning ingredients. The OXO Good Grips Stainless Steel Scraper & Chopper — my prized possession for over eight years — has a flat, stainless steel surface (about the size of a large index card) and a nonslip handle for extra stability. When I'm preparing my mise en place, this tool helps me efficiently move piles of chopped ingredients from my cutting board to a bowl without making a mess.
Its sharp edges are strong enough to pierce through soft ingredients, including when I portion out pizza dough or bake biscuits. I can also use the flat surface to smooth out any streaks or bubbles when I'm frosting a birthday cake. No other tool offers such an array of skills.
If you don't have the right peeler, removing the skin of a potato can be a tedious task. Yet with a lightweight, sharp Y-peeler, you can swiftly work through a sack without breaking a sweat (or accidentally nicking a knuckle).
Before editor Tracy Vence discovered her now-beloved Kuhn Rikon Original Swiss Peeler — a super-sharp, lightweight Y-shaped peeler — she believed there was no worse kitchen task than peeling raw beets, preparing potatoes, and removing the skin of an uncooked squash. Now she can't live without this tool, and she even wrote about how it makes her look forward to a meal-prep step she once vehemently dreaded.
A Wirecutter top pick for 12 years and counting, the Kuhn Rikon peeler is a superior tool for easily stripping the outer layers of every type of fruit or vegetable, including eggplant, carrots, and celery root. This tool's unique Y shape makes it easier to rotate around an object when you're peeling, versus using a straight swivel peeler, which might feel limited in range.
Although this tool is incredibly inexpensive, it's highly durable and beloved by most professional chefs. Wirecutter staffers say it can retain its sharp edge for several years, even with consistent use.
While a Kunz spoon bears an uncanny resemblance to any ordinary spoon, it was specifically designed with cooks in mind by internationally renowned chef Gray Kunz. Its unique dimensions make it the perfect tool for drizzling sauces, serving creamy dips, and basting a juicy steak with hot butter. And the spoon's slightly pointed tip helps to guide runny sauces with precision and accuracy when you're plating food.
This sturdy stainless steel spoon is much larger than a standard one, and it makes kitchen tasks, like basting and plating, more efficient.
I first discovered Kunz spoons during an early gig as a line cook, eight years ago. And since then, I have found that this spoon's versatility readily supersedes the capabilities of any other spoon in my kitchen — and, frankly, of almost any other tool.
I often use a Kunz spoon in place of a tasting spoon, a measuring spoon, a plating spoon, a ladle (for small amounts of sauces or liquids), and a spatula. But it's clear I'm not the only Kunz spoon–obsessed cook: Step foot in a professional kitchen and you're bound to encounter at least one of these spoons hard at work.
A fish turner (or fish spatula) is a spatula designed with a thin, long surface for easily scooting underneath food and nimbly tossing and turning it.
But as editor Katie Okamoto points out in an ode she wrote to her beloved fish spatula (our top-pick, all-purpose spatula), you shouldn't let the name fool you — a flexible fish spatula can do much more than flip fish. Its long, stable, flat surface is big enough to transfer piles of roasted veggies and oversize cookies from a sheet pan, and it can ferry skillet-size pancakes without causing rifts.
This affordable, lightweight spatula can be used for a multitude of tasks, including turning delicate fried eggs, fish fillets, crepes, and pancakes.
Katie also uses the Victorinox Swiss Army Slotted Fish Turner's stainless steel edge to scrape the fond from the bottom of a cast iron pan, so she can incorporate it into a pan sauce or gravy. And the spatula's slotted design allows grease to fall through and steam to escape when seared foods are being transported from pan to plate.
Chopping is an essential skill but a time-consuming task. Fortunately, with the help of a mini food processor, you can cut corners on a busy weeknight. And for practical, daily cooking needs, appliance writer Rachel Wharton swears by the Cuisinart Core Custom 4-Cup Mini Chopper.
In her story on the Cuisinart chopper, Rachel details how it helps her quickly dice an onion for a marinara or puree four garlic cloves for a curry. Its small size has even motivated her to make more from-scratch dinners on weeknights, rather than ordering in, because cooking is quicker and less messy, and cleanup much easier than if she were using a full-size processor.
In the piece, Rachel also explains how this mini food processor handles smaller-scale tasks (like mincing a few jalapeños or shallots) faster and more easily than a full-size processor. In a full-size processor, small quantities of food often get wedged under the larger blade or pushed to the edges. And the Cuisinart chopper has a compact, lightweight footprint, so it's simple to clean and a boon for smaller-batch weeknight cooking.
A digital scale helps take some of the guesswork out of cooking. Rather than portioning ingredients by volume using measuring cups (a less accurate form of measuring due to differences in ingredient densities), you could use a digital scale, which calculates weight down to the exact grams, ounces, or pounds.
Professional bakers swear by digital scales, and that's understandable since a few extra grams of baking powder can completely throw off the ratios in a cake, causing the batter to potentially overflow while it's cooking.
When she was working as a baker, editorial director Marguerite Preston quickly realized how much more efficient and reliable it is to use a kitchen scale for any measuring task. Now, the Escali Primo Digital Scale is one of the first items she recommends to any aspiring home cook. In a story she wrote about the scale, Marguerite puts it high on the list of the 'Tools I Don't Want to Live Without.'
The Primo scale is inexpensive, durable, and accurate. And, as Marguerite wrote, it's 'dead simple to use.' Plus, it's been our top pick since 2017.
When Marguerite isn't using her digital scale to weigh ingredients for baking, she uses it for everyday tasks, like measuring coffee beans, portioning dog food, or weighing shredded cheese. It's also a terrific time-saving tool, and by using the 'tare' function, you can easily weigh ingredients in the same bowl without having to scoop, level, or wash a ton of extra dishes.
Using a meat thermometer to check doneness early and often helps to avoid overcooking food, and it could spare dinner guests from a bout of food poisoning. It's also small enough to stash in an apron pocket so it's easily accessible. Our top pick, the ThermoWorks ThermoPop 2, is wonderful because it offers a combination of speed, reach, and reliability, and its display is easy to read.
While working in restaurants, kitchen writer Lesley Stockton once used other cues to determine doneness (like prodding the surface of a steak). But she discovered that a thermometer is a much more accurate form of measurement (and she's never looked back). In an ode she wrote, Lesley explains that she now reaches for her Thermapen to check the doneness of roasts, poultry, fish, steaks, chops, and meatloaf, or when making candy and jam, and it has yielded better results.
Recently, while testing gas grills, Lesley and other kitchen staffers used the thermometer to examine doneness of more than 140 pounds of meat cooked over the course of two weeks.
Baking sheets are a kitchen staple. They're ideal for evenly roasting vegetables, baking cookies, or preparing sheet-pan dinner recipes. They're also terrific for tasks like carrying ingredients from the kitchen to an outdoor grill or transporting dirty dishes from the table to the sink.
A Wirecutter pick since 2013, the Nordic Ware Naturals Baker's Half Sheet is top-tier. We love it for many reasons. It's versatile and inexpensive. And It's made with bare, heavy-gauge aluminum: During testing, this sheet baked cookies more evenly than sheets that were twice the price, and it didn't warp at high heat.
If your current baking sheets are banged-up, warped, or flaking nonstick coating from years of cooking, take that as your sign to invest in a new, dazzling (high-quality) set that'll last for many years to come.
Stainless steel cookware offers superior durability and performance, and it can handle higher temperatures than nonstick cookware. Also, compared with cast iron cookware, it produces better searing and tends to heat food more evenly, ensuring that it's consistently cooked through.
Kitchen writer Michael Sullivan, the author of our best cookware set guide, said stainless steel cookware is not only critical for getting a good sear on meats, but it can go from the stovetop directly into the oven. Though stainless steel cookware requires a bit of extra care and maintenance — like hand-washing and an occasional scrubbing to remove some tougher stains — Michael said it can last a lifetime if it's properly cared for.
These pans continue to impress us with their even heat distribution. Each piece is extremely durable and an ideal weight to hold.
All-Clad's D3 Tri-Ply Stainless Steel 10-Piece Set is a pricey, buy-it-for-life essential that we think is worth the investment. All-Clad's 10-piece set includes a variety of pieces, including skillets, saucepans, a sauté pan, and a stockpot. This set covers a wide range of cooking needs and offers superior durability and heat distribution (since aluminum is a good conductor of heat and stainless steel maintains it). Editorial director Lauren Sullivan has been using her set for over a decade.
If you're not ready to take the leap on the All-Clad set, writer Abigail Bailey said the Tramontina Gourmet 12-Piece Tri-Ply Clad Cookware Set — our top-pick cookware set — is a more affordable alternative. And it performed just as well as the All-Clad set during testing.
Nonstick skillets tend to have a short life expectancy — about three to five years — but well-maintained cast iron cookware can last generations. When these pans are properly cared for, they tend to get better with age as the seasoning builds up and makes them naturally more nonstick.
Cast iron skillets are equipped to handle high heat. Unlike other nonstick-coated pans, they're safe to use past 500 °F or under the broiler (ideal for optimal searing and browning for deeper caramelization and flavor). They can also be used outdoors over a campfire or when grilling — a surefire way to level up your alfresco dinner plans.
You don't need to spend a fortune to score a quality cast iron pan. The high-quality Lodge Chef Collection 12-Inch Cast Iron Skillet — our top pick — is affordable and made to last. Editor Ben Keough has written about how this pan can be used for a lifetime if it's properly cared for.
We put 16 cast iron skillets through six tests to find the best one, and the Lodge skillet fried bacon, baked cornbread, and seared steaks most effectively. You can use it to make anything from eggs to pizza and stir-fry dishes. Plus, it's lightweight and has a comfortable handle, so it's easier to maneuver around the kitchen — especially when you're removing it from a piping-hot oven.
You're only a few tools away from finding the professional chef within you. With these 12 reliable and efficiency-promoting items, you'll start cooking more like an expert in no time.
This article was edited by Megan Beauchamp and Maxine Builder. These buy-it-for-life Wirecutter picks will pass the test of time thanks to durable materials, solid construction, and generous warranties.
We've gathered a list of essential gear to get cooking in a new kitchen, all for around $200 total.
They have one job, and they get it done! From our favorite cherry pitter to a leak-stopping peanut butter stirrer, here are the one-trick ponies we recommend.