words Alexa Wang
Staying healthy and taking care of your family requires a lot of meal preparations at home. To make meal preparation easier you will need to own the best tools out there, however, some of these new kitchen gadgets can be very expensive these days.
In this article, we give you 6 meal prep tools that are affordable that you must have in order to make your kitchen experience easier and more enjoyable.
1. A Chef’s Knife
A knife is a chef’s right hand. It actually needs to fit your hand size and grip, you need to choose the knives you feel more comfortable using. Find a knife that is balanced in your hands to avoid accidents. Some stainless steel knives will maintain their sharpness over time but will be too heavy to use. Don’t purchase a heavy knife, those won’t feel comfortable to carry in the long run. Aim to get a big knife that fits well for cutting meat (like a stainless steel butcher knife) and vegetables and that will sustain long term use.
2. Pint Mason Jars
Meals like soup and salads and maybe some leftover fruit, are hard to store in good condition for later use. They need medium-sized containers with strong lids to cover them from other odors in the fridge and to keep their fresh quality. Mason jars have airtight lids that keep the food fresh inside of a container if stored in the fridge for three weeks. They can also keep the food fresh in the freezer for up to a year.
3. Fish Fillet Knife
This type of knife is really useful for skinning fish. Fillet knives are flexible, curved upward, and they are thinner than most other knives. Fish fillet knives, in particular, are worth purchasing, according to TheDaringKitchen.com, every filleting knife type is designed for a certain task. Make sure you get the types of filleting knives that fit the type of meals you prepare. Seafood lovers will love this kind of knife.
4. A Metal Spatula
Whether you are cooking or serving a delicious meal, a good spatula is always needed. You use it to flip and toss food while cooking, you use it to move food from one plate to another while serving your cooked meals. That’s why you need to find a strong metal spatula or a good, hard plastic one that serves for all meal prepping purposes. If you are a person that loves cooking breakfast and enjoys making omelets and puffy pancakes, you will like the plastic and wooden ones more, try to pick the strong ones that can be used for a long time. Also, look for silicone spatulas, they come very handily when you are cooking breakfast or serving pancakes in the morning.
5. Whisk
A kitchen whisk is a tool used to mix ingredients, meaning it’s essential in any kitchen. They come in all sizes and shapes, so feel free to pick the whisk that feels the most comfortable to use for blending heavy mixtures like cake batter. Other than mixing dry ingredients, you can use a whisk to scramble eggs and stir them if needed, it has many other handy uses too. Try using a flat whisk and if it proves helpful, then find a medium-sized one as well to complete your whisk collection.
6. An Instant Pot
An instant pot is a pot that has many purposes including cooking rice, pressure cooking, and slow cooking. Every home needs one of these. And that’s not all it does, some instant pots can air fry food, bake it, roast it, or broil it. It offers healthier meals by using less oil while cooking the ingredients. That’s one healthy essential kitchen appliance you will definitely need in your kitchen if you want to maintain a healthy diet cooking at home instead of ordering food from fast-food restaurants.
Gather these simple tools and appliances and you will have all the essentials to an easy experience preparing your favorite meals at home. Make sure you also have an iron skillet or a small pan if you love omelets and maybe purchase a rapid egg cooker, this will save you so much time and effort. Get a kitchen timer if you are feeling fancy and want to add some fun. If you cook meals for your little kids and want to pack them in their school lunch boxes, make sure you get a pack of reusable plastic bags. All in all, meal prep can be made easier with the addition of a few inexpensive tools that will make your time in the kitchen fun and efficient.