Anyone who’s spent a weekend in an ill-equipped rental house knows that while you can cook with a random collection of mismatched kitchen utensils, it’s not exactly ideal. Whether you’re a trained chef or you store sweaters in your oven, cooking is a lot easier—and way more fun—with the right tools. Here you’ll find the everyday items that fill our editors’ kitchens; stock up to elevate yours and cook like a pro.
A Durable Cutting Board
Chefs talk a lot about knives, but even the sharpest blade won’t perform well on a poor-quality cutting board. It’s essential to invest in a surface that’s sturdy, which is why the Epicurean Gourmet Series Cutting Boards have become a go-to choice for us as well as many professional chefs. They’re dual-sided, with the added benefit of a juice groove on one side to keep things clean as you slice and carve. Plus, they’re made from an NSF-certified, American-made paper composite that is gentler on your knives’ edges than plastic, are dishwasher-safe, and come with a lifetime warranty. Should you find yourself searching for a trivet mid-prep, they’re even heat-resistant up to 350 degrees F.
A Super-Accurate Digital Kitchen Scale
A scale is vital for precisely measuring ingredients—incredibly important in baking. It can also save you lots of time and effort: Instead of searching for multiple measuring cups—and then having to wash and rewash those measuring cups—do it all at once. Simply place a bowl on top of the scale and add each ingredient one by one, making sure to hit “tare,” which recalibrates the scale to zero, between every addition. Your cookies and cakes will thank you.
A Great Grater
When it comes to tasks like zesting citrus and grating ginger, look no further than a rasp-style grater or zester—this elongated twist on a box grater might just become your best friend in the kitchen. Hold it directly over a bowl of pasta to shower your noodles with Parmesan, or use it to shave a bar of chocolate into pleasingly curly decorations—the final touch on an impressive dessert.
A Hardworking Bench Scraper
Sometimes the most essential pieces of equipment are also the simplest. Behold the humble yet mighty bench scraper: a handle attached to a sharp, rectangular piece of metal or a flexible piece of plastic. It can be used for everything from cutting brownies or getting the last bits of batter out of a bowl to portioning pizza dough and cleaning off your workspace. We also rely on it constantly to transfer ingredients directly from cutting board to pan. Pro tip: For everyday tasks like chopping nuts or crushing garlic cloves, place the ingredients on top of a cutting board—the Epicurean Non-Slip version is a good choice here—for a solid flat surface.
A Do-It-All Fish Spatula
If you’re going to buy one spatula, make it this long, thin, slotted tool that pulls double, triple, even quadruple duty. While you can (and should!) use it when cooking fish, it’s also our go-to for everything from frying eggs to grilling burgers. It’s designed to wiggle under delicate foods like warm cookies, but is also sturdy enough to flip pancakes.
A Serious-Sounding Mandoline
It might sound fancy, but in reality it’s an efficient slicing device that makes clean, uniform slices of pretty much any fruit or vegetable at any thickness (read: thinness) you desire. When using one, we like to place a large cutting board, like one from the Epicurean Chef Series, right underneath: Our potato rounds or zucchini noodles neatly pile up on the board for easy transfer to their next destination. If you’re intimidated by the mandoline’s sharp blades, use a food holder (often included) or wear a cut-resistant kitchen glove for protection.
A Trusty Pair Of Tongs
Tongs are an all-around workhorse in the kitchen. You can use them in prep, for transferring raw chicken tenders from a bowl full of marinade to a pan sizzling with oil. You can use them while cooking, for flipping steaks or rotating roasted vegetables. And you can use them as serving utensils for salads, pastas, or desserts. The only downside to this versatility is you have to keep washing them before every new use—so our advice? Pick up a few pairs in different lengths, and have them all right at hand when you need them.
Shop our Epicurean cutting board picks below:
Epicurean Gourmet Series Groove Cutting Board
Epicurean Non-Slip Cutting Board
