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31+ problem-solving Amazon kitchen gadgets that home chefs will find useful
Easily chop vegetables, strain pasta, peel potatoes, open cans and more with these gadgets, all under $50.
These stainless steel magnetic measuring spoons nest together, making them compact and easy to store. The set comes with seven spoons that measure from 1/8 teaspoon to one tablespoon. Each one has teaspoon/tablespoon and milliliter markings, and you can use them for liquid or solid ingredients. The spoons are also dual-sided — there’s a round side and a narrow oval side that fits into most spice jars, according to the brand. The spoons lay flat on your countertop so you don’t have to worry about spills, plus they come with a leveler to help you measure precisely.
“Baking apple desserts is one of my favorite fall activities, but coring apples can take forever with just a knife,” says Rosalie Sparaco, NBC Select senior social media editor. “This tool significantly cuts down prep time and frustration.” The stainless steel tool has a soft grip handle and sharp blades that help you push it through an apple. It’s also designed with a lever that releases the apple core when you want to throw it out.
Snap this silicone strainer onto the edge of any round cookware or dinnerware using the built-in clips, then tip it over the sink to pour water out while keeping food inside. It has a spout that helps guide water into the drain and folds up so you can store it in a drawer. In addition to straining pasta and boiled potatoes, you can use this colander to wash fruits and veggies. It’s heat-resistant up to 440 degrees Fahrenheit.
I find homemade waffles much more delicious than reheated frozen ones, and this little appliance helps me make them from scratch in my small kitchen. Its nonstick plates are four inches in diameter and cooked waffles easily release from them when coated with a spritz of oil, in my experience. The waffle maker heats up in minutes and a light on the top of it turns off when it reaches the optimal cooking temperature. I use the kitchen appliance to make waffles, but you can add any batter to it to make waffle-shaped cookies, biscuits, hashbrowns and more.
Breaking up ground meat in the pan can take forever when you are using a spatula or spoon. This utensil makes it a lot easier thanks to beveled pinwheel blades. It can also be used on mashed potatoes, fruits and vegetables to get them to the consistency you want. The utensil also has an ergonomic handle and the angled blades can be used to scrape the sides of a pan or bowl.
Instead of buying bagged popcorn, you can add kernels to this popper, throw it in the microwave and enjoy a fresh, warm snack in minutes. The popper’s body is made of glass so you can watch kernels pop, and its removable lid doubles as a measuring cup, telling you exactly how many kernels to add. The lid also has little holes — add butter directly on top of it, where it will melt and drip down onto your popcorn. The gadget’s handle stays cool in the microwave and it comes in two sizes: 1.5 quarts and 3 quarts.
The shape of this spoon’s handle sits it upright, preventing its head from touching your countertop and eliminating the need for a spoon rest. The nonstick silicone head has a flat tip, flexible sides and a deep bowl, which lets you scrape your pan clean, as well as scoop, stir, serve and mix food. There are also one tablespoon and one teaspoon measurement lines written into the spoon’s head. The utensil’s handle stays cool while you’re cooking, and it’s heat-resistant up to 500 degrees Fahrenheit.
Whether you’re baking cookies and pie or cooking with salt, experts recommend measuring ingredients by weight, instead of volume, with a digital food scale like this one. You can also use a kitchen scale to portion out food while meal prepping. Etekcity’s battery-operated scale has a bright display and is slim enough to store in most kitchen drawers, according to the brand. You can choose from five different units of measurement, like grams, pounds/ounces and fluid ounces, and buy the scale in medium and large sizes.
Not everyone prefers to eat corn on the cob, especially since it often requires flossing afterward. You can easily remove cooked kernels from the cob with this small gizmo. It has a circular stainless steel blade that goes around a cob and cuts kernels off as you twist and pull it.
Sprinkle desserts with confectioner’s sugar, top cappuccinos with cinnamon or coat cake pans with flour using this dusting wand. Its globe opens and closes when you turn the bottom of its handle. Half of the globe is solid so you can fill the tool without ingredients dumping out, while the other half is perforated.
Sadhana Daruvuri, former NBC Select social media editor, says she can separate the yolks and whites of four eggs in about 20 seconds using this tool. “The first time I used it, I was surprised by how well it worked,” she says. “I previously tried another egg separator, and it failed miserably, leaving me with a goopy mess of broken yolks. With this one, all I have to do is clip it onto a bowl and crack an egg into the basket. Then I can lift out the basket and pour the yolk into a different bowl.” To clean the egg separator, the brand recommends rinsing it with dish soap and warm water.
A bench scraper can be used to transfer cut veggies to a pan, get little bits of stuck food off your cutting board or to cut dough and other soft items. The scraper is made from stainless steel and has etched measurement marks on it and the top is covered in plastic to give you good grip.
Quickly prepare avocados for a salad, sandwich or guacamole with this gadget. There’s a knife on one end to cut avocados open, a slicer on the other end to create even pieces and a softgrip handle between them. You can also use the stainless steel blades in the middle of the tool to remove an avocado’s pit.
This peeler has three types of stainless steel blades to choose from depending on what you’re cooking: a standard blade, serrated blade and julienne blade. The blades sit on two wheels and you spin the one you want to use toward the front to lock it in place. The peeler’s handle has a nonslip grip and it comes with a cleaning brush.
This pizza cutter fits in the palm of your hand unlike standard models that have a long handle. Its compact size allows you to grip the top and apply a steady amount of vertical pressure, giving you more control over the tool’s stainless steel blade as you roll it over pizza crust, according to the brand. The pizza cutter disassembles so you can put it in the dishwasher and it comes with a blade guard for safe storage.
I use Souper Cubes every week to store leftover food like sauces, soups, broth and pasta. It’s essentially an ice cube tray, but instead of filling each little container with water, you fill them with food you want to freeze. Containers have half cup and one cup fill lines written on them, and since the tray is made from food-grade silicone, it’s flexible and nonstick, making it very easy to remove frozen portions of food, in my experience. The Souper Cubes tray comes with a lid, and it’s oven-safe up to 415 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the brand.
Nothing is more frustrating than buying herbs, only to have them go bad in a few days. Oxo’s herb keeper helps prolong their freshness by keeping them hydrated and maintaining optimal humidity conditions. In my experience, it also keeps them bright green and crisp for a week or longer. To use, put a little water in the outer part of the container and place herbs in the removable inner basket. This allows air to circulate around the herbs while the lid traps humidity inside, according to the brand.
These scissors let me cut fresh herbs and green onions directly into dishes like salads, curries, dips and dressings so I don’t need to chop them with a cutting board and knife. They have five sharp stainless steel blades and their handle is covered in soft rubber, giving me a comfortable place to grip. They come with a protective sheath and a cleaning brush.
Evenly coat food with oil using this dispenser, which has a sprayer head you control via a trigger on the side of the glass bottle. The dispenser continuously sprays in a fan shape so you get wide coverage across ingredients. One spray lets out about one gram of oil, according to the brand. The sprayer’s bottle has a large opening so you can easily fill it with your favorite cooking oil, like olive oil or avocado oil.
KitchenAid’s stainless steel box grater comes with a detachable container that fits underneath it to catch the ingredients you’re preparing. All four sides of the grater offer different blades, including a coarse grate, medium grate, fine grate and slicer. There are measurement lines written on the container and comes with a storage lid.
Crush garlic in seconds with this mincer. You drop a clove into the tool’s head and squeeze its handles shut to crush. Then you pull a trigger to wipe the crushed garlic off the tool’s blade and into your bowl or pan. There’s also a cleaning tool attached to the inside of one of the tool’s handles. It has solid bristles on one end to clean the holes of the crushing plate, and a curved tip on the other end to remove garlic skin from the head.
Thermometers like this one help you figure out when meat is done cooking, but you can also use it while making baked goods and bread. ThermPro’s meat thermometer is one of our favorites because it has an easy-to-read digital display and a foldable probe, letting you adjust its angle or put it away completely when not in use. The battery-operated thermometer reads temperatures in about three to five seconds, according to the brand. It shuts off after 10 minutes of inactivity and has a magnetic back so you can stick it to most metal surfaces.
Splatters happen — especially in the microwave. Then, as you heat up other things, those food splatters solidify and get harder to clean. This device helps. Fill the dragon with two ounces of water and vinegar each, then put it in the microwave for five to seven minutes. It will release steam and when you open your microwave, all of those splatters will wipe away easily.
Rebecca Rodriguez, NBC Select editorial projects manager, recommends this handheld juicer because it squeezes every last drop out of lemons and limes while she’s cooking. The gadget’s dual-gear design applies even pressure across fruit, which means you don’t need to squeeze its handles super hard to get the maximum amount of juice out, she says.
This cordless device can open up to 30 bottles of wine on a single charge, according to the brand. You put it over the nose of a wine bottle and press a button — seconds later, your bottle is uncorked. Then you press the button again to remove the cork from the spiral. The automatic wine opener comes with a charging base and a foil cutter.
Lindsay Schneider, NBC Select commerce editor, says this vegetable chopper is a lifesaver in the kitchen because it saves her so much time when prepping ingredients. “It’s a really reliable crutch to have, especially for someone like me who doesn’t have the best knife skills and isn’t the most confident in the kitchen,” she says. “It’s also really satisfying. It perfectly chops vegetables into pieces that are the exact same size, which helps ensure even cooking times and makes aesthetically pleasing meals.” The vegetable chopper comes with four interchangeable blades, and its lid lets you chop food directly into the collection tray, which also acts as a storage container. A cleaning brush, scrapers and a finger guard are also included.
Kitchen Mama’s electric can opener is a hands-free solution to manual models that some find difficult to maneuver. You attach the battery-operated device to a can, press a button and watch it move around the can’s sides until the lid pops off. Then you press the button again to turn the device off. I’ve used this electric can opener for over a year and I love that it leaves behind smooth edges instead of sharp, jagged cuts. Its batteries also last a while — in fact, I’ve yet to replace them and use the can opener multiple times a week.
“This jar opener has saved me time and time again,” says Daruvuri. “I used to struggle with opening jars often, but now I can get anything open with just one touch. I’ve yet to encounter a jar that it hasn’t been able to open.” The battery-operated device has adjustable jaws, allowing it to attach to jars of almost any size. You put it over a jar, press the button and watch as it unscrews the lid in seconds. The jaws automatically release once the jar is open.
Instead of struggling to create even halves with a knife, this tool perfectly cuts bagels down the middle. You put a bagel into the tool’s base to hold it in place and press the slicer’s V-shaped serrated blade through it. The slicer has a handle on top of it and an acrylic shield around it to keep your hand away from the blade at all times. You can also use it to slice muffins, buns and more, according to the brand.
FinaMill’s battery-operated grinder comes with interchangeable pods you can fill with spices and swap out as you’re cooking. “I appreciate that I only need one hand to operate it,” says Daruvuri. “It’s especially helpful when I’m handling raw meat so I don’t have to worry about cross contamination.” One full charge gives the grinder up to two months of battery life, according to the brand, and you can choose from multiple grind sizes. The grinder’s pods also serve as storage for spices.
“The OXO Salad spinner can be best defined by one word: convenient,” says Jordan Bowman, NBC Select editor. “I’ve had it for years, it’s easy to use and it takes the hassle out of washing vegetables.” The spinner is composed of three parts: an outer bowl, a removable inner colander and a lid with a pump mechanism. As you press down on the lid’s pump, it spins the colander around inside the bowl, causing water to fly off lettuce, fruit and vegetables to dry them. There’s also a button on the lid that works as a break so the colander stops spinning. When you’re done drying your produce, you can take out the colander, wipe off the outer bowl and use it for serving. You can also lock the pump into a downward position so it stores flat.
Chop and grind ingredients like onions, nuts and cheese using this mini food processor. It has a 9-inch base, so it takes up very little countertop and storage space. The appliance comes with a motor base, 24-ounce bowl, cover and removable stainless steel blade.
I am a reporter at NBC Select who writes about kitchen products, including stories on ice cream makers, Dutch ovens and single-serve coffee makers. For this article, I rounded up highly rated Amazon kitchen gadgets and products that NBC Select staff recommend.
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