November is here, my favorite time of year! I love the cooler weather and cozy atmosphere. I love the holiday traditions and focus on family. And I really love preparing the Thanksgiving feast! Cooking is my jam, and Thanksgiving is like my Super Bowl – a chance to spend a day in the kitchen doing my thing and making my favorite foods. But I know it’s not for everyone. The planning and prepping can definitely feel overwhelming, especially when online searches for help yield a two-month long planning timeline with printable worksheets (no, I am NOT already behind Pioneer Woman!). Between planning your menu (we’ve got you covered!), setting your table (we’ve got you there too!), figuring out how to separate your relatives to avoid heated political conversations (sorry mom, you’re on your own), all while having to entertain your kids during a week off school – Thanksgiving might have you feeling exhausted before you even start cooking. That’s where this list of essential kitchen gadgets comes in, helping you get it all done just a little bit faster and a whole lot easier.
1. Ember Mug
Let’s start with coffee. Cause let’s face it, if I’m spending hours in the kitchen making a Thanksgiving feast there will be coffee involved. Especially when Thanksgiving “lunch” means an early morning alarm. While I always start the morning off with a fresh cup, it’s pretty easy to get into a dicing groove only to find out that your coffee’s gone cold while you were chopping vegetables. Enter the Ember Mug, which keeps your coffee hot for a full hour and a half while you’re meal prepping. Use the app to set your perfect temperature, and never have cold coffee again.
- 10 oz and 14 oz options, starting at $89.99 on Amazon.
Now that we’re fortified with caffeine, here are all the tools you need to make prep work so much easier. I use all of these on a regular basis in my own kitchen.
2. KitchenAid 3.5 Cup Food Chopper
This has got to be the handiest appliance in my kitchen. I use it ALL THE TIME! Its small size makes it easy to store and quick to clean, and its powerful motor allows you to chop or puree way quicker than using a knife. And with just 3 parts, it’s much more user-friendly than a large food processor. Chopping herbs to season your turkey and stuffing? Check! Pureeing hummus or mixing up dips for an appetizer? Check! Chopping nuts to add to your pies and cookies? Check! From mixing salad dressing to chopping vegetables, this little food processor is a must have in your small appliance arsenal!
Favorite non-Thanksgiving use… chopped up chocolate chips is our secret ingredient for chocolate chip pancakes ensuring the chocolate spreads fully throughout the pancakes and that there’s melty chocolate in every bite.
- Comes in multiple color options, for $69.95 on Amazon.
3. Bench Scraper
I use these so much that I have about 10 of them in different shapes and sizes. It’s a versatile tool with multiple uses during your meal prep. Scrape your bowls clean of dough/batter/EVERYTHING. Quick chop onions, celery, and other vegetables. Use the flat side to crush garlic. Transfer chopped ingredients from the cutting board. Cut and shape dough. Cut butter into flour for making perfect pie crust. Scrape up counter messes (ESSENTIAL kitchen clean-up tool for the sourdough business!).
- The KitchenAid All Purpose Stainless Steel Scraper does all the above and is imprinted with a handy ruler and measuring conversion chart. $13.99 on Amazon.
- Get a 5-Pack of multicolor curved scrapers (get all the batter out of your bowls!) for $5.99 on Amazon.
4. Digital Scale
The Cinnamon Roll recipe I use for my sourdough business calls for 6 cups of flour. I can’t tell how many times I stood there mindlessly scooping/leveling/dumping and forgetting which cup I was on… 3 cups in a bowl look an awful lot like 4. After starting over for about the 20th time it finally occurred to me to weigh the flour and use a scale. Because pouring ingredients into a bowl and letting the scale do all the work is so much EASIER AND FASTER! And so for all of your Thanksgiving baking – 1 cup of flour is 120g. Making mashed potatoes as a side dish? 1 cup of milk weighs 230g. Baking pumpkin bread for dessert? 1 cup pumpkin = 250g. Chocolate Chip Cookies? 1 cup brown sugar = 265g. Sugar Cookies? 1 cup white sugar = 200g. Icing? 1 cup powdered sugar = 133g. Using frozen banana slices? 1 medium banana = 130g. Seeing the value of weighing vs. scooping and leveling or bending over to get eye level with your measuring cups and wondering what the rest of your ingredients weigh? King Arthur has weighed them for you. This is hours of prep time people. You’re welcome!
- There are tons on the market, but this little Ozeri one that I use works perfectly. Lots of color options starting at $10 on Amazon.
5. Garlic Peeler
Garlic… essential ingredient for so many dishes, such a pain in the butt to prepare. Peeling garlic is a chore that always takes way too long and leaves me with smelly hands covered in little papery peels. You could skip this and use jarred garlic, but it’s expensive and frankly, fresh is better. Simplify this task with a silicone garlic peeler. Throw a couple cloves inside, roll it back and forth, and BAM, the peels will stick to the silicone instead of your hands.
- Get a set of two for $5 on Amazon.
6. Immersion Blender
If your menu includes soup, you need an immersion blender. I can’t wrap my head around any recipe that suggests transferring hot soup to a blender to puree. No thanks, I’m not interested in being scalded! An immersion blender does the same job without ever having to remove your pot, or soup, from the stovetop. I was able to turn this pot of sauteed mushrooms into cream of mushroom soup in under a minute, all without risking 2nd degree burns.
The Braun one that I have is so old that it’s no longer for sale, but the current model comes with a whisk attachment which sounds pretty handy. Also, you can never go wrong with a KitchenAid product.
7. Olive Oil Sprayer
It is admittedly hard to expound thoughtfully about an olive oil sprayer. Suffice it to say, this is simply a handy gadget that I use every day. To evenly coat my pans, a fillet of fish or piece of meat for roasting, to toss with pasta when it’s poured from the pot so the noodles don’t stick, or to dress my salads with oil and vinegar without having to do a lot of measuring.
Get two and keep one with some garlic cloves in the bottle to give all your dishes and easy flavor boost.
- Comes in multiple color options starting at $8 on Amazon.
8. Faucet Glass Rinser
Ok, so this is less gadget and more of a recommendation for a fun but useful sink fixture. The Delta Faucet Glass Rinser mounts to your existing countertop hole (like the ones used for soap or a hot water dispenser) and connects to either a hot or cold water line to shoot powerful streams of water into all the corners of glassware. Use it for cups, jars, baby bottles, mugs – anything that needs a rinse. It’s like a mini power washer in your kitchen to help you get stuck-on food residue from the inside of jars, dried red wine from those glasses you left out overnight, or coffee stains on the mugs you used in the morning but didn’t wash till late at night. Plus your kids will think its fun!
Happy Thanksgiving
Whether this is your first Thanksgiving or you’re a seasoned professional, we all can use a little help in the kitchen. Having the right set of tools will simplify your meal prep so you can get done with the cooking and on to enjoying the day with your friends and family. I hope these work as well for you as they do for me. And if you have a favorite handy kitchen tool, please drop it in the comments. I’d love to have some fancy new gadgets on my holiday wish list!
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