From grandma’s old school recipes to your favorite influencer’s weeknight go-to, cooking is a heartfelt gesture from your mind to someone’s plate. For those newer to navigating a kitchen, it can be difficult to determine what items are truly necessary to bring recipes to life.
Meanwhile, for others who know their way around a stove, they can sometimes find themselves in a loop of creating the same meals, or their process is repetitive. After speaking to a few chefs on what they believe are the ultimate kitchen essentials, you no longer have to worry about what tools you need for a flavorful meal.
Here’s a list of kitchen essentials to have for your next great meal:
Quality Chef’s Knife
While it’s no secret that you should have a knife to help chop or dice ingredients for a recipe, the type of knife you may use can be an advantage or hindrance to the outcome of a meal. Chef Joseph V. Moore Jr. believes that using a higher quality knife is most useful when prepping your ingredients as you’re pulling the elements of a dish together. “A good knife makes cooking feel less like a chore, and more like a craft. It is like a paintbrush for your good canvas! Without a good quality sharpened knife, it will be difficult to cut and prep your food how you’d want to. When the knife is right, the prep becomes easier and the more simpler it will be to choose home cooked meals over processed foods,” he said.
Chef Jordan-Ali Taylor, professionally known as Chef Elegance, echoed a similar sentiment in her conversation with EBONY, noting the importance of a knife’s sharpness not always being tied to being expensive. “A sharp, well-balanced chef’s knife is something I believe every kitchen should have. It doesn’t have to be the most expensive knife, but it should feel comfortable in your hand and hold a good edge. It’s one of the most-used tools in my kitchen, and a quality knife that’s properly cared for can last for years.”
Dutch Oven
Dutch ovens are often used for baking and braising different types of meat. They can especially be useful when wanting to heighten the flavor of a meal through simmering for dishes such as soups and stews. Chef Elegance believes that the versatility of this tool is worth the investment.
“A Dutch oven is one of my favorite pieces to have in the kitchen because it can do almost everything. From braising and slow-cooking to soups, sauces, and even baking, it’s incredibly versatile. I also love that it’s a piece you can invest in once, take care of, and have in your kitchen for years,” Chef Elegance expressed. She recommends the Le Creuset Dutch Oven, which can be found for purchase here. Beyond the official Le Creuset store, she also recommends looking at other retailers like Marshall’s as a pro-tip to finding a high-quality pot for a fraction of the cost.
Immersion Blender
Similar to a traditional blender, an immersion blender helps mix various ingredients together to create a mixture. Though the design leans heavier on the cook’s labor through handmixing, it still gets the job done when looking to mix items already inside of a pot. Sauces, dips, dressings, or even smoothies with smaller portions are great options to use an immersion blender for. It cuts down on the extra cleaning that comes with a separate blender and makes blending simpler.
“An immersion blender is one of those tools that makes cooking so much easier. I love using it for soups, sauces, purées, and dressings, especially because I can blend directly in the pot. It’s simple, convenient, and gives you that smooth, restaurant-quality finish without having to pull out a full-size blender,” Chef Elegance told EBONY.
Baking Sheet
Despite the typical belief that a baking sheet can only be used to make pastries and other baked goods, it can also be useful for elevating the cook experience beyond a stovetop. From roasting veggies to draining fried foods, a baking sheet can be the multi-purpose tool your kitchen has been missing. Other uses may also look like keeping ingredients organized as you’re cooking or using it to simply cover a pot of food while it’s cooking as you’re moving throughout the kitchen.
If you’re someone who enjoys hosting, you could even use it as a serving tray for multiple food items at once.
Cutting Board
Using a cutting board as you’re dicing or chopping ingredients is not only necessary to keep organized while cooking, but it helps you to have a solid foundation when cutting ingredients to avoid mishaps. While some have gone back and forth about what type of cutting board is best between wooden, glass, or plastic, keeping one in your kitchen arsenal is the best rule of thumb to help improve the flow of the cooking process.
“This is the canvas for how you will put all the food together. The essential ingredients belong here. Without the cutting board you can not get the proper diced, cut & divided pieces needed to bring the food to its proper flavor profile,” Chef Joseph explained.
A Great Playlist
Beyond the food on the plate, the ambiance that’s created is what helps to enhance the experience. Like other activities you may do on a daily basis, cooking while listening to music is a great way to pass time and really hone the energy that comes with creating a meal.
Chef Joseph recommends that this is the ultimate cherry on top to make a meal during any time of day sweeter. “Normally in those big fancy 5-star restaurants there is zero music playing! That is not where I want to be working at so with that being said if the kitchen has no music in it the food will not come out right! It is my ritual to make flavorful and soulful food! My playlist mainly consists of jazz, blues, R&B & my favorite genre–neo soul. Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Dwele, D’Angelo, Maxwell, and so many more! The musical mood in the kitchen is a big deal for me. Ritualistic even,” he said.