22 Unnecessary Kitchen Items You Can Be Rid of for a Fun and Free Cooking Experience
Minimalism isn’t about the optimal number of items you own. It is about reducing the excess to free up your space, time, cleaning, spending, and improving the aesthetics of your living conditions. It also forces you to increase your knowledge and skills to compensate for brainless gadgets.
Minimalism in the kitchen requires you to draw upon your cooking skills, creativity and sense of fun and adventure. A skilled carpenter, truly into their craft, relies on sharp hand tools and sharpens them daily, not power tools. Likewise, a skilled chef relies upon their set of frequently sharpened knives, and not the powered accessories around them. Both a carpenter and a chef can carry everything they need from job-to-job in a rucksack. Powered appliances are not a necessity.
Most of what you will reduce in the kitchen are gadgets marketed as convenient; however, they typically take up a lot of space and effort to clean and maintain, nulling the effectiveness of their convenience. If you want less cleaning, utensils that are easier to find and an improvement in your preparation skills, enjoy the following list of unnecessary kitchen items.
Your kitchen should be a haven of calm and enjoyment, not one of clutter and cleaning chaos.
22 Kitchen Appliances and Utensils You Simply Don’t Need:
Air Fryer: Spray some olive oil on your food and fry in a pan or bake on an oven tray. Spraying uses less oil than immersing.
Block to hold your knives: Keep them stored in your drawer and off the countertop.
Bread Maker: Learn to bake bread properly and use a baking tray or bread form instead. Bread makers are heavy and take up a lot of space.
Coffee machine: If you want good coffee, get it freshly and finely blended. Use a pour-over, small cafetiere or an Aero Press in its place.
Combi-oven/microwave: Unless you use it for all your cooking, get a smaller microwave instead and use in combination with your oven for oven-required cooking.
Crockpot: Bulky, heavy and not necessary. Just use your largest pot in its place.
Doughnut/Waffle Maker: Hmmm. Really? A quick search on the internet shows you how to make them easily by hand.
Electric Egg cooker: A pot or pan is all you need.
Finest plates or inherited pieces: These will receive little use, so either use them daily and enjoy them while they last or reduce them down to just 2 of each to share the occasional experience with a close friend.
Food Processor: Use your blender for the softer foods and your sharpened knives for the harder foods. Use a hand whisk or spoon for everything else.
Instant Pot or other electric pressure cooker: Learn to use a normal pressure cooker. The pot part can also then be used as your largest pot for other cooking.
Juicer: Another powered countertop invader. Squeeze your own juice with a hand juicer.
Large blender: Use a handheld or upright bullet-style blender instead. Both of these can be stored in a drawer or cupboard.
Milk frother: Use a hand whisk.
More than 2 families of dinnerware and cutlery: Unless you entertain on a weekly basis, why have so many? Learn to wash in the sink as you go. Buy a scrubber that stores dishwashing liquid in its handle, so you don’t have to fill the sink each time. Rinse, scrub, rinse, dry!
Mugs: Reduce them. See if you can manage one mug a day and rinse and wash as needed.
Plug-in Sandwich toaster/press: Grill your cheese sandwiches under your oven grill. Pre-press them by hand with the bottom of a pan or place a heavy grill plate on top in the oven if you want the pressed effect
Rice maker: Use a normal pot or a manual pressure-cooker pot to replace its bulky presence.
Stand Mixer: A handheld which you can store in a drawer and cupboard will serve you just as well.
Too many pots and pans: Do you really need more than 3 sizes of each? You will have much more room in your cupboard or deep drawer.
Vegetable slicer/processor: Keep your knives sharp and learn the skills to manually slice and dice.
Wok: Just use your largest pan in its place.
If you are seeking a calmer, better and more satisfying lifestyle with less stuff, read my book “Mindful Minimalism”