5 Cheap and Easy Ways To Up Your Cooking Game At Home
You don’t need all sorts of fancy kitchen equipment or ingredients to start cooking. With a frying pan and some enthusiasm, you can start to make some incredible dishes for yourself and your friends. In fact, when I was at university our kitchen didn’t have much but that didn’t stop us from cooking up feasts at every opportunity. I’m a big advocate of using what you have and don’t think that it’s worth investing in a tonne of equipment before you’re ready. There’s no point buying a sous-vide machine before you’ve even mastered boiling an egg, but there are some affordable kitchen gadgets that make cooking a little bit easier, and who doesn’t want that?
Here are my five kitchen gadgets that are all under £30 and I have in my kitchen right now and use pretty much every day.
KNIFE SHARPENER
A knife sharpener will up your chopping game and make food prep a whole lot more pleasurable. You might not have even noticed that your knives have gone blunt but as soon as you sharpen them you’ll instantly notice the difference. You simply glide the blade through the sharpener a couple of times and it comes out good as new. A sharp knife makes food prep easier and safer so there’s no reason not to sharpen those knives!
STICK BLENDER
A handheld blender is such a handy thing to have in your kitchen (terrible pun I know, but hard to resist). I use mine for blending soups, making curry pastes and making things like breadcrumbs and flavoured salts. They don’t need to be expensive and it’s worth getting one with the little blender attachment. I love using my Ninja, but for things that don't have a lot of liquid in a stick-blender is a great gadget to have to hand. I have a bigger blender but have found the little one so handy and much less washing up than using the larger one.
I have one like this - Morphy Richards Hand Blender £29.99
MANDOLIN
I have a £5 mandolin from Ikea and it was one of those purchases that I regret putting off for so long. I actually enjoy shopping so didn’t think I needed one but it makes such light work of chopping potatoes for a gratin or veggies for a salad that I won’t ever go back. I love using mine to thinly slice onions to picked Not only is this one cheap, but you can also use it to chop things directly into the Ikea 365 containers which is really handy.
DOUGH SCRAPER
Ok so you might be thinking to yourself why on earth do I need this, but if you make any kind of dough at all it’s worth having. I didn’t buy one for years as I didn’t think I needed one, but as soon as I got one I cursed myself for not buying it sooner. It helps with mixing a wet dough, transferring it onto a baking tray, cleaning a work surface, portioning dough and so much more. You can also use it to transfer prepped food off your chopping board and into the pan or use it to smooth down the sides of a cake.
DIGITAL SCALES
A good set of scales are a must-have for any chef in my opinion, especially if you’re into baking where precision matters. There are some expensive options out there, but I have this set which was £10 and works perfectly for me. Using cups to measure doesn’t give you precise measurements and a digital scale means you get a perfect result every time.
Salter Digital Scales, £10, Argos
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