Are These Kitchen Gadgets Worth the Counter Space?

This article was written in partnership with our sister publication, Haven Magazine.

Home cooks with limited counter space will know the pain and sacrifice of choosing the appliances that will make their way into your kitchen. The airfryer converts will tell you that it’s a life changing innovation that they use every day, but that’s not true of everyone and everything. Anthony Bourdain once said that all you really need to cook like a pro is one good knife and one good pan, but that seems like a bit of overcompensation, too. So what makes an appliance worth the counter space? We’re judging based on what it makes, how easy it is to use, and how easy it is to tuck away when it’s not in use. 

The Rice Cooker

If you hate rice, this isn’t for you. For the rest of us, a rice cooker comes in two standard sizes. Popular brands like Zojirushi tend to offer either a 10 cup or 5 cup rice cooker. The bigger rice cookers are great for large families or meal prep, especially because for whatever reason, the larger the volume of rice, the harder it is to cook properly in a pot. The smaller rice cookers are a nice gift for a first apartment or home. They’re similarly sized to a single-serving slow cooker, but rice cooker meals require fewer recipes and forethought. With their detachable basin, they’re easy to clean and store in a cabinet once cooled.

The Slow Cooker

The time-honored kitchen gadget, a slow cooker is great for people who are interested in learning to cook with a recipe but want a wide margin for error. It’s also great if you eat a lot of stews or one-pot meals, or like to meal prep dinners for the week. There are also some great 5 cup options, which work well for college students that hate food courts. The smaller units also make for easy offerings at potlucks, where you can keep a buffalo chicken dip warm for the whole evening and still have an easy cleanup once you’re home. Beware the regift, though. Via weddings, parents, and grandparents, it’s easy to inherit three slow cookers within a year. 

The Stand Mixer

Yes, the KitchenAid stand mixer is gorgeous. And they must know it, too, because they keep releasing new colorways and specialized attachments. The two downsides, of course, are that a proper stand mixer is expensive and heavy, meaning upper cabinet storage is out of the question. That said, if you are a cookbook fanatic, especially if you frequently cook from chef recipes, there is no replacement for a proper stand mixer when it comes to baking. If you’re just starting out in the kitchen, try it the long way first, then go to the bathroom mirror and have a long, hard conversation with yourself about your future in home baking. After that, go ahead and buy the stand mixer.

The Sous Vide

This is a foodie gadget, and don’t let anyone try to tell you differently. The main benefit here is that cooking properly with a sous vide means the meat comes out perfectly cooked every time. The main downsides include a lot of water splashing as you try to figure out complex instructions and balance temperature and timing. Much like a fondue pot, it’s great for entertaining guests, but it’s unlikely you’ll use it every day, and even less likely you’ll use it more than once a month a year from now. 

The Air Fryer

An air fryer is a great alternative for reheating food or making oven meals like tray bakes, chicken, or muffins in a fraction of the time. That said, they are generally bulky and hard to tuck away after use. Also many air fryers are hard to take apart and properly clean, so you’ll want to see it in person before settling on a particular model.