What kitchen essentials you need for cooking like a pro

Updated on 17/02/2021.

Good morning, lovely dreamers, and welcome to another kitchen life hacks blog post! Today, we’re sharing with you the tools from our own home that we can’t live without, and why you definitely need them.

So you just started living life on your own, packed up and moved to your own place, away from mom and dad.

It’s hard, I know. But you need to learn how to live on your own, without the help of your parents and grandparents. (Well, maybe just from time to time.)

The most important lessons I wish someone would have taught me in my early 20’s ( besides the ones I got from my parents) are: how to have a cleaner home without much effort, how to manage your money and still enjoy my 20’s, how to make extra money each month, and what are the essential stuff I need in my home to make my life easier.

Now, we know what cleaning essentials we need to have, because we already covered that subject in another article, this time we need to focus on those 5+ kitchen essentials you need to have in your home today, so you can have fun cooking all your delicious recipes.

For cooking, we found that there are many things one might use in a kitchen, but we needed to make a smaller list for all you newbies out there, so you don’t get overwhelmed like we once were with all that craziness the world has to offer for us.

That’s when this small list of kitchen essentials was born.

But enough with the chit-chatting! Let’s get to it!

5+ Kitchen Essentials every newbie cook needs

From all the things you could have in a kitchen, this is what you absolutely need:

1. Cooking pots

You really don’t need a whole set of 12 piece cooking pans to make good food for you and your loved ones. You only need 3: a small one, a medium-sized one, and a large one.

The small one you’ll need for making rice, mashed potatoes, peas, veggies, as side dishes.

The medium-sized one is perfect for making sauces, roast meat, all kinds of stews.

The big one is perfect for making all the soups imaginable and boil any type of pasta you can grab.

Buy the best ones you can afford, but I highly recommend the ones with a thicker bottom, because they conduct the heat better, and the thick bottom prevents your food from sticking to the pan and burning.

2. Knives

To start with, all you need is… three. No more than that number. The other ones are usually for other, more complex stuff, so we’ll stick to the basics today.

You need a small one, for prepping (peeling/cleaning) fruits and vegetables; a large “chef” knife, with a thicker blade and a pointy end, which is universal – perfect to use for slicing, chopping and mincing everything, from vegetables, to herbs, to meat; last but not least, a large serrated one, basically used for slicing(mostly bread) and carving – and even this one is optional.

The way to pick you knife is quite simple, to get the one that was perfectly made for you, think of it like a magic wand from the Harry Potter books and movies.

The magical moment you try it in your hand, you know if it’s the right one for you. “The thicker the handle, the more control you have”, says Chef Gordon Ramsey. Just don’t forget to test it and see how you feel about it.

And to keep them all sharp, you’ll need one of these:

This is a knife sharpener, in case you were wondering.

3. Wooden elements (tools)

When I say wooden elements this is what I mean: your much needed wooden spoons and your cutting board.

As for the wooden spoons, we have one spoon and one that is flat – we use them for stirring, one like the spoon but with holes in it that we use for filtering meatballs when needed, and a flat one with holes that we always use when frying eggs, or pancakes, or anything that is flat and somewhat oily.

Fo the wooden board, we recommend using a large wooden cutting board, the best one you can afford. The ones we are using now, since coming back to Transylvania are around 15 years old, and they don’t look a day over 1!

All you need to do is to take good care of it and clean it after every use, and once in a while give it a deeper cleanse and some TLC with olive oil. This way, it will last you for years!

4. Frying pan

Everyone loves fried something. Eggs, potatoes, chicken wings, you name it. It’s a thing for us to like it, even though most of them are not so healthy.

For the task of frying them, we recommend you get your hands on a medium-sized frying pan, preferably with an oven-proof handle, so you can up your cooking game and use it in the oven as well.

Go wild and explore how many delicious recipes you can do with a simple frying pan!

5. A box grater

A box grater is an essential tool in the kitchen because it’s so versatile – you have one part for slicing, and three parts for grating: ground, normal and fine.

Perfect for fine slicing potatoes, onions, for grating vegetables such as carrots and for other stuff like grating cheese for any kinds of pasta and pizzas.

6. Inox tools

From a nice sized ladle to a whisk for your fluffy needs, and a peeler, there are a few utensils you might need in your kitchen.

7. Bowls

Bowls are a must. They’re incredibly versatile, and can be used for prepping, baking, even serving a salad or two.

Nice to have:

• A garlic press
• Measuring cups and spoons
• Hand blender set
• Electric kettle
• Sieve set
• Cooking scale
• Meat thermometer

Hopefully, this small list helped you, as much as it helped us at the beginning of our journey together, alone in this crazy life, and brought you closer to the idea of cooking in your own kitchen.

Aaaaand that’s all for today, lovely dreamers! We hope you liked our list of 5 Kitchen essentials every newbie cook needs, and if you did, please don’t forget to share it, pin it, tweet it!

My question for you is: What other stuff do you desperately need in the kitchen for cooking?

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