These days everyone would like to cook healthy foods at home that taste great. The trick is to set up your kitchen with the right type of appliances to help you achieve that goal.
Some of these gadgets can help you to cut out excess fat without losing the delicious crunch we enjoy. Some can also make the cooking process quicker and more efficient. An important feature after a long day at work or play.
This is a topic I wanted to write about as I have a brand new kitchen. I have plenty of storage space but still didn’t want to clutter it up with items I wouldn’t use very often.
Here are five items I am considering or have already bought for my own home.
Instant Pot – Considering
So what exactly is an Instant Pot?
It’s a small pressure cooker which has more than one function making it a versatile addition to your kitchen.
It can be used to steam vegetables, cook a pot of rice or knock out a slow cooked meal. It does all of this and more with the added convenience of doing faster and more efficiently that traditional appliances you have used before.
This gadget is so easy to use. You literally put in the ingredients, secure the lid, set the timer and you can safely leave the room.
It’s a faster option than a slow cooker, which I have always loved. Sometimes though, you just want a quicker way to serve up a delicious meal.
What do you like to cook?
Beef stew, Chillis, no problem.
Rice or Risotto, easy.
Vegetables, Yes
You can even make Yoghurt.
Your Instant Pot has you fully covered.
Like all home appliances there are many options to choose from. You may want to start with a budget model to see how you like it. Some models allow you to choose the speed of cooking time, similar to a slow cooker.
If you already know you want to add one of these to your kitchen set up one that is fully versatile in the type of foods it can prepare would be a better option from the get go.
Traditional Slow Cooker – I Own One
I am on my second slow cooker in about 10 years. I generally only use it during the colder months of the year. You really can’t beat coming home at the end of the day to the smell of a home cooked meal.
So if you are not sold on getting yet another appliance such as an Instant Pot, you may like to stick with a more traditional slow cooker.
Creating a no fuss one pot meal is its specialty. The benefits are compelling.
Have a tough cut of meat? No problem. It will come out of the cooker beautifully tender due to the longer and slower cooking time. You simply cannot ruin or burn the food either. Great for those of us who aren’t the best cooks!
Slow cookers come in a variety of sizes and price points to suit all families no matter how large. As with the Instant Pot, slow cookers are also very versatile with what you can cook in them.
As they have been around since the ’70’s there are a huge amount of cook books dedicated to slow cooking available on the market.
Another great feature is the ease of cleaning and washing up. The cooker consists of an electric heating element inside the metal exterior with a ceramic or porcelain inner pot. After you have served up your meal a quick wipe of the outer metal and a wash of the inner pot and you’re done. It’s quick and easy.
If you opt for one of these, you’ll be serving up delicious meals for you and your family in no time!
A Blender or a High Speed Blender – I Own One
A blender is one of the tools you’ll definitely want to add to your must have list.
The smoothie is one of the most popular things you can make with your blender. The internet is awash with recipes for every taste your family can think of.
Throw in your favorite fruit or vegetables, add some almond, coconut milk or even water and you have a quick, healthy breakfast to go.
Of course, smoothies can also be used as a meal replacement for lunch and dinner if you are trying to keep the pounds off. The bonus with using a blender is you also get plenty of fibre.
Do you like soup? You can also use it to make a soup puree. It can also blend dressings and sauces and if you need it, home made baby food. It’ll help with a sweet tooth as well. Making nutritional desserts which are low in calories is also a breeze.
The beauty of the blender is the easy clean. Not too many parts so you can easily rinse and wash out with the minimal of fuss.
I already have one of these in my kitchen. I opted for The NutriBullet, one of the high speed blenders. I absolutely love it. It makes delicious smoothies, is easy to clean and looks great on my kitchen bench.
SodaStream – I Own One
As a family, we drink a lot of soda water or seltzer. The trouble was the sheer amount of unwanted plastic we needed to recycle every week. The time had come to buy a water carbonation gadget! Enter the Sodastream.
Once I saw the red one I was convinced and home it came with me. I opted for the ‘Terra’ model which was in the lower price range. I figured I could always upgrade to a more expensive model if I needed to.
Setting it up was easy. Open the back, insert the CO2 cylinder, fill up the included bottle with (filtered – optional) water, attach it to the unit and press the button.
Couldn’t be easier! The more times you press the button the fizzier the water becomes. You can also purchase flavored syrups to add after carbonation to make colas, tonic waters etc. I haven’t bother too much with those as I prefer plain water without the extra sugar.
I also purchased 2 extra bottles so I always have chilled water in the refrigerator ready to go.
This is one of my favorite and most used items and it doesn’t use any power to operate.
Air Fryer – I Kind of Have One!
I have never owned a traditional deep fryer as the thought of cooking fried food at home has never really appealed to me.
I was lucky, as part of our rebuild I was able to get a brand new wall oven that had an air fryer built in. Of course, not everyone can or wants to buy a new oven, so a stand alone air fryer will be the best option if you want to add one of these to your kitchen.
You may not be on a diet or want to lose weight but an Air Fryer can still be a useful item to have at hand.
If you have used a normal fryer in the past but would like to upgrade you may have decided you want a more healthy alternative. You can get the same great taste using an air fryer without giving up the foods you enjoy.
Some of these fryers are able to cut out as much as 80% of the calories without the heavy calorie load.
Another attractive feature of the air fryer is you won’t need the large amounts of oil as with deep frying. This will save you a lot of money as the air fryer uses as little as a teaspoon of oil or less. Some only need a spray of cooking oil to give a great result.
Air fryers can also easily crisp up the food while locking n the juice. So you get the crunch on the outside but the food is tender and moist on the inside.
The air fryer is basically a counter top oven. The technology doesn’t actually ‘fry’ the food in the normal sense of the word. Rather it bakes the food and bakes it fast with the help of a powerful fan inside the unit.
What Type Of Foods Can You Cook?
Well, the obvious is French fries and battered fish. Frozen fries will turn out crispier than baked in the oven and in a fraction of the time too.
But you can cook fried chicken, bacon and eggs for breakfast, tomatoes, corn, baked potatoes, just about anything that could be fried or oven baked.
There are lots of sizes you can get depending on your needs or the size of your family. Some of the larger models can also dehydrate foods, so create snacks as well.
To get the most out of your new air fryer, invest in a cookbook geared towards using this appliance. You’ll be an expert in no time.
In Summary
I have covered just 5 of the appliances I think are a good fit for your kitchen if you’re looking to cook healthy food for your family.
Of course, there are other items that can easily be added to the list. As I do still have a few gadgets I’d like to have in my kitchen, keep an eye out for a follow up post with 5 more items you may want to consider.
Below is my SodaStream in red, my favorite color and my NutriBullet in gold. I would have preferred a red NutriBullet to be honest but they weren’t available at the time of purchase and I wasn’t prepared to wait. I use these items many times each week so they have been well worth the investment.
