5 Kitchen Gadgets that make my Life Easier (and can make yours easier, too!)

Modern life is busy and chaotic, am I right? And yet, everyday, no matter how busy it is, we need to spend a good chunk of our time in the kitchen because we have to eat. Every. Single. Day. That’s why we need kitchen tools that make our lives easier.

I am a homeschooling, work-at-home mom of three. It is busy. There’s never enough hours in the day. And so I’m always looking for ways to save time, especially in the kitchen.

Once upon a time I thought doing everything the hard way was better. Having no dishwasher was rustic, right? Cooking everything on the stove instead of the slow-cooker made for a more beautifully tasting meal. Churning my own butter made me a better mom.

Okay, forget that last one. I never churned my own butter (though I did attempt to make my own ice cream once. It was a giant fail.)

Look, there’s nothing wrong with doing things a slower way. If that’s what works for your home I encourage you to continue. There is beauty in the traditional ways.

However, I don’t think any of us moms are going to say we aren’t thankful for the modern invention that is the washing machine. No way am I going to wash my clothes in a basin with a washboard, no matter how cute and rustic old pictures look of a woman washing her laundry by hand.

The old ways were simple. But don’t confuse simple with easy. They definitely weren’t easy.

For everything there is a season. And some seasons I can do things like canning, and gardening, and cooking less meals in the slow cooker because I have more time.

Other seasons like the one I’m currently in, my garden seeds go in and get ignored for the duration of the summer, I end up freezing more food instead of caning, and I am one with my slow cooker.

And that’s okay.

Today I want to share with you 5 kitchen gadgets that make my life easier, especially when it’s a crazy time. Maybe you’ll see something on the list that might interest you in adding to your life for a little more ease.

5 Kitchen Gadgets that make my Life Easier

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Slow Cooker

Let’s talk with the obvious one I kept referring to in the first half of this post – the slow cooker. I adore using my slow cooker because I wake up and toss my food in and I don’t think much about dinner again until 5:00.

I don’t have to panic about what I’m going to make during the day because it’s already cooking.

My favorite thing to make in it is pulled pork or pulled beef. No word of a lie, I toss it in and when it’s done I shred it and add some BBQ sauce.

I took this to a picnic one day and everyone kept asking me for the recipe because it was just SO GOOD. I kept telling people it was literally just a good quality bottle of BBQ sauce and a hunk of meat. That. Was. It.

I also like to make chili and potato soup in the slow cooker. There’s something about having dinner cooking all day that reduces your stress because you know supper is taken care of.

Air Fryer

This is a new one for me and I wasn’t sure I’d like it, but it’s been a huge time saver. My favorite thing to make in the air fryer is diced potatoes. I used to make diced potatoes in the oven with a recipe that would take an hour and 10 minutes to do. In the air fryer our side of potatoes is done in under 20 minutes.

We don’t eat processed food for meals all that often, but chicken burgers is our one weakness that we do like to enjoy from time to time. These are another food I can easily toss in the air fryer.

I also recently grew eggplant in the garden and didn’t really know what to do with it as our family hasn’t really eaten eggplant too much. I discovered I could bread it and toss it in the air fryer. The kids loved it.

The air fryer is a great gadget, especially for sides for your meals. I’ve even made a few slices of bacon in it when I needed some for a ceasar salad.

Rice Cooker

Okay, I know some of you are rolling your eyes. Once upon a time I had a friend who said to me, “who uses a rice cooker? I mean, rice isn’t that hard to make.”

I beg to differ. Some of us are rice cooking challenged. It didn’t matter what I did, for some reason I always managed to ruin rice on the stove.

With a rice cooker I can put the correct measurements in, turn it on, and not worry about it until it’s done. Perfect rice every time! (Unless, of course, you put the wrong measurements in. Speaking hypothetically of course…. *cough*cough.*)

Vitamix Blender

I’ve always said that if my house was ever burning down, we really had nothing of value except for…my Vitamix. And I’d be trying to grab my Vitamix before I ran out of the house!

Once upon a time we were dirt poor but I scrounged the money up for a Vitamix. I had been burning out cheap blenders every year and it made more sense to spend a good chunk of money for a decent blender that came with a 10 year warranty.

13 years later and my blender is still going strong.

How does this tool save me time in the kitchen? Smoothies, baby. Sometimes as a mom I feel too busy to stop for a full on meal so I’ll whip myself up a smoothie for lunch.

Or sometimes it’s the day before we go grocery shopping and the snack stash is pretty sad, but I can whip up a smoothie for my kids because I’ve got frozen fruit and bananas in the freezer.

On top of that, if you are the type that likes to make a lot from scratch you can make your own homemade peanut butter or hummus in the blender.

Coffee Maker

This might single-handedly be the most important gadget in my kitchen because that cup of hot coffee is like a warm hug that I need on a cold day. Every morning I get so excited to get out of bed and enjoy my cup of coffee.

We just have a basic 14-cup style coffee maker, but if you prefer something a little more convenient, a Keurig is a perfect coffee maker for individual cups. We had one a while back and honestly, I’m not sure what we did with it. I wouldn’t mind having another one.

Or, if you’d really like to go fancy, you could get an espresso or latte machine. Feel free to send me one too. 🙂 They are definitely more costly but people who have them absolutely love them.

Life in the Kitchen Doesn’t have to Be Stressful

And there you have it – my top 5 kitchen gadgets that I use to save me time and stress. I recommend all of them as they’ve all get regular use in my kitchen. What about you? Is there a kitchen tool you just can’t live without?