Staples in the kitchen

When you love cooking, some necessary kitchen utensils are essential to keeping things organised and easy. Here are some kitchen staples I use on a daily basis.

1. Label maker

The first thing is definitely my label maker. Since I used to live in a student house that wasn’t always the cleanest, keeping food safely put away in jars was essential. My label makes helped me to always know what was in there and how long to cook it for, so I could throw away the packaging. Also, it looks very cute on all my jars and it definitely adds some life to my kitchen, since you can see right away that I actually cook.

2. Measuring cup for rice and pasta

Having said that, I always cook too much food, but using a measuring cups for rice and pasta has really helped portioning. However, I also often cook double portions for lunches or other dinners on busy days.

3. Fresh tea towels to throw over your shoulder

Since watching Queer Eye, I never cook without a fresh and clean tea towel over my shoulder anymore. It is so much easier to wipe off your hands that way and keep everything clean. Therefore, thank you Antoni Porowski for this pro tip!

4. Air fryer

Another definite staple for me is my air fryer – and almost never to fry stuff! I use it mostly to bake bread and to prepare food like frozen grilled vegetables, potato wedges and breaded fish. It is easier and way quicker than using an oven or pan when I want a quick meal after a long day of work.

5. Plastic cutting board

As you guys know, I try to avoid plastic as much as I can, but since I do cook a lot with chicken, I find plastic cutting boards to be easier and better to clean. Since I am careful with my stuff, I feel like the reason behind using plastic here is fine for health reasons. However, if you know anything to help me out with this, please let me know!

6. Skillet with high sides

When cooking, a good skillet is essential and a skillet with high sides is super multifunctional as well! Next to cooking a nice breakfast egg in the morning in there, I can also cook complete dinners in mine, since it is pretty big and nothing falls out due to the sides.

7. Paring knife

I feel like a paring knife is the perfect, versatile knife you need if you have nothing else left; due to it’s size, it can work for detailed work, like cutting garlic, but also for bigger stuff. Therefore, this is something I have invested more in opposed to my other knives.

8. Oven mitts

Since I can be enormously clumsy, I NEED my oven mitts. A lot of my college friends just use tea towels to pick things up, but since I have such a talent for hurting myself (also when cooking), I like to be safe and thus, to use oven mitts.

9. Spatula’s and tongs

These two I put together, but since mostly cook things in my skillet, I cannot do without my spatula’s and a tong to flip and stir things. The spatula is especially important, since I love two-sided baked eggs at breakfast with black pepper and basil on top, which I could not make without it.

10. Glass baking dish with lid

Last, but definitely not least, is my glass baking dish with a lid. When cooking for one person, some dishes seem harder to make in small portions, like moussaka and lasagna. However, since I bought this medium sized glass baking dish with a lid, I can make two portions, scoop one portion out of it when it is ready, and leave the other one in the fridge with the lid on to warm up the next day. These dishes are also easy when taking food with me to work or the university, since I can warm up the contents of the dish in the microwave there. This way, I have delicious, warm meals with me, without it costing a lot of money.

11. Spice rack

I wanted to list only 10, but I could not leave my spice rack out of this article, since it looks so pretty and it saves me so much space in my cupboards! All the jars go together in the rack, whereas before, I would have all these different sizes and forms of jars thrown somewhere, because there was no good organizing system. However, in combination with my label maker, to put labels on the jars of my spice rack, I have now so much space left and so much clarity over my stock!

Of course, these are not the only things you need when buying kitchen supplies, but they are things that you might not think of immediately that are very nice to have. I feel like it made cooking more enjoyable for me, since it can be really annoying if your food keeps sticking to the pan, you don’t have good knives (which is actually dangerous, since you can cut yourself more easily) and you have no idea where everything is.

Therefore, I hope you’ve enjoyed this little list of kitchen utensils. Please let me know what your absolute kitchen staples are! Curious about what foods I see as essential in my kitchen? Take a look at food essentials when living alone.

Lots of love,

Lisa