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When you hear to phrase ”cooking from scratch”, it probably brings to mind images of spending all day in the kitchen cooking, especially if someone mentions that they cook ”completely” from scratch (which, by hardly anyone actually does).
But that doesn’t have to be the case. In this modern world, we are blessed to be able to have some ”shortcuts” available to us in the form of pre-prepped foods like cut-up fruit or sliced cheese, or in the case of this post, small kitchen appliances that can help us get wholesome foods on the table without spending every waking hour by the stove.
1. Crockpot
When I registered for (and received) two crockpots for our wedding, I honestly wondered if I’d ever use both of them. It was just the two of us and that seemed like a lot of cooking space for one couple and tiny, one-bedroom apartment.
Three-and-a-half years later, those two crockpots have come in handy plenty of times. Whether it was making food for our college graduation party with family or hosting Easter, Thanksgiving, or Christmas, they’ve been well loved. So well-loved, in fact, that earlier this year the smaller of the two crockpots stopped working and needed to be replaced (I got an Instant Pot instead for the extra versatility. See #3 below).
Some of my favorite things to make using my crockpot(s) are:
- “Baked” Potatoes
- Roast and Veggies
- Barbecued Pork or Beef
- Herbed Pork (or Chicken) Rice Pilaf
- Ham
- Scalloped Potatoes
Crockpots can also come in handy during the summer and fall food preservation times. I love throwing apples or pears into the crockpot with a little water, cooking them until tender, and then running them through my food mill to make the easiest apple/pear sauce ever!
2. Stand Mixer
What did we do before stand mixers existed?
Well, I’m guessing women who baked their own bread probably had some pretty strong arm muscles from all that kneading.
I don’t think that kneading bread by hand is bad (hey, it’s a good workout, and you get fresh bread afterwards). But I do love using my stand mixer for mixing up bread and all kinds of other doughs, including muffin batters and cookie dough!
I love that I can dump in all the ingredients and do something else in the kitchen while my stand mixer does all the work for me. Plus, if you have a pretty stiff dough, the mixer will get all the flour incorporated in less time than it takes by hand.
I have the Bosch Universal Mixer, and I love it! It’s got a super heavy duty motor, so it can even handle big jobs like 4 loaves of bread dough. I know for a fact my arms wouldn’t hold up to that!
3. Instant Pot
I’ll admit, I thought all the people who have been raving about the Instant Pot were a bit weird, but now that I have one I can see why people like it so much.
While there are some things that aren’t much faster in the Instant Pot than on the stove since it has to come up to pressure before the cooking time starts, I love that I don’t have to worry about burning or stirring foods and that they can come out perfectly every time.
I’ve used my Instant Pot to make and hard-boiled eggs, and it’s so easy! I hated making rice before I got the Instant Pot because I had to babysit it so it wouldn’t burn. With the Instant Pot, I can just ”set it and forget it” and come back to perfectly cooked rice that doesn’t stick to the pan!
Since I haven’t had my Instant Pot very long and I only have a 3-quart which doesn’t have enough room for most IP recipes, I haven’t tried a ton of recipes, but Pinterest is full of them!
I know lots of people love using there Instant Pots to cook whole chickens or beef roasts and to make bone broth. I haven’t tried these yet because I’d need a really tiny chicken or roast to fit in my size Instant Pot, but I’d love to use it for those some day!
4. Hand Mixer
Hand mixers are awesome for when you don’t want to mix something completely by hand, but you don’t really want to get the whole stand mixer out for a quick job.
My favorite things to make with a hand mixer for are:
- Cookie Dough
- Frosting
- Whipped Cream
5. Bread Machine
While you would think that a machine with “bread” in its name would only be useful for bread loaves, it’s quite the opposite!
Bread machines are awesome for making your normal sandwich loaves, but lots of them have a dough setting that will do all the mixing and rising for you. Once the machine is done, all you have to do is shape the dough, let it rise, and bake it. This way you can
I have a Cuisinart bread machine, and it has worked really well for us. I’ve also heard really good things about the Zojirushi bread machine.
Examples of things you can make with a bread machine:
- Sandwich Loaves
- Quick Breads
- Cinnamon Rolls
- Hamburger Buns or Dinner Rolls
- Pretzels
- French Bread (I know, it’s still bread, but in a different shape!)
- Bagels
I don’t think my model has this setting, but with some bread machines, you can even make homemade jam in them to go with your bread!
6. Food Processor
I put off getting a food processor for a long time. In fact, I got the slicer-shredder attachment that attaches to my Bosch stand mixer, and I thought that was all I would need.
Turns out, if all you have is a slicer-shredder that only works on the top of a bowl, you’re missing out on a lot of cool things you can make so much more easily with a food processor.
I’ve actually been borrowing my grandma’s Cuisinart food processor for the last couple months, and I now need it often enough that it’s going to have a permanent home in my house. My grandma passed away a couple years ago and my mom and sister didn’t need or want the food processor, so it just stayed with the rest of her kitchen stuff. I live in a pretty small house with a small kitchen, so I only really want small kitchen appliances in there that I use frequently.
Some of the many things you can do with a food processor:
- Puree cooked pumpkin for pies
- Make bread crumbs from dry bread
- Make liver paté
- Make fresh salsa
- Mix up homemade Larabars
7. Blender
Until I recently brought the food processor back to stay in my kitchen, I would often just try to use my blender as a substitute. While there are tons of uses for a blender in the kitchen, it’s not a substitute for everything you can do in food processor, and vice versa.
For recipes for more liquid, such as hummus, a blender can work just fine. However, whenever I would try to puree pumpkin or liver pate, the food would end up sitting above the blades since it was too thick to fall down and get chopped up.
I use my blender pretty much daily to make smoothies. We through in frozen spinach or kale, frozen fruit, milk, probiotics (dump them out of their little capsule into the blender), and sometimes peanut butter. They’re delicious.
I have the blender attachment that mounts to the second motor on my Bosch mixer. While you definitely don’t need to have the two attached, the nice thing for me in a small kitchen is that since I leave the Bosch out all the time, I just need to scoot it forward a little to use the blender. I never made smoothies or even used my blender this regularly until I moved my mixer where I could use it more easily.
8. Hot Pot
I’ll be honest, though I do love the functionality of a hot pot, I don’t actually own one of these anymore.
Since our kitchen doesn’t have a ton of counter space or outlets, it wad just easier for us to use an ” old-fashioned metal Tea pot that we could just put on the stove. Eventually we started never even really using the hot pot anymore, so it got a new home at my parents’ house.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a hot pot makes a home in our kitchen again Sometime when we have more counter space, because I do find them quicker than heating up water in the stove. I love that more companies are coming out models that are made with glass and metal, which are especially nice if you’re trying to use less plastic in your house.
And you don’t have to only make coffee or tea with your hot pot. You can also use the hot water to make oatmeal or really quick hot water for recipes that call for boiling water (yes, there are some).
9. Toaster Oven
No, not a toaster. A toaster oven.
The toaster oven, while it might sound like it’s only good for making toast, can actually do just about anything your regular oven can, just in a smaller quantity.
The model I have has settings for baking, toasting, and even broiling.
If I want to cook a larger amount of food, I might still go for the regular oven. However, toaster ovens are nice during the summer when you don’t want to heat up the house.
Some things I do with my toaster oven:
- Melt butter or coconut oil
- Heat up leftovers
- Thaw frozen muffins
- Warm up pre-made breads, muffins, etc
We don’t own a microwave anymore since we both like the taste better when we heat up our food in the toaster oven!
10. Grain Mill
I just got a grain mill while I was working on this post, and I’m loving it, so of course I had to add it to my list of favorite small appliances! I have the Nutrimill Harvest. It’s made by the same company who makes the Bosch mixer that I mentioned above, so I know it’s high quality!
While you definitely don’t have to mill your own flour to cook from scratch (though it’s easier than it sounds), it’s amazing how fresh your baked goods taste when the flour was ground just hours or even minutes earlier!
I’m still learning about all the ins and outs of grain milling, but from what I’ve learned so far, freshly-milled whole grains retain more nutrition than flour that’s been sitting on store shelves. Since the oils in the wheat haven’t been exposed to air and gone rancid, a completely whole wheat product tastes so much better than if you made something only with whole wheat flour from the store.
If you’d like to learn more about milling your own grains and the different types of grain mills that are available, Jami at Finding Joy in Your Home has a Freshly Milled Grains course. I took it before buying my grain mill and loved it! Go check it (and the rest of her blog) out!
