These 9 Kitchen Gadgets Get Dinner on The Table Fast

Air fryers were the must-have appliance a few years ago because they could cook french fries, wings and cheese sticks with less fat. They’ve remained popular because they cook a range of foods from meat to bread much faster than a regular oven. Air fryers are essentially small convection ovens that surround your food in hot air for speedy, even cooking. Some air fryers come with multiple functions that make toast, beef jerky or cook a 12-pound turkey. some come with dual baskets that can cook an entire family meal at once, while others cook one item at a time for one or two people.

Instant Pots have been an essential kitchen appliance for about a decade. They’ve inspired a library’s worth of cookbooks and have a cult following that swears by them as the go-to gadget for fast meals. Instant pots are essentially digital pressure cookers. They seal food in a chamber that traps steam and heat, creating a higher cooking temperature and shortening the cooking time of everything from rice to roast.  Instant Pots can also function as a rice cooker, slow cooker and a yogurt maker, so you can cook everything from baked potatoes to chili in them. All models of instant pots can pressure cook, but some have settings that can bake cakes, air fry or hook up to your Wi-Fi so you can operate them from an app on your phone. They range in size from 3-quart models for small meals to 12-quart behemoths that can cook a feast for a crowd. They’re the Swiss Army knife of small kitchen appliances. Instapot by Instant Brands was the original digital pressure cooker launched in 2010, and within a few years the name Instapot became to digital pressure cookers what Kleenex is to facial tissues. 

Toaster ovens can make a lot more than toast. They bake cakes and frozen pizzas and reheat food better than a microwave. Toaster ovens work like little convection ovens, so they cook food faster and with more control than a full-sized oven. They’re bakers and broilers in one tabletop-sized appliance so they’re perfect for making small batches of cookies or dry-roasting cherry tomatoes. Larger models can cook whole chickens, fast. Toaster ovens are a great way to cook a meal quickly without firing up your oven and heating up the entire kitchen. They reach temperature faster and have more concentrated heat, so cooking times for a toaster oven are shorter. 

If you can chop and dice ingredients for dinner faster, you can serve dinner faster. That’s why chefs have a sous chef and why you need a food processor. This gadget can prep food at the press of a button. You can chop garlic, shred cheese or make pizza dough fast, much faster than you can do with a knife, by hand. It makes cooking so much easier that it’s life-changing. Whether you’re whipping up a batch of salsa or making chocolate chip cookie dough, food processors help you get through the work faster and with much less effort.

Food processors come in a range of sizes from minis that hold two cups of food to giants that hold 16 cups of food. Pick a size based on the number of people you plan to feed and the tasks you need your food processor to complete. They’re powered by motors that offer a range of speeds, and it’s good to get one that can pulse so you don’t overprocess your food. Food processors come with an array of blades, but the basic three you need are an S-shaped chopping blade, a plastic dough-kneading blade and a reversible slicing disc. Fancier models may have a julienne disc and an adjustable slicing disc.

You’re probably saying wait, how can something with slow in the name get dinner on the table fast? Simple. Put the ingredients for your beef stew or posole in the slow cooker in the morning. Set the slow cooker to cook all day long. By evening, dinner is ready. You just serve it. Slow cookers, also known as Crock-Pots, were the original convenient way to cook and the ancestor of Instapots. 

Launched in 1971 by Rival Manufacturing, Crock-Pots were marketed as a revolutionary tool for working women. With millions of moms taking jobs outside of the home, they needed a way to get dinner on the table fast. Crock-Pot gave them a way to do it. Rival sold 2 million Crock-Pots the year they were introduced, according to NPR. Four years later that number grew to a whopping 93 million.  

Slow cookers’ popularity waned in subsequent decades but they’re still a beloved kitchen appliance, with more than 12 million sold annually. Three generations into their existence, slow cookers still make it easy to put a home-cooked meal on the table.  

Stand mixers are designed to do heavy-duty prep work, fast, so they have big motors and a bowl fixed to a heavy stand to keep it in place while it runs. Most stand mixers come with a standard set of attachments like a dough hook, wire whisk and a flat beater, but you can buy task-specific attachments like pasta rollers, food grinders and sausage stuffers. That’s why foodies love stand mixers, but casual cooks who have no intention of making homemade chorizo appreciate their versatility. 

Stand mixers are to hand mixers what Harley-Davidsons are to mopeds. They’re bigger, more powerful, more beautiful, more classic — the mark of a serious cook. Julia Child’s stand mixer was as essential a kitchen tool as her blow torch, and both are in the Smithsonian. Plus, stand mixers come in a slew of colors and have an industrial chic style that looks good sitting on your kitchen counter. They’re available in a range of sizes too, from 2-quart littles to 20-quart commercial grade behemoths. The larger the capacity and more powerful the motor, the higher the price. 

Immersion blenders are like a cross between a blender and a food processor packed into an item that fits in a kitchen drawer. They can handle cooking tasks from emulsifying soups and dressings to making single-size smoothies. Immersion blenders are more convenient and much easier to clean than food processors and blenders, so you prepare food faster. Most have variable speeds from low to high, and some come with accessories like their own mixing containers and different styles of blades, whisks and choppers. 

The recent bread-making boom turned a lot of us into home bakers. Bread machine sales surged in 2020 and they have remained popular because they make bread-making much easier. The gadgets knead, rise and bake your bread in one pan. All you do is dump all the ingredients in, and the bread maker does the rest. It makes bread-making dummy-proof, so you can have fresh bread for dinner without spending a day in a baking class learning to proof dough. Bread machines can also make rolls and pizza dough, remove the dough from the pan, shape it by hand into the edible you want and bake it in the oven.  

Knives are the most important tool in the kitchen, and a chef’s knife is the boss knife. It can slice, dice, chop, cut and carve. A good chef’s knife makes cooking easier because it helps you prep food faster. Faster prep gets you to the best part of cooking sooner: eating. Chef’s knives are usually 8-inches long, but can be as large as a foot long. The chef’s knife you choose depends on the size of your hands and what tasks you plan to do with the knife. There are two general categories of chef’s knives, European and Japanese. European-style knives tend to be heavier with a thick, curved blade. Japanese-style knives are lighter, thinner and have a straighter blade that makes more precise cuts. Be sure to get a knife sharpener, too, because a dull knife is a useless and unsafe knife.