Kitchen Essentials for Novice Cooks

A Selection of Culinary Tools

A kitchen supply store is sure to help you with every culinary tool required. But a novice home cook is yet to explore his/her kitchenette tool needs. The given below list of kitchen essentials for cooking is sure to act as your first-aid guide to help you prepare healthy and tasty meals at home.

Mixing bowls: Be wise to choose the glass or metal mixing bowls in various sizes of your choice. Avoid plastic bowls as they retain odor, are hard to maintain and can go out of shape due to varying temperatures of the ingredients used.

High-quality knives: Start with a paring knife, small and medium chef's or Santoku knives and a serrated knife. Don't forget to buy a sharpener.

Several cutting boards: Cutting boards can be made of wooden, plastic or bamboo with their sole purpose serving to act as a strong base to cut anything. Select any boards with the intention of maintaining them clean and dry. Have two different boards for meat and produce.

Wooden spoons: Keep stock of wooden spoons as they are handy to use on pans and don’t transfer heat, all these advantageous to you at a minimal cost.

A small and large whisk: Always update to the latest technology available in any domain. Don’t keep whisking ingredients with a fork when you have an option to use the latest available whisking tools in the market like the large whisk for whisking vinaigrette and dressings and the small whisk for aerated flour and beating eggs.

Heat-resistant spatula: Buy a heat-resistant spatula to serve your needs for hot pans while a normal spatula may just serve you to scrape any bowl.

Long tongs: Long tongs are a necessity in every kitchen to make hot rotis or to lift and turn any food over heat. Keep your hands safe by using these in the oven.

Grater: Start with a basic grater for cheese, garlic, ginger or citrus fruit zest and update yourself to different sized ones once you start full-fledged cooking. 

Glass measuring cups: Glass measuring cups are simply the best ones for liquid volume measuring as you can clearly see the meniscus. Though glass must be handled with care it will not deform like plastic.

An Assortment of Pots & Pans

Salads Spinners are used to Wash Leafy Veggies

Strainer and salad spinner: A strainer or colander is a bowl used to strain off the excess water from any food after washing. This utensil is perfect for draining water off the pasta, fruits, vegetables, lentils and beans. Salad spinners often replace strainers to dry any leafy green vegetable. For exotic salad greens that can be added to your salad, visit the website www.firsteatright.com.

Basic pots and pans: Rather than purchasing an entire set of expensive cookware, try to slowly purchase individual pans that suit your needs and requirements. You will get an idea as you start cooking various dishes. Begin with a pair of large and small sauté, pans, a soup pot, a sauce pan and a Dutch oven or the commonly called ‘French oven’ which can be used on the stove or in an oven. These pans help in preparing healthy and nutritious foods as these utensils require only minimal oil for cooking purpose. 
​
Electronic scale: These scales help you with the exact measures as mentioned in cook books and recipes as these guides call for grams instead of cup measures. It aids someone novice to cooking familiarize with portion sizes.
​