7 Must-Have Kitchen Tools for Cooking Any Vegetable
Don’t mess around with overly complicated kitchen multitaskers and specialty tools for processing your vegetables. Instead, stick with basic kitchen tools to get the job done. While Alton Brown might not agree with all of these suggestions, here are the essential kitchen tools for cooking just about any fruit or veggie.
Best Kitchen Tools for Vegetables and Fruits
- Vegetable Peeler
It’s probably a good idea to have several vegetable peelers on hand. Both the Y-shaped (pictured above) and swivel versions are good versions. Great for peeling tough butternut squash and delicate zucchini alike.
Kuhn Rikon Peelers, set of 3 from Sur La Table– $9.95
- Salad Spinner
Whether you eat all your greens in the form of a salad (no one wants to eat mushy, wet greens), or want to make super crisp kale chips a salad spinner is a must have to get greens super dry.
OXO Stainless Steel Salad Spinner from Kitchen & Company – $49.99
- Mandolin Slicer
A mandolin slicer is ideal for getting paper thin slices of vegetables. It’s perfect for making thin slices of sweet potatoes for baked sweet potato chips or thin slices of fresh kohlrabi for a salad. And the best ones are adjustable to allow for different thicknesses.
de Buyer Kobra Adjustable Slicer from Williams-Sonoma – $49.95
- Paring Knife
Paring knives are a great all-purpose tool in the kitchen. Use them when you can’t find your vegetable peelers or to cut out the eyes on your potatoes. You may find it useful to have paring knives in several different lengths.
Victorinox 3-Piece Paring Knife Set from Amazon – $17.56
- Spiralizer
While a spiralizer may be more of a specialty tool in some kitchens, in others it will get used every day. A spiralizer makes easy work of making faux noodles or spirals out of zucchini, squash, apples, carrots, and more.
Paderno Spiralizer from Williams-Sonoma – $31.96
- Julienne Peeler
A julienne peeler is a type of vegetable peeler with a serrated edge that allows cooks to create thin slivers of vegetables for salads and stir-frys. Try it with zucchini, carrots, daikon, cucumbers, and more.
Zyliss Julienne Peeler from Amazon – $8.95
- Box Grater
A box grater is a great workhouse tool. It has a microplaner that’s perfect for zesting citrus and ginger, a medium and coarser grater for shredding cabbage for sauerkraut and other fermented foods, and a slicer that is just fine if you don’t happen to have a mandolin in your kitchen.
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OXO Good Grips Box Grater from Kitchen & Company – $17.99
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Image: Useful Kitchen Tools via Organic Authority
