When I moved into my first apartment after college, my mom and I made one epic trip to Ikea to pick up life essentials. I'm talking about a bed frame, a night stand, some shelves, and of course, kitchen equipment. And man, do I wish I had a kitchen equipment list like this when we did our major equipment haul!
Kitchen stuff is something you don't really start to accumulate until you've graduated college. Up until then, you're probably using what you brought from home and your college roommate's pots and pans. When you're finally on your own, though, you have to start somewhere, but even the most basic list of kitchen essentials is still dauntingly long.
To start, here's a quick kitchen equipment list that will help you get started:
Cutlery (knives, forks, spoons)
A few glasses/cups
A few plates (we currently only have 6 plates for 2 people)
One eight-inch chef’s knife (more on that later)
A medium-sized pot and 10-inch pan
A spatula
A large stirring spoon
Oven mitts
A glass baking dish
A metal baking sheet
A colander
A can opener
You can do a lot with just that kitchen equipment list, but most people tend to accumulate more than the bare minimum of equipment over time. This is what I want you to avoid!
After all, it's hard not to when there are a plethora of random kitchen tools just a click away, and they're all pretty tempting. Have you been inside a Williams-Sonoma? Just the sight of all the pasta machines and coffee accessories will have you dreaming of becoming that person that makes lattes and pasta from scratch. But, if we're being honest, you probably won't. Because, despite my best intentions, I've only used my milk frother twice in the last 2 years.
Kitchen Gadgets
One of the earliest recorded uses of the term "gadget" was in 1886 as a nautical term referring to a small, somewhat specialized contrivance. It is unclear when the term first entered kitchen parlance, but the Oxford English Dictionary records the earliest use of the expression "kitchen gadget" as 1951 in the Good Housekeeping Home Encyclopedia, which remarked that kitchen gadgets are often discarded because it takes too much time to clean them.
A popular contemporary taxonomy of kitchen technology must account for the essential ambiguity of the term. Terms like "gadget," "utensil," "accoutrement," "tool," and "appliance" overlap. A kitchen gadget may be a specialized artifact used for the preparation of a single kind of dish or for performing one specific function across a variety of dishes. As such, it can be distinguished if only in a general sense from the broader term "kitchen utensil," which would include multipurpose and essential kitchen equipment, such as chefs' knives and large appliances like ovens and refrigerators. In modern usage the term "kitchen gadget" also may be pejorative. It is often used to refer to novelty items, gimmicky and cheap kitchen equipment that purports to ease the burdens of homemakers. As the usage in the Good Housekeeping Home Encyclopedia indicated, gadgets may be the kinds of products that accumulate in the back of kitchen drawers until they are discarded. Another aspect of the gadget is its symbolic character. Gadgets may be displayed as items that represent taste, newness, or status.