5 Essential Kitchen Items For New Cooks

I was recently asked about what useful items are essential for new cooks to a kitchen and I have a good think about would be my basic kitchen tools list.

This post is a collection of the basic essential kitchen items I think would be useful in my kitchen if I was a new cook.

Contents

• Introduction
• The Essential Kitchen Items List
• Kitchen Knives
• Chopping Board
• Tongs/Spatula
• Pan
• Thermometer
• Your Comments

Introduction

We all have to start somewhere when it comes to cooking. With Dad What Cooks being about getting men cooking and dads in the kitchen I wanted to cover a topic which might not meet everybody's needs but may be useful for some.

I was recently on the Startup Dad podcast about what my most important kitchen items were and the approach I felt I had to take was with the question:

"If you had to start again, what are the most 5 important items you need in a kitchen?"

I looked at it through this lens to capture the needs for various situations. If you were new to cooking, what kitchen items are important to know about. But also what if you are a recently divorced dad and need to set up a new home for you and your kids? I hope this will help guide you with some items that are widely useful without needing to spend a lot of money to get started. If you're picking these up as a Father's Day gift rather than for yourself, my Father's Day gifts for dads who love to cook guide covers more ideas across all budgets.

These items are in no particular order, so focus on the individual sections and why they are useful rather than the list as a whole. Please bear in mind these are quite common items in most kitchens so should be quite easy to get hold of, whether this be new or second hand.

Kitchen Knives

The kitchen knife is the most important piece of a cooks utensil. This is the choice I would make if I was asked the question "what is the one item you need in a kitchen as a chef?"

Whenever you see a wild camping video of someone cooking over an open fire you will see they have a knife to prep the food with and can stir the pot with it, serve food with and eat with. The chefs knife is multi faceted and offers a wide range of use.

Taking this further the knife can be categorised into three varieties if the option presents itself.

Chefs knife

This is the go to, number one type knife. Blades range from 6 inches up to 14 inches but I recommend an 8" or 10" chefs knife to cover the majority of jobs in the kitchen.

There are a lot of choices when it comes to picking what is right for you. My suggestion would be to visit a homeware store and try the feel of the knife and check the weight. Although you can buy good value kitchen knives online, there is added value in testing it out first. A well maintained knife will last a long time.

Paring knife

The paring knife is a smaller blade knife offering a more fine tuned ability to cut. This lets you have a little more detail and slice smaller items such as fruit, berries, garlic etc. It is not an essential purchase as most tasks can be handled with a chefs knife but this might be useful for anyone who does not have the initial confidence to use a bigger blade.

Bread knife

The bread knife does exactly what is says is does and is used for slicing bread. The knife has a serrated edge and a decent bread knife will get you a good cut on any home made bread that you might want to make.

Again, this is a nice to have and a loaf of bread can be cut with a chefs knife, however it may be that a serrate blade is a bit easier to cut when cutting into foods with a crust.

Chopping Board

A chopping board is essential when cutting food. It will give you a firm surface to work on and also help protect the edge of the knife from getting damaged. Chopping boards can be made in a variety of materials however I prefer a wooden board.

Make sure that the board does not slip and is a good quality weight. A butchers block chopping board is a great investment as it will last a long time and provide you somewhere to cut and prepare food.

Chopping boards make a great gift for dads who are keen to cook and if you can find a local business who makes them, you'll often get a better quality product than mass-produced boards.

Tongs/Spatula

I have to admit there are two items in the picture but hear me out on this. While the tongs and spatula are two separate items it is possible to buy tongs which have rubber ends and can be used as a spatula (so one item). But for the interests of this post, read on.

Tongs

Used for gripping, grabbing, clicking. The tongs are available in wooden, metal or plastic styles. Each have their own pros and cons but the choice is yours. I would suggest the wooden version are the most versatile being able to be used without scratching pans and equipment.

I've also found the wooden tongs useful to retrieve toast from a toaster if it gets stuck and does not run the risk of electric shock as it is not metal (however it is advised to unplug the toaster if retrieving something from it just to be on the safe side.)

Other uses include turning items in your pan or in the oven, plus useful for moving sausages around on a BBQ if you have the pleasure of cooking outdoors too.

Spatula

The spatula is like a big flat spoon and is an essential kitchen tool for stirring food, folding cake mix and moving things around in a pan. There are metal, plastic and rubber varieties and pictured above is the rubber version.

I think this is an important piece of kitchen equipment as it allows you to have a heat resistant utensil which is able to help you out with plenty of stirring and moving of food when required. Used in conjunction with the tongs it will help lift food from a pan and out onto a plate for serving.

Spatulas can be bought individually or in a multi pack of differing colours where you can use them for different food types such as serving meat and vegetarian dishes separately.

Pan

A trusty pan is so important in the kitchen. I wanted to challenge myself to pick only one. If I had to choose a pan to take with me on a desert island then this stainless steel shallow frying pan would be my pan of choice.

The ideal situation would be to have a non stick frying pan and a large saucepan as this would cater for all needs. However as this post is only about 5 essential items, then I have to pick only one pan.

My stainless steel shallow frying pan will allow me to cook plenty of items from pasta to eggs to a curry if needed. Even my chicken pesto pasta recipe starts out in this metal frying pan. As the sides are slightly higher than a regular frying pan then this allows for more to be cooked in the pan.

What pan to buy?

A stainless steel frying pan does not need to have oil added into it to be non stick - the trick here is to heat the pan up really hot and then add a splash of water in there. This will then generate water vapour which sits between the metal and the food and means it won't stick. Great if cooking eggs. These types of pans come in varying prices from around £20 up to £200. I would recommend going for a reputable make and consider reviews before purchasing. While my pan pictured does not seem to be produced any longer (to be fair it's around 20 years old and still going strong!) I would recommend something like this Tramontina Grano pan which seems to be of equal quality.

Remember though, if money is tight, then only buy what you can afford and consider that you can always replace at a later date if needed. Sometimes the lower cost pans outlive the pricey ones!

Even if you have more than one pan in your kitchen, I encourage you to try using a shallow stainless steel pan for a week in place of a regular frying pan and seeing how you get on.

Thermometer

Ok so this might look like a luxury item but the food thermometer is a really important piece of equipment if you are cooking meat. The internal temperature of food is important to get right because if it's over cooked then it might taste dry. More importantly, if it is undercooked then it could be dangerous due to not killing off any bacteria or spores that might be in there and could lead to food poisoning.

The pictured thermometer is an Inkbird IBT-4XS Bluetooth digital thermometer which I use all the time outside with my BBQ. As it is Bluetooth I can link it to my phone and leave the BBQ to cook without needing to be stood nearby. However when cooking any form of meats such as my BBQ smoked gammon or 3-2-1 method BBQ ribs I always use this thermometer (even in the house too).

Having said that, meat thermometers can be much simpler and cheaper like this ThermoPro TP02S thermometer and still provide accurate readings. Providing you have an accurate thermometer to check the meat temperatures, then you will be good and safe serving up the food.

Food Safety

Check the recipes for actual guidance on temperature thresholds but as a guide the table below will give the minimum temperatures that certain meats should be cooked to (for definitive advice please consult https://www.food.gov.uk ):

Meat Type	Minimum Internal Temperature
Chicken Turkey Duck (poultry)	74 °C / 165 °F
Beef / Lamb (medium)	60 °C / 140 °F
Beef / Lamb (well done)	71 °C / 160 °F
Fish	60 °C / 140 °F
Pork Roasts / Steaks / Chops (medium)	63 °C / 145 °F
Pork Roasts / Steaks / Chops (well done)	71 °C / 160 °F

Your circumstances will almost always determine the priority in which you equip yourself for your cooking journey and only you know what is best for your situation. Trust your gut.

Having said that, I hope this post has helped just one person get set up in their new cooking adventure, whether they be moving in together for the first time, or going it alone for the first time. Happy cooking, and here is to many more essential kitchen items for your food creations.