Essential kitchen equipment that will make your life easier

There are some things in your kitchen that you’ve probably wondered why on earth you bought. That bread maker that has only been used once, the juicer that proved a pointless investment – we’ve all been won over by flashy advertising at one time or another. However, in a busy family kitchen there are some kitchen accessories you should never be without.

Essential time-saving kitchen equipment

Here are just a few of the things we believe you should consider investing in for your kitchen, as they can seriously save you time, money and hassle.

1. Chest freezer

With so many of us living with fridge freezer combis, the space we have to freeze meals is seriously limited. In a busy household, making double quantities of meals and freezing them for later makes a lot of sense, but if you have no space to do so, you cannot benefit. A chest freezer, whether housed in your kitchen, garage or spare room, gives you oodles of space to freeze whatever you like, giving you a supply of healthy readymade meals for those days when you just don’t have the time or energy to cook.

2. Food processor

You might wonder how you would use a food processor, but did you know all the things a modern processor can take care of for you? From chopping to slicing, dicing to blending, a food processor can be your best friend in the kitchen. Imagine never having to chop another carrot, peel another potato or dice another pepper. Brilliant!

3. Blender

What do you do when you have a bunch of vegetables in the fridge rapidly going out of date and nothing for dinner? Answer – you make soup. Soup is one of the healthiest and easiest home recipes, and an amazing way to use up leftover veg or scraps of fresh food. Get yourself an inexpensive hand blender and suddenly you’ll be able to create professional standard soup at a moment’s notice. Its uses don’t stop there either. You can also enjoy fresh, thick milkshakes, mousses, smoothies and more.

4. Slow cooker

If you have a busy day at work planned, a slow cooker can be a dream to come home to. Simply place all the ingredients for a stew or casserole into the cooker in the morning and leave it for 6 -8 hours. You’ll come home to a gorgeous, hot meal and an evening without cooking - bliss.

5. Great knives

Your choice of knives can make or break your dream kitchen. Having tough, blunt, awkward or otherwise unsuitable knives will make your life a nightmare, no matter how lovely your kitchen is. Invest in a really good set of knives in all the shapes and sizes you need to cut down your problems into more manageable chunks. Keep a sharpener in the drawer too and you’ll never have to feel the frustration of an inadequate blade again.

Kitchen accessories come in all shapes and sizes, and we can often be talked into investing in gimmicky, singular-purpose items, which sound great on paper, but in reality, aren’t worth the storage space they take up. Investing in products like these five essentials will really make a difference to your time in the kitchen.