5 Kitchen Appliances That Make Cooking Fun

Do you enjoy cooking and spending the time preparing your meals? Not only is cooking fun, but cooking your own meals is also much healthier and can be cheaper than buying processed foods already made.

Having the right tools and kitchen appliances around can help make cooking easier and more enjoyable. Kitchen appliances and cookware also make great gift ideas for the kitchen and the chef of the house. Here are some great items for the chef and the kitchen.

The Instant Pot has quickly become one of the most useful appliances in the kitchen. An Instant Pot is a slow cooker and a pressure cooker all in one. They can also be a rice cooker, a steamer, make French fries, and even make yogurt. You can find all kinds of cookbooks for the Instant Pot.

If you and your family have started eating a whole food plant-based oil-free way of eating, the Instant Pot will make cooking enjoyable and not as time consuming. Meals can be cooked in two to six times faster, while using less energy.

The Instant Pot we got is the Instant Pot Duo. It comes with 14 one-touch programs, and you can buy it in various sizes. The size you get will probably depend on how many people you will be cooking for. It comes in a 3 quart, 6 quart, or 8 quart model.

An air fryer is another favorite in the kitchen and a healthier way to cook. You don’t need to use oil to make foods taste great, crunchy and healthy.

This makes it a wonderful addition to those who eat a whole food plant-based oil-free way of eating. You can make all kinds of foods without using oil like:

• French fries
• Sweet potato fries
• Onion rings
• Roasted vegetables
• Baked goods
• Veggie burgers

It’s not only for those that eat a vegan diet; everyone can enjoy healthier foods with an air fryer. You can make perfect bacon, crispy chicken nuggets, small pizzas, steak, and certain types of fish.

An air fryer is similar to a conventional oven, except that it fits on the kitchen counter. Like the Instant Pot, an air fryer comes in different sizes, with the smallest being 2 quarts. An 8 quart air fryer is perfect for families.

Juicers are great for making all kinds of healthy drinks, from green drinks to protein smoothies. There are juicers made for vegetables, fruit, wheat grass and extractors.

For a great all around juicer, you want an extractor. An extractor type juicer can make citrus juice out of oranges and lemons and it can also make juice out of about any other type of fruit or vegetables. One of my favorite juices to make is to juice my own vegetables for homemade V-8 juice.

Juicers are either masticating type or centrifugal juicers. If you are mainly interested in a juicer for wheatgrass, look for slower juicers, 80 - 120 RPM. The Samson GB-9001 does both wheatgrass and juicing.

One of the highest rated juicers on Amazon is the Breville JE98XL. It is listed as a great entry point juicer, but in reality, it can do about everything just as well as the high priced juicers, which makes it a great value for the price.

It is rated 4.5 out of 5 based on 2,101 customer reviews. On Amazon, there 226 questions and answers for this juicer. By reading the answers, you can learn a lot about the juicer and juicing in general.

Having a good processor or food chopper can save a lot of time in the kitchen. Cutting and dicing vegetables can take a lot of time and you do have to be careful so you don’t cut yourself. We all cannot cut onions like they do on the cooking shows.

Black & Decker has some of the best models and the Ninja Master is also highly rated and on many a wish list. The Black & Decker EHC650B Ergo 3-Cup Food Chopper is highly rated with many positive customer comments.

This food processor is 150 watts with a high and low pulse control for better control. It has a storage lid so you can use the container to store the chopped foods right after chopping. It has dishwasher safe parts for easy cleaning.

Blenders can be very handy without having to get out the food processor to blend hot soups, making smoothies among other kitchen tasks, and can do many things if you don't have a food processor.

Sometimes, a blender can be even more versatile and handy than a food processor. With a blender, I puree soups, make my own orange juice and V-8 juice and make protein smoothies and shakes. Putting soup, like tomato soup through a blender can give it a nice creamy taste and feel.

Personally, my favorite blender is the Oster model 6694 blender. I make all types of smoothies and soups with this blender and it has been the best blender I have ever used, after many years of cooking.

A slow cooker or crock pot can be a very useful appliance in the kitchen considering there is not much you cannot make with a slow cooker. You can make stews of all kinds, soups, chicken dishes, Indian and anything else.

I continue to see that some of the programmable slow cookers have problems with shutting off before the food is cooked. The Crock-Pot SCCPVL610-S programmable slow cooker has good reviews and is a nice in between crock pot. In between the higher priced programmable slow cookers and the regular crock pots.

This crock pot has a 6-quart capacity that has a digital countdown that will allow you to program the cooking time anywhere from 30 minutes to 20 hours.

After all of the chopping, blending, pureeing, serving and cooking, it is time for a nice cup of coffee. There really is nothing like a nice fresh cup of coffee and a good coffee maker can make the different, especially if you have your own coffee grinder, which are very affordable.

The Hamilton Beach coffee maker is highly rated with 1,700 customer reviews with questions and answers. You can make a single cup or a full pot of coffee with the 12 cup coffee maker.

Not only is cooking pleasurable, it is also a very healthy way to eat. With all of the talk about processed foods, junk foods and chemicals in our food, cooking your own meals can eliminate all of these chemicals.

You do not have to buy or add anything you don’t want to when cooking your own meals. You are in complete control of the ingredients that goes into your daily meals. Another great health benefit is the ability to control the sodium amount in meals. Most processed foods have a lot of sodium and you can just add as much salt as you like for taste or use other spices and ingredients.

Cooking is also cheaper. You can cook a meal one night and have enough left over for the next night and maybe some lunches, depending on how many you cook for. Cooking your own meals is fun, healthy and frugal.

Cooking is not only fun, it is the healthiest way to cook all of your and your family's meals.