Which food preparation appliance...

In reply to MadScientistMatt :

Don't worry the case and cord are double insulated lol

As common household appliances go, it's not a whole lot different from a toaster.  One of the "benefits" of open-coil heating elements-- they can both burn you and electrocute you simultaneously.

One note on the Crockpot, insta pot, and other large items like that: I find that, despite my using them rather infrequently, they're good enough at what they do that I am ok with having them. That said, I store them in the basement.

Shelves or cabinets to hold all these appliance while not in use. 

Most recently purchased a new oven with the air fry feature because my wife wanted an air fryer and we had a terrible old oven. I'm not a big fan of "fun" kitchen appliances, they tend to be used often until the novelty wears off. 

While I find that I use it infrequently, a waffle maker is nice every now and then.

the_machina said:

A pizza steel (mentioned above) is better than a stone for frozen or homemade pizza.

I make my pizza in my cast iron pan.  Its also what I make practically everything else in.  I got tired of having a bunch of pans so I threw out everything but a single cast iron pan.  So versatile.

Regarding appliances:

A blender/food processor combo is critical and doesn't consume much space. 

I have a breadmaker despite the fact that I don't make bread.  I only use it for pizza dough once a week, but I am lazy and it works well. 

I have a waffle iron that I haven't gotten rid of but it is bulky and often I opt to just make flat-waffles in the cast iron pan because its 10000x easier to setup/cleanup.  If it died tomorrow I would not replace it for sure.

I use an instant pot often enough that I would not want to go without it.

Toaster oven gets a fair amount of use.  This is the only appliance I allow to live on the counter.  I cannot stand counter space being consumed by appliances.

I cannot fathom having a 2nd fridge or freezer.

While I also live alone, unfortunately I have trouble finding the motivation to cook as well as Curtis - I can, but just rarely do.  I am very much a creature of habit when it comes to food and tend to eat the same things over and over...  like salads.

An auto-drip coffee maker is a must for me. I use it every day.  I like waking up in the morning to a fresh pot of coffee.  It's an important enough appliance in my life that I keep a brand new one in the attic as a reserve.

My George Foreman grill gets regular use.  I did make sure to buy a version with removable grill plates so cleaning is much easier.  I use it a lot, mainly for grilling portobello mushrooms for the aforementioned salads. 

I recently bought an electric kettle.  It seems every British household I see on TV/YouTube has one and I've always wondered why.  Well, after buying one, I now understand:  Boiling water way faster than on a stove top.  So if I want a cup of tea, hot chocolate or instant oatmeal, it's now much less of an operation.  I click the button and the water is boiling before I can even get the cup ready with whatever I want to make.

Although it's not an appliance, I use an apple-corer multiple times per week.  Usually for apples, but occasionally for pears as well. 

ProDarwin said: I cannot fathom having a 2nd fridge or freezer.

Having a deep freeze in the garage is amazing. We will typically hit up Costco when they are having sales on whole chickens, ground beef, roasts, etc, and STOCK up. 

In reply to ProDarwin :

You've mentioned only having a single pan a bunch of times, and maybe it's just me, but I can't wrap my head around it. Counting my cast iron, I've got 2 12", 2 10", 3 8" frying pans plus a 5.5 quart cast Dutch oven, 5 and 3 quart sauce pans. That's still barely enough to cook with. 

Do they all get used every day? No. But take tonight, request for dinner was "Asian chicken". One pan for veggies followed by chicken, a pot for the rice, another pan for the sauce (maybe 2 depending on which flavor I go with). Could I do it all in one pan? Maybe, if I started cooking at like 3 to eat at 5 and had a way to keep things warm while other parts are going. 

Even my 12" cast iron isn't really big enough on its own to feed a main dish to 4 people, let alone any sides or sauces that go with anything.

Can't drag you to hard as I know there are multiple members who exclusively eat out of the frozen section of the supermarket, which is something else I can't begin to wrap my head around. 

I just don't get how you do it. 

To be fair, I am only cooking for 1 or 2, so its a lot easier.  Cooking for 4+ I would probably need a 2nd pan not infrequently.  I suspect you are doing a lot more sides that also require stove cooking than I am.

A single pan holds a lot of food though.  For example breakfast burritos for 4 people was pretty easily done this past week on vacation.

In reply to ProDarwin :

Ahh. That makes much more sense. For some reason I've been thinking you were one of the people with a gaggle of little ones running around. 

Although it probably doesn't help that the days my wife is home for dinner I make essentially 2 dinners. One bland and flavorless because the kids think mayo is too spicy (better start growing out of that soon), and one with actual seasoning and flavor for us. 

I'm kinda surprised nobody has mentioned a dehydrator, yet...

I picked up a air fryer really cheap on Black Friday a year ago as an experiment.  It worked well enough that I bought a larger one (also on sale- I'm cheap) and gave the little one away.   French fries, tots, meatballs, chicken in various forms, vegetables ... One unexpected application was easy semi-automatic crisping of breakfast burritos or the similar making of quesadillas.   

My counter space is limited, so earning a place there is not easy.  My Fry Daddy is back in storage, and the microwave gets a bit less use.  

Vacuum food sealer, Foodsaver is the brand I got.

If you shop at Costco or Sam's Club, you need one of these and a chest freezer.

More important than food, my house would come to a standstill without this machine. 20 years and counting,

RX Reven' said:

15 posts and not one "sammich maker" reference...do I have to carry the full burden of sophomoric humor around here.

Sammich makers are handy until they go tits up. They're a bit difficult to replace. 

My most used kitchen gadgets are my Kitchenaid, rice maker, and crockpot. My grill does the bulk of the cooking that they don't.