10 Best Kitchen Tools for Meal Prep

My dream kitchen has doesn’t have more cabinets to hold more stuff. It has more workspace to create more goodies. I just donated a big box of cute kitchen stuff to Goodwill because I realized I hadn’t used these things in years.

While there are some cool kitchen gadgets out there it’s really more about having the right tools for the job.

Feeding a family well on a tight budget doesn’t rely on gimmicks.

It’s true that you can be eating a healthy diet and saving money on food by cooking and eating most of your meals either at home or from home.

Shop for sales, steals, and deals all the while catering to dietary restrictions or simply to the likes and dislikes of your family.

If you cook and eat most meals from home, then you know that the prep work is the biggest time suck. A surefire time-saver is to devote a little time each week to get some of this prep work done. Chopping onions, browning ground beef, grating cheese. Whatever makes sense with your weekly meal plan or whatever you may have stockpiled because of a super sale.

There are several approaches to meal prep. Putting a bunch of crockpot meals together, or doubling every casserole recipe; one to eat now, one to freeze for later. I do some of each. And sometimes this is what my meal prep looks like.

I set aside 2-3 hours on the weekend to:

• Make a meal plan for the week based on what I have in the pantry/fridge/freezer
• Gather the recipes needed
• Bake anything that needs to be baked (muffins are a favorite around here)
• Clean produce and chop/slice/dice per the recipes
• Cook the meat where it makes sense; brown and drain ground beef or turkey
• Cook beans or rice if they are on the menu (they frequently are)

The time spent doing this kind of prep means that dinner on a weeknight comes together in a lot less time and with a lot less stress.

Take a look at your meal plan for the week. What recipes will you be using? Do any of them call for chopped anything? Shredded anything?

What can you accomplish on a Sunday afternoon (or whenever you have some free time) to make life easier later in the week when free time is more aspirational than realistic?

Whatever you decide to do towards meal prep and whenever you decide to do it will be infinitely easier with the right kitchen tools.

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My Top 10 Kitchen Tools

In my kitchen, these are the top 10 kitchen tools that I rely on for quick meal prep. (Note-This list is also ideal as a gift guide if you are shopping for someone who is new to cooking or a housewarming present for someone who is finally getting their own kitchen).

1) Scraper/chopper

2) The Chopstir

3) Tongs

4) Cutting Boards

5) Sharp knives

6)  Box Grater

7) Freezer bag holder/stand

8) Colander

9) Measuring Cups

10) Measuring spoons

Here are the kitchen tools that I use almost every day in my kitchen to either prepare a meal or prep food for future use. The products I have recommended are also what I use with the exception of the colander and the measuring cups and spoons. Mine are from the Disney Store and they always make me smile. Please don’t judge.

1. Scraper/Chopper

If you do a lot of baking you know how useful this tool is for working with pastry and dough. I like using it for cutting Gnocci, but I pull it out way more when I’m chopping fruits and veggies either for a recipe I’m cooking at the time or for processing larger quantities for the freezer or weekly meal prep. While the plastic ones would be useful for scraping a bowl, I prefer the weight of the stainless steel version. The rigidity is helpful when transferring flash-frozen food from a tray to a freezer bag. See my post on The Best Way to Freeze Onions. It works for berries, celery, and bell peppers, as well!

 2. The Chopstir

This tool became my favorite tool because of the job it does on browning large quantities of ground beef. Prior to this I had been using a large fork to break up the ground beef but would invariably wind up with larger chunks than I wanted and the more it cooks the tougher it is to chop up. One of my favorite meal prep jobs is to brown 5-10 lbs of ground beef at one time, drain it, and pack into 1 lb packages. FYI 1 lb of cooked ground beef is about 2 cups.

The Chopstir is easy to hold, easy to use. Just press it down into the food and twist to break up and crumble to the desired consistency. It also does a great job mashing potatoes or chopping tomatoes for sauce or yellow squash for casseroles.

3. Tongs

A pair of tongs is a must when handling raw meat IMHO. I don’t have any problem getting my hands dirty in the kitchen, but cross-contamination and food poisoning are best avoided.

Use them for tossing salads, for repackaging bulk purchases of meat, and for transferring blanched veggies from a colander to a freezer bag for storage.

There are a few different styles of tongs; one is not better than the other. For ease of storage, locking tongs are a good choice.

Scissor tongs are also easy to store and easier to work with, in my opinion. They fit on a spoon rest without having to lock them.

Some other choices are just cosmetic. Pretty colors, silicone tips, and handles, made for nonstick pans.

I recommend the simplest, stainless steel version that will do the job and last a long time.

4. Cutting boards

Using a single cutting board in the kitchen is fine so long as you are diligent about sanitizing it. Because food prep usually involves many ingredients being handled a single cutting board can quickly become hazardous to your health!

Keep your food safe and separate with color-coded cutting boards. They are dishwasher safe, so they’re easy to sanitize. Plus, they come in a set of four so that you can use one board for each type of food. Now cooking is easier and safer; you don’t have to worry about cross-contamination!

5. Sharp knives

Having a few sharp knives is more important than having a lot of different knives. It’s important to re-sharpen knives on a regular basis, too. Depending on what you spend most of your prep time doing will determine the kinds of knives you want to keep on hand. A paring knife, chef’s knife, and serrated bread knife are useful to have, but if I could only have one it would be a utility knife.  A good utility knife will do the job of all but the serrated knife.

A simple knife sharpening rod is all you need to keep your knives sharp. I had to watch a few YouTube videos before I got the hang of it, but a quick run of the blade against the knife sharpening rod is all it takes.

If you bake a lot of bread do yourself a favor and invest in a good quality serrated bread knife.

6. Graters

This old-fashioned kitchen gadget is a workhorse. With 3 different size grates, you can use it to grate cheese, carrots, onions, or cabbage on the larger size. The next size is great for parmesan or asiago cheese. The smaller size works for grating ginger root, cinnamon sticks, nutmeg, or zesting a lemon. Don’t forget the slicing side if you need sliced radishes, cucumbers, or cheese.

7. Freezer bags holder/stand

If you’ve ever tried to hold a baggie open and upright while you fill it with something slippery or liquid you know it takes more than 2 hands. Since that’s all I’ve got finding this brilliant product has reduced the number of super-spills in my kitchen. It holds any size baggie so you can repackage bulk foods or blanched veggies for the freezer. I set these up with quart-sized baggies and spoon 2 cups of browned ground beef into each one and put in the freezer. Some nights it seems the meals practically make themselves!

Oh, and if you wash and reuse freezer bags just hang the wet bag over the arms of the holder and allow the bag to air dry.

8. Colanders

Another necessity in the kitchen. For washing produce, draining pasta, or blanched veggies you need a colander that drains quickly and thoroughly. This one is easy to clean. I have mine hanging near the sink because it gets used almost every day of the week.

9. Measuring cups

It’s safe to estimate quantities on a whole lot of recipes. A little more or a little less of something won’t ruin the dish. But when you’re baking or making sauces or puddings you have to be a bit more precise. I like this measuring cup because the quantity is easy to read for wet or dry ingredients.

10. Measuring spoons

If you have been cooking a long time, as I have, then you know you can measure salt, sugar, cinnamon, etc., in the palm of your hand with pretty good accuracy. Tightly cup your hand, pour the spice you are using into the palm of your hand and it will measure roughly 1 teaspoon, loosely cupped and you will have 1 tablespoon. It’s pretty accurate. And OK for most recipes.

If, on the other hand, you are following a recipe for baked goods it is important to be very accurate.

A set of measuring spoons, I prefer stainless steel, with clear markings from 1/8th teaspoon to 1 tablespoon will be essential in your kitchen.

Here’s a helpful tip: If you have to measure oil and honey for a recipe measure the oil first and then the honey. The honey won’t stick to the measuring spoon. Alternatively, a smidge of cooking spray on your utensils will work the same way. Honey has a way of sticking to everything.

It’s easy to overload your kitchen with things you’ll never use. This is a list of the best kitchen utensils and gadgets necessary for meal prep.

They are easy to store, most of them taking up zero counter space.

And these are tools that you will use over and over again.