Kitchen Appliances

An electric roaster oven looks like a countertop appliance you’d use once a year for Thanksgiving and then stash in the garage. And sure, that’s what many people use them for. But if you’ve ever cooked a turkey in a conventional oven, you know the problems: it takes up the entire oven for hours, blocks you from cooking sides, makes the kitchen unbearable with heat, and dries out the breast before the thighs are done. ...

A frozen drink machine feels like an indulgence until you own one. Then it is the thing you reach for every warm afternoon. We tested 12 machines over three months, making frozen margaritas, strawberry slushies, and boozy milkshakes. A few of these machines produce drinks as good as any bar. Others just could not freeze anything reliably. The machines fall into two categories. Single-serve machines freeze and serve one drink at a time, usually in under 60 seconds. Batch machines have a built-in freezing chamber that keeps a full pitcher of liquid slushy and ready to pour. Each has its place. ...

Deep frying at home feels intimidating until you do it once. The spitting oil, the temperature anxiety, the cleanup — it’s real, but most of it gets solved by a good fryer. A proper countertop deep fryer holds oil temperature steady, filters out burnt crumbs, and makes cleanup manageable enough that you’ll actually use it more than once. We tested 6 electric deep fryers over 4 weeks — running each through fries, chicken wings, battered fish, and donuts. We tracked oil temperature recovery (how fast the oil bounces back after dropping in food), temperature accuracy (how close the thermostat holds to the dial setting), and how much of a pain each was to clean. ...

Grinding your own meat is one of the fastest ways to improve what comes out of your kitchen. Fresh-ground beef for burgers tastes noticeably better than anything from a tray at the grocery store. You control the fat ratio, you know exactly what cut went in, and you can grind whole-muscle chicken or pork for sausage that actually tastes like something. A decent meat grinder pays for itself after a few batches if you buy whole cuts on sale. ...

Countertop rotisserie ovens have gone from a novelty appliance to a legitimate kitchen tool. The appeal is obvious: you can roast a whole chicken, air fry crispy wings, bake a pizza, dehydrate fruit, and reheat leftovers without turning on your main oven. And most models do it faster than a conventional oven because they are smaller, so they heat up in minutes instead of ten or fifteen. But the differences between models matter. Some favor rotisserie performance over air frying. Some can handle a 5-pound bird, others top out at 3 pounds. Some are easy to clean, and some collect grease in places you cannot reach with a sponge. We tested 6 countertop rotisserie ovens with air fryer functions to find the best for different kitchens and cooking styles. ...

A toaster is one of those things you do not think about until it breaks, and then suddenly your morning routine falls apart. You stand there holding a cold slice of bread, staring at an appliance that looks fine on the outside but just stopped working on the inside. Or worse, it still works, but it burns everything on one side and leaves the other side pale. We tested six pop-up toasters across a range of prices, from the thirty-dollar special to the hundred-and-fifty-dollar statement piece. We made roughly eighty slices of toast. Here is what we learned. ...

Pre-ground spices lose flavor fast. Within a few weeks of grinding, the volatile oils that give cumin, coriander, and peppercorns their punch evaporate. Whole spices keep for years in a cool, dark cabinet. The difference between pre-ground cumin from a jar and freshly ground cumin from whole seeds is the difference between a cardboard box and the real thing. We tested 6 spice grinders — electric blade grinders, electric burr grinders, and manual grinders — grinding everything from black peppercorns to cinnamon sticks to dried chilies. We evaluated grind consistency (are the particles uniform or all over the place?), speed, noise, capacity, ease of cleaning, and whether flavors transfer between batches. ...

An electric skillet is one of those kitchen tools that doesn’t get the hype of an air fryer or Instant Pot, but the people who own one use it constantly. It’s a deep-sided frying pan with its own heating element and thermostat — you can sear chicken, simmer a curry, fry an entire batch of bacon, or keep a potluck dish warm at the table without tying up a stovetop burner. The best electric skillets maintain steady heat across the entire cooking surface, clean up quickly, and survive years of regular use without warping or losing their non-stick properties. ...

The difference between homemade pizza and pizzeria pizza is not the ingredients or the chef. It is the heat. Pizzerias use brick ovens that hit 800-900 degrees Fahrenheit, with a porous surface that pulls moisture from the dough and leaves char on the outside and chew on the inside. Your home oven maxes out around 500 degrees. A stone or steel makes up for that by soaking up heat during a 45-minute preheat, then dumping it into the dough the moment the pizza lands. A bare baking sheet cannot do this. You end up with leopard spotting, oven spring, and a crust that actually tastes like it came from an oven. ...

Fresh pasta is one of those things that tastes dramatically better than store-bought but people assume is too much work. The reality is, with a good pasta machine, you can go from flour and eggs to fresh fettuccine on the table in about 30 minutes — and half of that is resting the dough. But which machine should you buy? Manual crank machines are cheap and durable but take some arm work. Stand mixer attachments are convenient if you already own a KitchenAid. Electric extruders handle the whole process start to finish — just dump in the ingredients and walk away. We tested 6 of the best options across all three categories to find the right one for different kitchens, budgets, and pasta styles. ...