Reviews

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. ...

Opening cans and jars should be the least memorable part of cooking. But if you’ve ever wrestled with a stuck lid or a can opener that skips halfway around, you know a bad one can turn a two-second task into a 30-second frustration. For anyone with arthritis, reduced grip strength, or just bad luck with lids, it’s even worse. We tested 6 electric can openers and jar openers — fully automatic can openers that cut around the side, traditional electric can openers, under-cabinet mounted units, and universal jar-gripping tools. ...

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. ...

A good baking sheet is the most-used pan in most kitchens. You roast vegetables on it. You bake cookies. You toast nuts. You reheat leftovers. You catch drips under pies. It’s the kitchen workhorse that nobody thinks about until the cookies burn on one side because the pan warped in the oven. We tested 6 baking sheets and sheet pans across the major categories: half-sheets for cookies and sheet cakes, quarter-sheets for smaller portions, rimmed pans for roasting that requires a juice catch, nonstick for delicate pastries, and heavy-gauge aluminum for even heat distribution. Here are the ones worth buying. ...

A cutting board is the work surface of your kitchen. You use it more than any pan, any knife, any appliance. But most cutting boards are sold on looks — grain patterns, wood species, whether they match your countertops — and the things that actually matter (how they treat your knife edge, whether they harbor bacteria, if they slide around while you chop) get buried in the marketing. We tested 6 cutting boards across different materials — edge-grain wood, end-grain wood, bamboo, polypropylene, and composite — using the same knives, the same ingredients, and the same abuse over two months. Most of them were fine. A few were worth buying. ...

A mandoline slicer is the fastest way to turn a pile of zucchini into uniform rounds or a bag of onions into paper-thin slices for caramelizing. An electric food chopper is the fastest way to chop a head of garlic, a block of cheese, or a cup of nuts without pulling out a full food processor. Both tools save you knife time. Both tools can save your knuckles if you pick the right one. ...

Eggs are one of those foods where perfection sits in a narrow window. A minute too long and the yolk turns chalky and gray. A minute too short and the white is still runny around the edge. An electric egg cooker takes the guesswork out by using measured water and steam, and most models shut off automatically when the water boils dry. The result: consistent eggs every time, whether you want them soft, medium, or hard-boiled. ...

Countertop composting is having a moment in 2025. The reason is simple: more people want to cut down on food waste, but nobody wants a slimy bucket of scraps under the sink attracting fruit flies. They come in two styles. Electric composters use heat, a grinding blade, and a carbon filter to dehydrate and deodorize scraps in 4–8 hours. A week of peels, eggshells, and coffee grounds comes out as a dry powder. Manual compost bins rely on a charcoal filter and a tight lid to keep scraps smelling fine until you carry them to the garden or the municipal compost drop-off. ...

Drip coffee makers don’t get the respect they deserve. Everyone talks about espresso machines and pour-over kettles, but most households still brew their daily coffee from a machine that drips hot water over grounds. The difference between a $50 coffee maker and a $300 one isn’t just build quality — it’s whether the water gets hot enough, whether it contacts the grounds long enough, and whether the brew temperature stays consistent through the whole cycle. ...