Reviews

Opening a bottle of wine should take about fifteen seconds. With a manual corkscrew — foil cutter, screw insertion, leverage, repeated pulling, gasping cork crumbles — it takes closer to ninety, and there’s a chance you wind up fishing cork bits out of your Cabernet. Electric wine openers solve this. Press it on the bottle, push a button, and the cork slides out. Push another button and it ejects. Total time: less than ten seconds. Some also work as wine preservers — pull the air out of a partial bottle and your wine stays drinkable for another week instead of turning to vinegar by Tuesday. ...

I spent years assuming good microfoam required an espresso machine with a proper steam wand. Then I tried a $30 handheld frother and realized I was wrong. Not all of it was great, but the gap between a cheap frother and good one is smaller than the gap between a cheap espresso machine and a good one. If you drink lattes at home and don’t own a machine with a prosumer steam wand, a standalone milk frother will make a bigger difference to your coffee than upgrading your machine. ...

A gooseneck kettle exists for one reason: pour control. The long, narrow spout lets you put water exactly where you want it — over coffee grounds in a specific pattern, around tea leaves, or into a narrow vessel without splashing. For pour-over coffee, that control directly affects how evenly your grounds extract. Bad pour control means some areas over-extract (bitter) and others under-extract (sour). We tested 7 gooseneck electric kettles — variable-temperature models with precise 1-degree Fahrenheit control, fixed-temperature budget options, and premium kettles with flow-rate restrictors and brew timers. Some are worth the money. Others are standard kettles with a curved spout and a price markup. ...

A dull knife is more dangerous than a sharp one. You push harder, the blade slips, and suddenly you’re explaining an ER visit with “the onion fought back.” A good sharpener turns a frustrating knife into a tool that glides through tomatoes and minces garlic without crushing it. The problem is that sharpening methods vary wildly. Electric sharpeners are fast but remove metal aggressively. Pull-through sharpeners are easy but inconsistent. Whetstones give the best edge but take practice. Honing rods don’t sharpen at all. They realign the edge, which is necessary but different. I tested seven sharpeners across all categories to find which ones actually work without requiring a knife sharpening apprenticeship. ...

Fresh juice tastes different from anything in a bottle. There’s a brightness to it, a texture, a sense that the thing you’re drinking was just alive minutes ago. But the juicer you use determines whether you stick with it for more than a week. We tested 7 juicers across two types: masticating (slow, cold-press) and centrifugal (fast, wide-mouth). We juiced celery stalks by the pound, wheatgrass by the handful, and enough oranges to turn our hands orange. What we found is that the best juicer depends almost entirely on what you plan to juice and how much you hate cleaning. ...

There are two kinds of people in the breakfast world. Those who own a waffle maker and make waffles on a regular Tuesday, and those who eat frozen Eggos and wonder if they’re missing something. A good waffle maker turns a box of mix into something that feels like a diner breakfast — crispy golden pockets, steam rising, butter melting into every square. And the difference between a $20 waffle iron and a $100 one is not subtle. It’s the difference between a pale, soggy disk that sticks to the plates and a deep-pocketed, evenly browned waffle that releases cleanly with a gentle lift. ...

Stir-fry is supposed to be fast — the whole point is intense heat, constant motion, and dinner in under 10 minutes. But most home kitchens cannot get a wok hot enough on a standard electric or induction stove. The burners just do not output enough BTUs, and the flat-bottomed woks that work on modern cooktops sacrifice the rounded shape that makes tossing easy. An electric wok solves both problems. It plugs into a standard outlet, heats directly (not through a burner), and has that deep rounded cooking surface that lets you toss ingredients without flinging them across the stove. We tested 6 electric woks and stir-fry machines, from budget countertop models to induction-powered units that rival restaurant wok burners. ...

Crepes look fancy but they are not hard to make, provided you have the right surface. A dedicated electric crepe maker heats evenly and gives you control over thin, even batter distribution — which a regular skillet cannot match no matter how much butter you add. Pizzelle presses are even simpler: pour batter, close the lid, wait a minute, and you get Italian wafer cookies without any rolling or shaping. ...

A spiralizer turns zucchini into noodles, carrots into ribbons, and sweet potatoes into curly spirals that cook faster and look better on a plate than steamed vegetables. They’re the tool behind the whole “zoodle” thing, and they’ve become a staple for anyone trying to eat more vegetables without feeling like they’re eating more vegetables. But the spiralizer aisle is confusing. Handheld models cost $10 and take up no space but produce inconsistent results with soft vegetables. Countertop models with suction feet and multiple blades cost $40 and process whole sweet potatoes like a champ but take up a drawer. Electric spiralizers cost $80 and do the work for you but are one more thing on your counter. We tested 7 models across all three categories to find which ones actually produce usable noodles and which ones turn vegetables into mush. ...

An electric water boiler sits on your counter and keeps hot water ready all day. No waiting for the kettle. No microwaving a cup that comes out half hot, half cold. Press a lever and water at your chosen temperature flows out in seconds. If you drink tea, make pour-over coffee, or use hot water more than twice a day, they save more time than you expect. We put 7 units through two weeks of tea, pour-over coffee, oatmeal, and random kitchen use. Temperature accuracy was measured with a thermocouple. Dispensing speed and ease of cleaning got noted. Some of these machines are worth the counter space. Some are not. ...