Chef's knife
One decent knife will do almost everything. Around 20 cm is a useful all-purpose size. It doesn't need to be expensive. It does need to be sharp.
THE PROMISE KITCHEN
Buy this stuff once.Cook any Basic recipe on this site.
Setting up a kitchen for the first time can get expensive fast. You do not need a matching knife block, twelve different pans or a cupboard full of appliances. This is the equipment we design our Basic recipes around and most of the Upgrades too.
THE ACTUAL ESSENTIALS
The stuff you need.
Nothing clever. Just enough equipment to chop things, heat things, stir things and occasionally put things in the oven.
Large chopping board
Big enough to actually work on. Tiny chopping boards mostly exist to send onions onto the floor.
Large frying pan
Around 28 cm is a useful size. Big enough to cook without piling everything on top of itself. A lid is handy.
Medium saucepan
Rice, sauces, vegetables and smaller batches of pasta.
Large pot
Pasta, soups, curries and anything else that needs some room.
Steamer Pot Topper
This will probably only ever see veggies but its not a bad way of dealing with dumplings.
Baking tray
Roasting vegetables, cooking things in the oven and making dinner with minimal washing up.
Baking or casserole dish
Lasagne, brownies, pasta bakes, roasting and anything that needs to go straight into the oven.
Large mixing bowl
One genuinely large bowl is more useful than six increasingly tiny ones.
Colander
For draining pasta, vegetables and anything else currently sitting in more water than you want.
Wooden spoon
For stirring things. It isn't complicated.
Spatula / turner
For everything the wooden spoon is bad at.
Tongs
For turning, tossing and retrieving things from hot pans without using your fingers.
Whisk
You don't need an electric mixer to combine most things.
Measuring cups & spoons
Sometimes guessing is fine. Sometimes a tablespoon actually needs to be a tablespoon.
Box grater
Cheese, vegetables, zest and anything else that needs to become smaller.
Vegetable peeler
Yes, you can use a knife. No, you probably don't want to.
Can opener
Because discovering your tomatoes are trapped inside the can halfway through dinner is irritating.
WORTH THE MONEY
Things we strongly recommend.
You can cook without these. They're here because they're cheap, useful and significantly improve your chances of getting the result you wanted.
01
Digital kitchen scales
Particularly useful for bread and baking, where the amount of flour actually matters. Measuring by weight is faster, cleaner and much more repeatable than trying to interpret a cup of flour.
02
Instant-read meat thermometer
The easiest way to become better at cooking meat without actually becoming better at cooking meat. Stop guessing whether the chicken is done and measure it instead.
03
Stick blender
Cheap, small and remarkably useful. Smooth soups, sauces, curry bases, dressings and purées without needing a bulky benchtop blender or food processor.
04
Oven-safe pot or frying pan
Not essential, but unexpectedly useful. Being able to brown something on the stove and move the same pot straight into the oven makes slow cooks and braises much easier.
Check the handles, lid knobs and coating as well as the pan itself before assuming it is oven-safe.
YOU CAN BUY IT LATER
What you don't need.
We're not going to call a $400 appliance a kitchen essential.
Some of this stuff is great. Some will make anUpgrade easier or let you try different techniques.
Buy it when you actually want it.
- Stand mixer
- Food processor
- Dutch oven
- Cast-iron pan
- Wok
- Garlic press
- Rolling pin
- Potato ricer
- Seventeen-piece knife block
THE SMALL PANTRY
You don't need a cupboard full of ingredients.
Basic recipes assume you have a very small handful of things around. Everything else worth caring about will appear in the ingredient list.
Cooking oil
Whatever neutral everyday oil you normally cook with. Olive oil is also perfectly fine for most things.
Salt
If we tell you to use it, use it. Salt should make the food taste more like itself, not taste salty. Add it gradually where the recipe says to season to taste, and stop before salt becomes the first thing you notice. In some recipes, like bread, it also affects how the recipe actually behaves.
Black pepper
Freshly cracked is nice. Pre-ground is still pepper. Use what you've got.
Plain flour
Useful for thickening sauces, coating things and the occasional bit of baking.
Sugar
Ordinary white sugar is enough to cover the baseline pantry. Brown sugar and anything more exciting will be listed when needed.
THAT'S THE PROMISE
A normal kitchen should be enough to make dinner.
Basic means normal equipment, normal supermarket ingredients and no surprise appliances halfway through the recipe. Everything we need you to have, you can buy from the supermarket (at least at my local one)
Upgrade is where we get to ask a little more of you. We try to keep it the bounds of the Promise Kitchen but sometimes it does come down to the right tool for the job.
You can buy better knives. You can collect pans. You can fill the cupboards with appliances you swear you'll use one day. You just shouldn't need to do any of that to make dinner.