What are the best kitchen appliances? Which ones are ideal for beginners, and which are better suited to more experienced home cooks? We've put together a selection meant to help anyone rediscover their passion for cooking and healthy eating, whether you're just getting started or you're looking to experiment with new recipes and channel your inner chef with homemade pizza, cakes, bread, and other treats that are hard to match with anything store-bought.
We're starting this roundup of low-tech kitchen appliances with picks that even a complete beginner can use without any trouble — the tools and small kitchen "robots" that make a genuinely useful starting point (or upgrade) on anyone's journey into cooking.
In this guide
- Etekcity Electronic Kitchen Scale
- Electrolux ESB2500 Sportsblender
- Imetec Succovivo Pro 2000
- Ariete 909 Pizza Plate
- Nescafé Dolce Gusto Machine
- Innsky Air Fryer
- Alessi AJM19S5 L Design Kitchen Ladles Set
- Joseph Kitchen Utensils Set With Opal Multicolor
- MyFancyCraft Oak Wood Tool Set
- Ikea Ordning Kitchen Utensil Holder
- Philips HD9190/30 Steamer
- Braun MQ5035 Immersion Sauce Mixer
- Ariete 1588 Vintage Kneader
Etekcity Electronic Kitchen Scale
A great start to any successful recipe is measuring out the proper amount of each ingredient, and Etekcity's electronic kitchen scale is one of the more accurate options out there, with a margin of error of just 1 gram. The company, which specializes in consumer electronics, builds this scale with a sleek stainless-steel design meant for durability and everyday reliability.
The steel weighing bowl holds about 5 kg, enough to weigh even large batches of ingredients quickly. The scale's standout feature is its added versatility — beyond basic weighing, it includes a built-in ambient temperature sensor and a kitchen timer, letting you track time and surrounding conditions at once to get more consistent results from your cooking. A calibration function rounds things out for added precision, and altogether it offers excellent value for the price, especially for anyone just starting to bake or cook with any real precision, where eyeballing ingredient amounts tends to produce the least consistent results.
Electrolux ESB2500 Sportsblender
Anyone focused on fitness knows that eating well matters just as much as the workout itself, and a compact personal blender like Electrolux's Sportsblender can make that meaningfully easier day to day. With this small, practical appliance, you can prepare your own smoothies and shakes to enjoy throughout the day rather than relying on pre-made, often sugar-heavy options.
The Sportsblender comes equipped with four stainless-steel blades designed for a fine, uniform blend, powered by a compact but capable 300W motor that spins the blades up to 23,000 rpm for consistent results. It ships with two 600 ml bottles that double as both blending containers and take-along drink bottles, thanks to their practical colored caps. That combination of power and versatility makes it well suited to smoothies, purees, and sorbets, but also to pesto, creams, sauces, and even baby food.
Imetec Succovivo Pro 2000
Staying on the theme of food and health, another genuinely useful ally is the Imetec Succovivo Pro 2000 cold-press juice extractor. Cold-press extraction uses a slow, low-heat process rather than fast spinning blades, which helps it preserve meaningfully more of the vitamins and nutrients in fruits and vegetables than a traditional high-speed juicer — though, as with any juicing process, some nutrient loss compared to eating the whole fruit or vegetable is unavoidable.
The induction motor and steel gears are built to outperform a traditional juicer motor, delivering noticeably more torque for pushing tougher produce like carrots or beets through the mechanism without bogging down, and the strongest part of this extractor is arguably its accessory set. It comes with two filter types — a narrow-mesh filter for smoother, more delicate juices, and a wide-mesh filter better suited to full-bodied, fiber-rich juices — plus a dedicated accessory for turning frozen fruit into natural sorbets and slushies. There's also a beauty filter designed specifically for making 100% natural face and body masks at home, and the extractor ships with a recipe book by food writer Lisa Casali covering exactly that.
Ariete 909 Pizza Plate
Homemade pizza has become something of a social media staple, and if you don't want to give up that pleasure, the Ariete 909 pizza oven plate is worth a look among the best kitchen appliances for it. It's a 33-centimeter cooking plate that lets you cook or reheat pizza and focaccia across five distinct heat settings, up to a maximum of around 400°C (roughly 750°F), giving you real control over the final crust.
The plate itself is made from refractory stone, which reaches high temperatures quickly and holds heat evenly across the cooking surface. That speed and consistency mimic what you'd get from a wood-fired oven, allowing a pizza to bake in as little as 4 minutes. The appliance also works well for baking or reheating croissants, savory pies, and cookies, adding real flexibility in the kitchen without sacrificing quality.
Nescafé Dolce Gusto Machine
The Mini-Me coffee machine from Nescafé Dolce Gusto has a modern, minimalist design compact enough to fit almost anywhere in the kitchen. It's equipped with automatic shut-off and several brewing modes, striking a solid balance between aesthetics and everyday functionality without taking up much valuable counter space.
It brews coffee and other hot beverages from pods using a high-pressure pump that reaches up to 15 bars — enough pressure for genuinely espresso-like results from a compact home machine. Versatile and capable of near-professional results for its size, it's a machine that tends to win people over quickly once they've tried how simple and consistent it is to use.
Innsky Air Fryer
The Innsky air fryer is a solid option for anyone who doesn't want to give up fried food but is trying to eat a little lighter. It circulates hot air at high temperature through the cooking chamber, which lets you fry with meaningfully less oil than deep frying requires — air fryer manufacturers commonly cite up to roughly 80% less oil compared to traditional deep frying, though the exact figure depends on the specific food being cooked.
The basket holds 5.5 liters, enough to handle fairly large batches in one go, and its multicooker functionality means it can also roast and grill in addition to air-frying. An intuitive control panel gives you eight different preset programs to choose from depending on what you're cooking, which takes a lot of the guesswork out of getting a consistent result across different foods.
Alessi AJM19S5 L Design Kitchen Ladles Set
When it comes to choosing good kitchen utensils, functionality should come first, durability and resistance to wear a close second, and style is the bonus on top that never hurts. This Alessi ladle set earns its "professional tool" reputation through the care and precision that go into making each piece, and the materials and workmanship hold up well to prolonged everyday use.
The above-average price reflects some deliberate design choices aimed at improving the set's overall quality and usability, rather than simply reflecting the Alessi name on the box. The shape itself was designed by Jasper Morrison, known for creating archetypal yet highly functional forms — the ladle, for instance, is cut on a diagonal specifically so it's more effective at scooping up food to check on how a dish is cooking.
Joseph Kitchen Utensils Set With Opal Multicolor
Among the standout space-saving options, this set includes pieces in different shapes and functions, each designed to nest neatly together rather than sprawl across a drawer. Built-in magnets let the pieces attach to one another so they take up as little storage space as possible.
The set covers the essentials, redesigned to be more visually appealing without sacrificing function. It includes a fork for draining spaghetti and two spoons — one for tasting brothy dishes, and another for pasta, designed with a central hole that lets cooking water drain through it to avoid scalding your hand. The plastic used throughout is notably resistant and sturdy, a solid middle ground between silicone and harder materials, and it's gentle enough to use directly against non-stick cookware without scratching the coating. The set is also available in two color styles: a softer, opalescent finish, or a bolder, rainbow-colored option.
MyFancyCraft Oak Wood Tool Set
Some cooks just can't let go of tradition, and among the countless utensil sets sold online, classic wooden tools are still going strong. This five-piece set includes spoons suited to a range of tasks — stirring, tasting, draining, and skewering portions to bring to the table — all finished with a rustic look that fits naturally into country-style and classic kitchens.
The attention to detail also makes this a strong gift option, especially for someone about to break in a new kitchen — the set ships wrapped in natural, unbleached recycled paper and tied with raw burlap twine. The spoons have a smooth, well-finished surface rather than a coarse one, which means they don't retain food odors as readily and are easier to clean and keep in good shape over time. They're equally useful for cooking and for serving at the table, and one spoon is even cut with fork-like tines, making it especially handy for tossing and plating vegetables.
Ikea Ordning Kitchen Utensil Holder
Alongside being one of the most affordable options around, the Ikea Ordning utensil holder has also been one of the most popular in recent years, and it's easy to see why once you've used one. It's taller and slightly narrower than an ordinary cutlery caddy, which gives it enough height to hold long utensils upright without tipping over.
It also has a double bottom that lets water drain away from your utensils instead of pooling around them — a simple feature that helps prevent the mineral deposits and residue that build up on cutlery left sitting in trapped moisture, and one that's easy to overlook until you've dealt with the alternative for a few months.
Philips HD9190/30 Steamer
The Philips Avance Collection steamer includes three spacious baskets that stack on top of one another, letting you steam several different ingredients at once. Its total 9-liter capacity means you can cook large quantities quickly while steaming keeps more of the natural nutrients in fruits and vegetables intact compared to boiling.
The steamer offers several built-in programs for different cooking scenarios. The Chef program cooks different ingredients together using the ideal time-and-temperature combination for more even results, while the Meal program lets you prepare a full multi-dish menu with cooking times tailored to each individual ingredient. A digital water-level indicator shows how much water remains in the main reservoir, and you can top it up mid-cycle without interrupting cooking. It also includes an aroma infuser designed to flavor food with herbs and spices — just add them to the infuser and let the rising steam distribute the flavor evenly through the food.
Braun MQ5035 Immersion Sauce Mixer
The Braun MultiQuick 5 immersion blender offers 21 different speed settings for precise control, and this small but genuinely capable appliance can chop meat, cheese, herbs, vegetables, and more thanks to sharp blades paired with a 750-watt motor. Despite the power on tap, it's designed to be fully manageable with just one hand.
Its included attachments expand what it can do well beyond basic blending — the same base unit can convert into a whisk for whipping cream or eggs, or a chopper attachment for finer prep work. All of it is built around Braun's EasyClick system, which lets you swap attachments quickly and safely, along with an anti-splash PowerBell Plus design that helps keep your countertop clean while you work.
Ariete 1588 Vintage Kneader
No well-equipped kitchen is really complete without a good stand mixer for kneading bread, pizza dough, and countless other recipes at home, and the Ariete 1588 delivers solid results thanks to a maximum power of 2400W and 7 speed settings capable of handling even stiff, dense dough.
Its large stainless-steel bowl holds over 5 liters, giving it plenty of versatility for mixing, whipping, or blending a wide range of foods, aided by three included whisks and a dough hook built specifically for demanding bread and pizza doughs. Non-slip feet and a well-balanced overall design keep it stable even when running at higher speeds, with no real risk of it walking across the counter or splashing ingredients everywhere, thanks to its included splash guard lid.
This compact powerhouse also carries the distinctive look of Ariete's Vintage line — a combination of modern technology, quality materials, and classic Italian design that makes it one of the more appealing stand mixers to have on the counter.
Whichever of these you're drawn to, none of them require professional-level cooking skill to get real value out of — that's really the point of a good low-tech kitchen appliance. A precise scale, a dependable blender, and a sturdy set of utensils will quietly improve your results far more than any single gadget marketed as revolutionary, and most of the picks above are genuinely useful whether you're just getting comfortable in the kitchen or you've been cooking for years and are simply looking to upgrade a few of your everyday tools.
