7 Professional Cooking Tools for Your Home Kitchen

Outfitting your kitchen with all the gadgets and specialty equipment of a commercial kitchen will often result in overcrowded cupboards and countertops. Instead, pick a few key elements and enhance your home cooking without breaking a sweat, or the bank. Let’s take a look at seven professional cooking tools to get your meals from meh to marvelous.

1. The Pizza Stone. This versatile baking tool will simulate the hearth of a pizza oven. With the ability to hold heat well, a pizza stone can be used to bake pizza, breads and pretzels, as well as frozen food such as fries or chicken nuggets.
2. Baking & Pastry Mats. Baking and pastry mats add an enduring value to your home kitchen collection. These mats can be used as an easy to clean, non-stick surface for rolling out pastry or cookie dough. Silicon mats help reduce waste, as they can be placed on a cookie or pastry sheet in lieu of cooking spray or parchment paper. Most mats can withstand oven temps up to 500 degrees and can be used up to 3000 times.
3. Colanders and Strainers. Colanders and strainers are as practical to your cooking as heat. This is a tool that can be used to wash vegetables, fruit and leafy greens thoroughly before cooking, strain pasta, or remove large clumps of food from soup ingredients. More uses for colanders include, draining canned foods, keeping moisture loving produce fresh in the fridge, steaming vegetables and straining yogurt or soft cheese. A more uncommon, but just as practical use can be to use it as a cover for splatter prone cooking (frying) or as a plate cover to keep bugs off your picnic items.
4. Cutting Boards. Wood and plastic cutting boards provide effective cutting surfaces that will keep your countertops and knives in great shape. Plastic cutting boards are ideal for cutting meat and poultry as they are non-porous and run through the dishwasher. Wood cutting boards are great for bread, cheeses and vegetables and do not wear down the blade of a knife. Wood cutting boards also make great presentation platters for serving cheese.
   
5. Cast Iron Fry Pans. Cast iron cookware is an endurance runner in your kitchen line up. Built to last for generations, cookware made from this material will season over time and can be used on the stove top or in the oven. Cast iron fry pans (also referred to as skillets) can be used to make frittata’s, cobblers, steaks, seafood and more.
6. Steel Crepe Pans. Steel is an incredibly durable and economical material for cookware. In fact, authentic crepes are made in steel pans. A well-seasoned steel crepe pan will have a non-stick surface that is resistant to stain and rust, which is ideal for making delicate crepes.
7. Knife Sets. Purchasing a knife set is a great way to gather all the essential knives. Most sets include a paring, chefs and utility knife. Sets may also provide a bread knife, spatula and butcher steel. These knives are all great tools to prep, prepare and serve fruits, vegetables, bread and meat.

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