The weather is warming up and it’s time to go shopping for those summer cooking essentials. Prepare for salads, fresh juice, and grilling! These are some of our favorite summer cooking supplies to help you expand your meal routine. There are plenty of starter kits that you can get but sometimes you just want to pick up one or two things for the kitchen. A spring refresh rather than a full-blown shopping trip.
Meat Thermometer
Thermometers have been hit and miss with us. Sometimes it comes down to luck but this product tends to do well for us. This makes grilling so much easier. Plenty of grill masters know their grill so well they can eyeball it or know based on time, others know it by sight or touch. It may not be a cooking essential for summer but it can really make a difference for the quality of grilled meats.
Grilling Spatula
A good grilling spatula doesn’t have to be expensive but can make a dig difference when you’re at the grill and have limited utensils. A sharp edge, a serrated edge, and a long handle are all things we’ve found to be extremely helpful when at the grill.
Juicer
Not necessarily a cooking essential for summer but if you’re into juicing or looking to improve your nutrition then a juicer can be a great purchase. It doesn’t need to be the most expensive model. A simple juicer that can handle the job is good enough. This is a fantastic way to dramatically increase the nutrients in your meal routine. Some fruits with veggies is a great way to cool down with a tasty drink that is not artificial.
Blender
Similar to the juicer but we would say it is more important as it is more versatile. You can do a lot with a blender you can’t do with a juicer. It won’t produce the same smooth drink of a juicer but you can do smoothies instead and achieve a similar effect. You can also a blender for a lot of summer alcoholic drinks or for making sauces. You can definitely buy top of the line blenders but in our experience unless you really plan on making a ton of smoothies, an affordable one is good enough. There is value in a normal sized blender as you can make high volume for yourself or for guests but a lot of times people just want to make enough for themselves for one drink and a small blender may be more of what you want as you’re more likely to get it out rather than a big blender.
Food Processor
Food processors are one of those kitchen tools that either you use rarely or all of the time. If you’re making a lot of dips, sauces, marinades, dressings, or if you want to make chopped veggies faster, then consider a food processor. It will speed up the prep time so much and usually isn’t too bad to clean up. In the end, making your own sauces and dips can be an amazing change to your snack and meal routine. Fresh salsa tastes so much better and is quite impressive for guests.
Peeler
This is definitely a cooking essential for summer. We don’t need to explain the peeler but instead why we chose this one. This is the type of peeler that we grew up with and has worked for decades, the same one. It’s not difficult, it’s all metal, and easy to clean. If you’re doing tons and tons of peeling maybe go for a more comfortable grip version but for the day to day basic peeling, go with a trusted peeler.
Salad Spinner
Salad spinners can be a cooking essential for summer if you eat a lot of salads and want to save money on veggies. You can easily wash veggies by hand and dry them by hand but it does get old doing it every day and wet veggies will rot faster. Not to mention the extra water that you miss does not make for a pleasant salad experience.
