New cooks are often ill prepared to start cooking because they don't have the basic utensils to cook their meals. Here is the top 7 things I use to cook all my meals. Some of these are not mandatory - but they make cooking so much simpler that you don't want to miss them.
#7: Portable trash
Going to trash to all the time after you cut the tips off your celery, tomato, squash, or after you skin your onion and garlic is a waste of time. It is best to just keep a small local trash close to your chopping and cooking action. A cheep way to do this if you drink milk/water/juice by the gallon is to cut the bottom off the container and use it as your flexible portable trash. The best part is that if it get too dirty you can replace it with another. Alternatively you can use tupperware that lost it's lid.
#6: Tupperware
I regularly cook big meals that last me a couple of dinners. I take the cooked food to work. I need a container that can hold cut vegetables that I didn't use all the way and tupperware is the way to go. I prefer having only two types of tupperware - tall and short. They share lids. It keeps the sorting to a minimum and becomes easier to sort. As a single person - I only need around 5 or 6 tupperware. Don't go cheap on tupperware unless you tend to lose them.
#5: Pressure Cooker [Optional]
If you are cooking your legumes having a pressure cooking really cuts the time down. I got a high quality pressure cooker from India and it was less than 30$. I highly recommend this if you are cooking chickpeas - a great way to get protean in a vegetarian diet.
#4: Wooden Spoon
Have lots of these. 3 or more. Wooden spoons don't get hot so you can keep it in a pot when you are cooking. You also won't scratch your non-stick pans with wooden spoon. Some people recommend getting oak wooden spoons - I don't know what my spoons are made of, but they are very handy. It's best not to worry about these things when you start out.
#3: A Sharp Santoku/Chef's knife
A good knife will serve you well. Keep it sharp so you don't hurt yourself. I have not used high end knives and the low end knives work just fine for me - I've been using them for 2 years now. You do want to get something to sharpen the knife. I highly recommend a . A good brand that is also cheaper is Victorinox. The chicago cutlery brand is cheaper, and the variety I have. When buying a knife look for full tang, and a size you want. I prefer longer knifes that are heavier and well balanced.
#2: Flexible chopping boards
Vegetarian meals are not complete without vegetables. A silly way of being a vegetarian is eating only bread and cheese. When it comes to vegetable chopping - having a light and flexible plastic chopping board that stays flat is highly worthwhile. Wooden boards are too heavy and a pain to wash. Flexible boards are cheap and bend in a way that it is easy to pore your food in the pot to cook.
#1: A nonstick pot
You absolutely need this and will use it a lot. Get a good pot. When I stared cooking I had a nonstick pan. This was nice - I could practice tossing my vegetables with the spices as they cooked (I wasn't very good at this and had too clean up - but tossing veggies is bad ass and fast and I did it anyway). The problem with a pan is that it is not big enough when you are cooking for several meals. A pot solves this problem. A good pot should be as wide as your largest gas/electric heat source. It should be relatively tall as well - too tall makes it harder to clean. Make sure you have one with a lid.
Runner Ups
Not everything makes the top list, here are four things that got left behind.
- Can opener
- Vegetable peeler
- Blender
- Rice Cooker