Most college graduates don’t expect to miss the dining hall, but having no meal plan means it’s up to you to figure out what to eat. Uber Eats get expensive pretty fast, and a budget-friendly mac and cheese diet can get tired quickly. Cooking at home is a great solution for this adulting dilemma, and making sure your first kitchen is stocked with the right kitchen equipment makes a huge difference.
Today’s post tackles how to equip your first kitchen–what you’ll need and where you can save money.
Table of Contents
The kitchen equipment basics for your first kitchen:
What you’ll need, at the most basic level:
Essential tools for your first kitchen:
- A good chef’s knife and a knife sharpener
- A good paring knife
- Cutting boards (ideally at least two)
- A basic skillet or frying pan
- A stockpot and a saucepan
- A rimmed baking sheet or two (great for baking cookies, but also for things like sheet pan dinners)
- Two mixing bowls (though these often come in a
- Measuring cups (dry) and measuring spoons, and a liquid measuring cup
- A Dutch oven or a casserole dish for cooking and reheating in the oven
- A colander or strainer
- Box grater or Microplane
- Two spoons for cooking/serving, one slotted
- A ladle (though in a pinch, you can use a coffee mug or a liquid measuring cup)
- A spatula
- A whisk
- Oven mitts or potholders
- An instant-read thermometer, and if you get into frying, a deep-fry/candy thermometer
Appliances:
Your choices here will vary, depending on the kind of food you want to cook, but here are some options. Even better, many of these can be good candidates to find used for cheap or free. Try getting one from each category, until you have the space and money to expand:
- Something to heat/reheat
- Microwave
- Toaster Oven
- Something for in-pot cooking
- Instant Pot/Pressure Cooker
- Crock-Pot/slow cooker
- Rice cooker
- Something to chop/blend
- Blender
- Food Processor
- Immersion Blender
- Something to mix
- Stand mixer
- Hand mixer
- Spoons and whisks
Where in your first kitchen to spend on quality:
When it comes to setting up a kitchen, stocking up higher quality items are great, but it’s okay to be selective. There are only a few items where the quality makes a big difference in your results. For others, the quality-to-price difference isn’t as significant.
A chef’s knife:
This is the most significant area where the quality makes a big difference, and it’s possibly the only area where I wouldn’t recommend skimping on cost. First, you’ll want a steel chef’s knife with a decent weight. You can opt for a German-style knife, which is heavier, or a Japanese-style santoku, which has a thinner blade, but you’ll want to make sure it’s well balanced.
In our home, we’ve used our Wusthof Classic chef’s knife successfully for 16 years, keeping it sharpened and in good shape, but it runs about $150, which is steep for starting out.
Food & Wine’s review of chef knives names the Mercer Cutlery Renaissance chef’s knife as its budget pick, at only $65. (You can check out the entire Food & Wine knife comparison here).
Paring knife:
A paring knife is a smaller knife used for slicing or peeling smaller items, like many fruits and vegetables. Paring knife blades are typically around 3.5-4″.
The quality concerns here are similar to the chef’s knife. The paring knife will be your workhorse for any smaller ingredients, and you’ll want something well balanced with the steel running through to the handle.
If you have room in your budget for a third knife, you’ll likely want a serrated knife, which can help with foods that need a bit more bite from the knife, such as bread (or that have smooth but somewhat thick skins, like tomatoes). This knife from Mercer is long enough to be a good bread knife, but can be used for a number of serrated tasks:
Skillet:
There are different options here, but your main goal is making sure you have a big pan that will evenly distribute heat.
Cast iron – Cast iron is excellent if you’re someone who will take very good care of your kitchen items and rinse/scrape/re-season, almost immediately after each use. (I wasn’t ready for a cast iron pan until I was into my 30s).
Non-stick – There are several non-stick options out there, and the cheapest ones have a spray-on coating that can easily scratch off. Unfortunately, the cheap ones also tend to heat unevenly. We’ve had good luck with hard-anodized pans. Regardless of what kind you get, be sure not to use metal cooking utensils with them.
Stainless steel – These tend to be more solidly built and better at even heating than a non-stick, so they’ll retain quality longer. But, they will require a decent amount of spray/oil/butter as you heat them before adding any ingredients.
Dutch Oven:
A Dutch oven is an excellent tool for your kitchen because it can be used on a stovetop or in a range–or something that starts in one and is finished in another. The most common type of dutch oven is made of enameled cast iron. Le Creuset is the gold standard, and they are awesome (and beautiful), but they’re not remotely budget-friendly. However, if you’re starting out your first kitchen, many other manufacturers make good alternatives at much lower price points, including Cuisinart and Lodge. If you don’t think you’ll need the full range of Dutch oven capabilities, you can hold off on this item and get a casserole dish instead for heating in the oven.
Where to save money in acquiring kitchen equipment
While quality can make a big difference in the items above, almost everything else is an opportunity to save money without sacrificing much in quality. And since you don’t have an unlimited budget, savings are key. To start, here are some ways you can save.
- TJ Maxx/Homegoods/dollar stores: these have a limited selection of kitchen items, but they’re usually decent quality and are often sold at a 50% or discount off standard retail price
- Goodwill, Salvation Army, or other thrift shops: kitchen items are often donated by people looking to declutter or downsize, and if you’re willing to hunt, you can get some treasures
- Local Buy Nothing or NextDoor groups. Full of people downsizing their belongings but would rather get them to a person instead of throwing them out or putting them in a box for Goodwill. If you have some time to build your kitchen, you can find amazing deals (or free items) here.
Related: How to Furnish Your Apartment for Free or Cheap
Related: 6 Powerful Steps to Level Up your Personal Finances After College
Want to save time rather than money? Check these equipment links for your first kitchen:
However, if time and convenience are your main constraints, I’ve included some Amazon links to items below.
- Cutting boards (ideally at least two, one for meat and one for non-meat items, though you should always wash after using.).
- A basic skillet or frying pan
- A Stock pot
- A saucepan (if you can only get one, a 4-quart size is a good one)
- A rimmed baking sheet
- Two or more mixing bowls (these often come in a nested set of 3 or even more)
- Measuring cups (dry) and measuring spoons, and a liquid measuring cup
- A Dutch oven (ideally) or a casserole dish for cooking and/or reheating in the oven
- A colander or strainer
- Box grater or Microplane
- Two spoons for cooking/serving, one slotted
- A ladle (though in a pinch, you can use a coffee mug or a liquid measuring cup)
- A spatula
- A whisk
- A pair of oven mitts
- Instant read thermometer and candy/jelly/deepfry thermometer
Using your new tools: some cookbooks to get you started
In future posts, I’ll get into some basic techniques and great easy recipes and cookbooks. But if you can’t wait for those, here are some great cookbooks to get you started.
- Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything – The Basics for hundreds of basic recipes and techniques
- Samin Nosrat’s Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat for an explanation of why certain dishes work. (She also has her own great list of equipment for your kitchen, as well as one for pantry essentials).
- Jamie Oliver’s 5 Ingredients: Quick and Easy Food for some simple dishes to help build your menus.
Coming soon, I’ll be sharing how to stock your kitchen shelves so you can be prepared to make simple meals with just a few ingredients from the grocery store.
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