The Chef’s Knife That Rules Them All
A quality knife is a chef’s best friend. It should feel balanced in your hand, easy to hold and not too heavy, but definitely not flimsy. We love the Misen Chef’s knife for the job. This isn’t just marketing speak from kitchen supply companies.
Professional chefs develop such intimate relationships with their knives that many won’t let anyone else touch them. As a professional chef for over 25 years, I have relied on these exceptional knives day in and day out for nearly a decade. The attachment goes beyond simple preference.
What separates a professional chef’s knife from the average home cook’s blade comes down to precision, balance, and edge retention. A chef’s knife is the most versatile tool in any kitchen, handling tasks from slicing and dicing to chopping and mincing. A high-quality chef’s knife offers the perfect balance of sharpness, comfort, and control, making food prep faster and more precise. It’s the one tool you’ll use almost every time you cook, so investing in a durable, well-made knife is essential.
Digital Scales for Perfect Precision
It allows for precise measurements rather than cups and tablespoons, which can vary depending on the tool you use. “We measure majority of our ingredients by weight vs. volume. It provides a very precise and accurate measurement every single time.” Professional kitchens abandoned volume measurements long ago.
When you’re cooking for hundreds of guests per night, consistency becomes everything. A digital scale eliminates the guesswork that can ruin an entire batch of pasta sauce or throw off a delicate dessert. One of the most common tools used by chefs is a kitchen scale. A Kitchen Scale is an essential tool for chefs, and they use it to measure everything from grams to ounces to cups.
The difference between professional and amateur cooking often comes down to these small details. While home cooks might eyeball measurements, professional chefs know that precision creates the reliability their customers expect every single time they visit.
Instant-Read Thermometers Save the Day
“There’s no need to second guess if red meat is cooked through thanks to the Thermapen. Not only is it ideal for achieving moist, tender meat (it works for chicken and turkey, too!), it’s also a safety precaution. “If we had to choose just one essential kitchen gadget from the line, it’s the Thermapen One,” says contributor, Barbara Bellesi Zito, in her review of the pen.
Food safety violations can shut down a restaurant overnight, making temperature control absolutely critical. The Meater Plus Bluetooth Thermometer is a game-changer for both amateur and professional chefs. Its advanced technology provides real-time temperature updates directly to your smartphone, ensuring your meats are cooked to perfection every time. Professional chefs don’t guess when it comes to doneness.
Beyond safety concerns, precision temperature control separates good cooking from great cooking. The difference between a perfectly medium-rare steak and an overcooked disappointment often comes down to just a few degrees. Professional chefs understand this intimately.
The Mighty Microplane Grater
Besides your knuckles, Microplanes can be used to grate just about anything (they were invented by a woodworker). You’ll love the cheese clouds and feather light shavings of nutmeg and cinnamon, but the real game changer is grating garlic. This simple tool revolutionized professional kitchens when it arrived from the woodworking world.
“A good gadget to have in the kitchen which instantly upgrades dishes is a microplane. It’s perfect for finely zesting citrus for baking and dressings, mincing garlic ,so you don’t have great big chunks, and a cheffy dusting of parmesan or truffle on whatever you can get away with topping it with.” The ability to create fine, even gratings transforms ordinary ingredients into flavor bombs.
Today, culinary professionals and savvy home cooks consider Microplane to be an essential kitchen tool for food preparation. Microplane utilizes a chemical process called photo-etching that defines and sharpens the edge of each tooth on the grater. The result is a much sharper tooth, and long-lasting, ultra-sharp stainless steel blades, giving you the consumer, a more precise result with far less effort.
Professional Tongs That Never Let You Down
You can judge a cook by their kitchen tongs. If someone’s tongs have rubber handles, grips and/or hands on them, I know it’s amateur hour, and I won’t be expecting anything special from dinner. Professional chefs are surprisingly particular about their tongs.
Winco is a no-frills, rugged, restaurant industry standard, and these metal arms of precision will become an extension of your body like a dextrous crab-claw-tong-hand you never knew you were missing that feels so right. I use them for everything from grilling and picking up hot pans, to general serving, and, most importantly twirling and plating the perfect bowl of pasta.
Tongs are like an extension of the chef’s hand – perfect for flipping proteins, handling hot items, or arranging plated elements without direct contact. The right pair becomes so natural that chefs often forget they’re using a tool at all. Many chefs develop such attachment to their tongs that they’ll carry the same pair from job to job throughout their careers.
Heat-Resistant Spatulas for Every Task
“As a Shopping Editor, tools come and go in my kitchen pretty frequently. But I’ve had these Earlywood spatulas for over five years – and they’re not going anywhere,” says Katie of these kitchen essentials. “I use my set every single day for scrambling eggs, sauteing veggies, mixing together pastas – they’re incredibly handy.
“Rubber spatulas, all shapes and sizes are the secret ingredient in the kitchen. It doesn’t scratch and it ensures that I get the last bit of food out. When you are working with precise recipes, especially with pastries, every gram is accounted for and a spatula helps me scrape every bit of everything out and it’s perfect for folding whipped egg whites or cream or flour into the main batter. Even when I am cooking sauces and stews, mixing with a spatula ensures that I get everything off the bottom of the pan so it won’t burn.”
Professional chefs know that versatility matters more than specialization when it comes to essential tools. A good heat-resistant spatula handles delicate tasks like folding egg whites while also being tough enough for stirring thick sauces over high heat.
The Legendary Kunz Spoon
Chefs have a spoon fetish, and if there’s a spoon you could draw from a stone and hold it into the sky while people cheer your name as you perfectly anoint something with sauce it’s the Kunz spoon. Named for the chef that designed it (Gray Kunz), and originally only given to professional chefs who worked in his kitchen, the Kunz spoon has a cult following among chefs. You don’t use a Kunz spoon, you wield it.
It’s a joy to hold, and so elegant you’ll want to put it under your pillow at night, not to mention they’re tough as nails and made with high-quality stainless steel. It’s not just one of the best utensils for cooking, either: according to culinary folklore, Kunz spoons are reportedly strong enough for heavy-duty kitchen tasks.
While this might sound like chef mythology, the reverence for the Kunz spoon reveals something important about professional cooking culture. Chefs appreciate tools that combine functionality with craftsmanship, and they’re willing to invest in equipment that performs flawlessly under pressure.
Professional Tweezers for Perfect Plating
Kitchen tool you can’t live without: My tweezers. I’ve had the same pair for probably 12 years, engraved by a colleague at the time with my favorite X-Men character’s name. This chef’s attachment to their tweezers shows how personal these tools become.
When adding microgreens, edible flowers, or any delicate garnishes to a plate, garnishing tweezers offer unparalleled precision. These tools help you place even the tiniest ingredients exactly where you want them, enhancing the visual appeal of your dishes. In fine dining, presentation can make or break a dish.
“Long cooking tweezers. They are basically fancy tongs but so much easier to use than the big, clumsy standard ones. I use them to grab, flip, turn, stir, whisk, eat… you name it, just like extra-long chopsticks!” The versatility of professional tweezers extends far beyond plating.
Wooden Cutting Boards That Last Forever
While both materials have their merits, many chefs prefer wood for its durability and appearance, though proper maintenance is essential for both plastic and wood boards, and it looks nice. One of the above boards are my go-to wedding gifts, along with a single, nice chef knife (as opposed to a collection of 15 civilian ones). Professional chefs understand that cutting board material matters more than most home cooks realize.
Bamboo boards are great as they’re light, durable, and cheap enough I don’t care if I nick one with a sawzall cutting up a whole carcass on one. End-grain boards are the cadillac of wood boards, and won’t suffer from splitting like boards made from strips of wood. The investment in quality boards pays dividends over years of heavy use.
Professional kitchens see cutting boards that endure thousands of cuts per day. A board that warps, cracks, or harbors bacteria becomes a liability quickly. Chefs learn early that cheap cutting boards cost more in the long run through frequent replacements and potential contamination issues.
High-Performance Blenders for Everything
In kitchens I’ve worked in, this machine, specifically the all-black model, is so loved it’s been given names like The Borg, and Black Beauty. The Vita, in many restaurants, can be the most used tool besides the stove, and in pro kitchens you may have to put your name on the waiting list during prep time just to be able to use it. Professional-grade blenders become central to kitchen operations.
For an upgrade, again, I can’t recommend Vitamix enough! When chefs consistently recommend specific brands, it’s because those tools have proven themselves under extreme conditions. These workhorses handle everything from purées to sauces, dressings, and doughs. Unlike residential models, commercial blenders are built for power, volume, and speed.
Professional chefs rely on blenders for far more than smoothies. From emulsifying vinaigrettes to creating silky soups and breaking down tough ingredients, a powerful blender becomes indispensable once chefs experience what true commercial power can accomplish.
Kitchen Scales for Consistency
This digital kitchen food scale achieves an exact reading on a large LCD readout, essential for successful baking. It weighs up to 11 pounds with ultrafine increments. Perfect for all home and professional chefs who need an accurate kitchen scale. Precision becomes second nature in professional kitchens.
Consistency separates professional cooking from home cooking more than any other factor. When you’re preparing the same dish hundreds of times per week, small variations in ingredient amounts create noticeable differences in the final product. Scales eliminate this variability.
Professional bakers understand this better than anyone. A few grams difference in flour can transform a perfect croissant into a dense disappointment. Chefs who work in high-volume environments know that scales save both time and money by preventing waste from failed batches.
Cast Iron Pans for Perfect Heat Retention
“For me, it has to be a Le Creuset pot. It’s great for slow cooking, roasting and even better for all the new budding sourdough bakers out there. It’s multipurpose and stylish too.” Professional chefs appreciate equipment that performs multiple functions reliably.
The Le Creuset Enameled Cast Iron Dutch oven is perfect for browning meat on top of the stove before slow braising in the oven. The exterior is chip-resistant, and the interior has a smooth finish that encourages browning, prevents burning, and resists stains. The dome-shaped lid fits tightly, locking in flavor and moisture. It is considered an icon amongst kitchen gadgets and is a prerequisite for in-home cooks and professional chefs.
Heat retention and even cooking become critical when you’re managing multiple dishes simultaneously. Cast iron provides the thermal mass that allows chefs to achieve consistent results even under pressure. The durability means these pans often outlast the chefs who use them.
Professional Peelers That Never Quit
I wanted to come back, and thank you for sharing the Kuhn Rikon peeler. It’s made a world of difference. I’m not a chef; just a homesteader with an annual abundance of winter squash to process. I’ve cut myself several times, trying to do this wielding a knife. The peeler is safer, faster, and causes no waste, unlike me with a knife.
“Well, aside from your tongue – the most important tool in the kitchen – I would say my speed peeler is essential. It makes peeling carrots and potatoes take two minutes without accidentally removing too much, and it’s a non-expensive gadget to help improve every kitchen. I would recommend buying quite a number though – I always end up throwing mine away with the peelings or losing them.”
Professional chefs value efficiency above almost everything else. A sharp peeler that removes just the skin without wasting the flesh underneath saves both time and money. When you’re peeling pounds of vegetables daily, these small efficiencies add up dramatically over time.
