10 Actually Useful Cooking Gadgets

While we publicly disdain unitaskers and frivolous gadgets in the kitchen, we each have a secret love for the tools that make our cooking lives a little easier. There are plenty of gadgets and little tools that are very useful in the kitchen; it just comes down to how you cook. If you love it and use it, it’s good for your kitchen! What is that gadget for you? Your garlic press? A strawberry huller?

May we suggest ten more little gadgets, from an offbeat peeler to a yogurt maker, that just might find a place on your gift list. And yes, there’s an egg separator. How could we not?

• 1 KitchenAid Stand Mixer Pasta Press Attachment, $179.95 from Williams-Sonoma: This is the priciest gadget on our list, but for the pasta-lover, it’s worth the investment. Extrude shaped pastas like bucatini, rigatoni, and fusilli — we fell in love with this thing (see our full review here).
  
  
• 2 German-Made Cherry Pitter, $32.95 from Lehman’s: For the home canner and preserver, this old-fashioned cherry pitter gets a messy job done very quickly. Try it with olives, too!
  
  
• 3 Euro Cuisine YM80 Yogurt Maker, $25.50 from Amazon: The easiest way to make consistently delicious homemade yogurt.
  
  
• 4 Peugeot Nutmeg Grinder, $59.95 from Amazon: Faith has one of these cute, fat-bellied nutmeg graters and if, like her, you put nutmeg on pasta and in meat sauces as well as in your gingerbread, you’ll adore it as much as she does.
  
  
• 5 Rechargeable Sensor Pump, $59.95 from Simplehuman: This no-hands sensor pump is a nice accessory to a clean and sanitary kitchen.
  
  
• 6 Zyliss Handheld Pizza Wheel, $11 from Amazon: This gadget rave comes from reader jj11news, who uses it to “cut and slice everything — pizza, brownies, bars, quesadillas, dough, and I’m sure a bunch of other things.”
  
  
• 7 Normann Copenhagen Peeler in Coral, $17 from Gretel Home: A pretty and practical peeler with European flair.
  
  
• 8 Pluck Egg Separator, $12.99 from Quirky: OK, OK we couldn’t help it: this little gadget keeps your hands clean and your egg whites yolk-free. We could just watch it all day long, too…
  
  
• 9 Chef’n VeggieChop, $17 from Amazon: This little chopper (see it in action here) is another one of Faith’s favorite kitchen tools. It’s much cheaper and easier to clean than a food processor, and yet it does all the things a food chopper should do: makes pesto, chops nuts, blends sauces, purees small batches of soup. For all its functionality, though, the pull-string still makes it as fun as a toy!
  
  
• 10 Dishwasher Safe iPad Stand, 34.95 from Amazon: A gadget for your gadget. We love this handsome stand for your iPad or tablet.

This year, The Kitchn and Apartment Therapy aren’t just sharing great ideas in our gift guides, we’re giving away $1,000 to help one lucky reader purchase presents for their friends and family! Through Friday, December 13th, we’ll publish new gift guides each day on both sites while collecting entries in the sweepstakes. (See Official Rules for details. One entry per reader, please.) Enter below for a chance to receive a bit of extra help from us this holiday season — we want it to be your best and brightest yet!

And we’re not done. Starting on Monday, December 16, The Kitchn and Apartment Therapy editors have lined up ten absolutely unbelievable items (really, you won’t believe how great they are!) for our big, blowout week-long Holiday Giveaway 2013. To be notified on when and how to enter to win these super-special gifts, sign up for our giveaway email today, and you won’t miss a single one.