The 10 Most Useless Kitchen Gadgets

Faith Durand
Faith DurandSenior Vice President of Content at AT Media
Faith is the SVP of Content at Apartment Therapy Media and former Editor-in-Chief of The Kitchn. She is the author of three cookbooks, including the James Beard Award-winning, The Kitchn Cookbook. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband and two daughters.
updated May 11, 2022
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It seems that every year we are bombarded with more, more, and yet more kitchen gadgets. Some are cosmetic updates to classic tools, a precious few are genuinely innovative, but many more are useless. We did a poll around the office and then checked in at the Chowhound message boards, and we came up with this list of the 10 most useless kitchen gadgets. We suspect you’ll disagree with one, or maybe more; and you probably have other gadgets to add to this list as well. What’s the most useless kitchen gadget you’ve ever seen?

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We checked in on a few Chowhound threads, like this one: Most useless kitchen gadget? — which mostly degenerated into an argument about the relative uselessness of dishwashers and in-sink disposals. This thread was more helpful, and very entertaining.

Overall, we recognize that one person’s useless gadget might be another’s favorite tool. Some gadgets that we find semi-useless are actually well-designed for people with disabilities or arthritis. (Think electric can opener. Also, we are not even touching the garlic press debate.)

We looked for products that we all agreed on, at least in a majority sense, and things that are also somewhat common in the market. Here they are, in no particular order!

1 Avocado Slicer – There were many candidates for most useless vegetable or fruit slicer, but we wanted to include just one, and this is it. Avocado slicer? Really? You can’t use a spoon?

2 Flavor Injector – Doesn’t work nearly as well as a brining or a simple marinade. Also, it’s made by Ronco.

3 Egg Separator – There are many ways to separate an egg yolk from its white, and none of them are as tasteless as this thing!

4 Wine Aerator – Mary herself says that these aerators are really useless. Pour your wine out into a glass or a decanter.

5 Garlic Peeler – Harder (and more expensive) than using your chef’s knife. Here’s a video of two ways to peel garlic. Neither of them involve a gadget.

6 Onion Chopper – This is no substitute for one good knife. Learn to chop onions here.

7 Pasta Measuring Tool – Just eyeball it, or weigh the pasta instead.

8 Spoon Rest – A saucer, plate, or shallow bowl does this just as well and actually catches drips better.

9 Iced Tea Maker – We can hear the howls from the iced tea lovers now, but we just don’t think this is worth the space it takes up.

10 Asparagus Peeler – Like the avocado slicer, there were many, many candidates for most useless peeler. But again this won out. What’s so hard about a regular peeler?

OK, what did we miss? Or do you want to argue with any of our choices?

Related: Stirr: The Automatic Sauce Stirrer from uutensil