When we start to clean up our diets and move away from packaged, grab and go foods, it’s hard to adjust to spending more time in the kitchen. All that chopping can take up precious time. This short video is to help you know which kitchen appliances might help make your time in the kitchen easier.
In addition to the tips I shared with you in the video, here are some alternative uses for my favorite kitchen appliances:
1. Blender: for a person who does a lot of cooking and likes to make healthy food in creative ways, a good blender is a must. Here are some unique things you can do with your blender:
- Smoothies: All blenders can create refreshing smoothies, but a super powerful one can create a smooth, soft serve textured smoothie!
- Simple Pancakes: Blend up your healthy pancake ingredients in the blender for a quick pancake. Check out this Paleo recipe
- Soups: As I mentioned in my video, making soups is easy breezy in a blender. Just add your favorite veggies, some bone broth, herbs and spices and you have a quick soup!
- Scrambled Eggs: When eggs are lightly whipped in the blender, they create incredibly fluffy scrambled eggs!
- Sauces: Sauces add immense flavor to almost any meal and they’re simple to make. Just toss the ingredients into the blender!
- Super Nice Cream: It’s like ice cream but made out of healthy ingredients. This Chocolate Peanut Butter nice cream is amazing!
2. Food Processor: My food processor is one of those multi-tasking kitchen tools that I really don’t think I could live without at this point.
- Sauces: Depending on the ingredients, sauces can also be made in the food processor such as this Chimichurri recipe
- Shaved Veggies: Pulse raw cauliflower or broccoli chunks in your food processor to make a nutritious, low-carb alternative to rice. Just be sure you don’t over-process the vegetables or else you’ll turn them into purée
- Coleslaw: Shave brussel sprouts, carrots and cabbage to make a nutritious homemade coleslaw
- Nut Butter: Make your own almond or other nut butter in the food processor in just a matter of seconds
- Salsa: Fresh salsa is a breeze to whip up in a food processor. Once you’ve made your own homemade salsa, you’ll never go back to store-bought.
- Mayonnaise: Everything’s better with Mayo. Check out this unique twist on one of America’s favorite condiments
- Pesto: Can we say that it’s the besto in the food processor?!
3. Immersion Blender: An immersion blender is a hand held blender. This appliance is great because it’s compact, relatively cheap, versatile, and they’re fast! Almost anything that can be made with the food processor or blender, can also be made with the immersion blender.
- Salsa: If you don’t want to get out the bigger appliances, roughly chop up the salsa ingredients, place them in a bowl and blend with the immersion blender
- Pancake and Waffle batter: Just toss all the ingredients into a bowl and whip up with the immersion blender
- Tomato or Pasta Sauce: Follow a recipe such as this one and use the immersion blender to make the sauce smoother and creamier before consuming or storing
- Smoothies: Often immersion blenders will come with a portable container. The smoothie ingredients can be added to the container and blended right in the container and boom! You have a smoothie to go!
- Whipped Cream: Often, whipped cream can be made with this versatile tool. Use the immersion blender instead of a hand mixer
- Mayonnaise: Here’s a quick take on a Whole30 mayo recipe
- Guacamole: The immersion blender blends the avocado perfectly. If you like your guac to be chunky, you can blend a little less. If you like it smooth, just blend longer.
- Scrambled Eggs: You’ll get the same fluffy eggs as mentioned in the blender section, but this is quicker and less clean up
4. Coffee Grinder: Coffee grinders are like mini food processors and are great for many smaller food projects. Here are a few of my favorite ways to use coffee grinders, but keep in mind: the number of ways in which you can use this handy tool is limitless!
- Chopped Nuts: For a quick and small portion of chopped nuts to top on salads or yogurt, the coffee grinder is a great tool!
- Garnish: Want little bits of chocolate, coconut, orange or lemon peel, or other small edible bits to use as garnish?
- Dry Herbs: If you’re a gardener, dry out your herbs and use the coffee grinder to make ground herbs for use in meals
- Spices: Make your own ground cinnamon, black pepper, cardamon, star anise with a coffee grinder. It’s so fresh and flavorful!!
- Bread Crumbs: Turn gluten free bread into superfine breadcrumbs after a few pulses in the coffee grinder!
- Meat Rub: Toss your favorite herbs and spices into the grinder to create a paste you can add lots of flavor to your meats in seconds!
