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Sometimes, weeknights are akin to running a marathon—especially if you’re a parent. You’ve got to scramble home from work, pick up the kids, put dinner on the table, deal with homework, and, in some cases, get out the door again for a sport or activity. It’s a lot, no matter how great you are at multitasking.
Since we’ll take any help we can get, we’ve curated this list of items to make life easier in the dinner department. From multitasking machines to favourite finds, here are the things that help us get supper on the table even faster.
Whether you’re batch cooking on the weekend or throwing together some chicken cacciatore on a weeknight, the newest gadget from PowerXL is designed to save time and effort. It has nine pre-sets, including slow cook, risotto, and sauté, and includes a 360° automatic paddle to stir your food for you as it cooks. This thing can handle two three-pound chickens and whips up a family-approved rice pilaf in under 30 minutes. Cleaning it is also super easy: remove the ceramic-coated pot and wipe it down or throw it in the dishwasher.
Fall is soup season, and nothing will blend your pot of deliciousness better than an immersion blender. We’ve also used our KitchenAid for years to blend homemade pasta sauces before adding the meat back in, for quick pesto and aioli, or for a super easy (and unbeatably fresh) whipped cream.
After growing tired of multiple pots taking up space in the cupboard, we downsized to this pot last year and haven’t looked back. It’s incredibly light but beautiful to look at, but more importantly, it can do eight different things: boil, bake, fry, roast, braise, strain, serve, and store. We’ve done everything from stew to roast chicken in ours, and love that it can go from stovetop to oven. It’s also easy to clean, even if the dishwasher isn’t recommended.
Rice cookers are unique gadgets that deliver the perfect rice every single time, but they’re not so great at cooking other grains, like quinoa, or items such as beans, oatmeal, and lentils. Enter this all-in-one cooker, which has changed how we whip meals together. It has multiple functions for the perfect cook on an array of staples, whether cooking them with water or your favourite broth.
Unless you’re a wiz with a knife, odds are you spend too much time crying over onions or scraping together veggie bits. Stop it now with a mini food processor, saving you time whether you’re chopping or saucing. Get your veggies ready for the pan quicker, or pump out a quick pico de gallo, hummus, or dressing in a matter of minutes.
If you’re looking for something that will specifically cut (and spiralize!) your veggies, this chopper is another favourite kitchen gadget. It has multiple inserts to quickly chop veggies, slice fries, or spiralize zucchini or carrots. The chopper also includes various brushes to make cleaning a breeze, all while keeping those onion tears out of your eyes.
If you forgot to remove your protein from the freezer again, you don’t necessarily need to microwave it. Or at least you don’t if you’ve got one of these nifty Shark Tank gadgets, which helps thaw freezer meat much faster. It comes with a suction cup that fits any sink and will hold the package underwater so it doesn’t float, resulting in food that’s ready to be cooked even quicker on those busy nights.
This dual-basket air fryer has saved many last-minute family meals, allowing us to cook multiple things simultaneously. Think fresh salmon and fish sticks, chicken wings and fries, or veggies and pork chops. We’ve also baked frozen croissants in under 15 minutes and crisped up hash browns for quick breakfasts and lunches, making this one of our most used kitchen gadgets day and night.
Is boiling pasta easy? Of course. Do you always have time to wait for the water to boil and then to watch the pot so it doesn’t overflow while those noodles get tender? Negative. This microwaveable tool delivers cooked pasta even faster for those nights when you need to eat and go. Just measure, microwave, strain, and serve.
If you don’t have an Instant Pot yet, you’re missing out. We’ve whipped up plenty of last-minute meals for the whole family using this versatile tool, from lazy lasagnas and cabbage rolls to chilli and teriyaki chicken. This model includes a steam rack and 10 versatile functions, including a cake maker, egg cooker, and sterilizer (for those who like to make their own pickles or sauces on the weekends).
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