You may find as you are spending some more time in the kitchen cooking your keto-friendly meals that there will be some kitchen equipment that will make life easier. We have created a list of the ultimate keto kitchen must haves that we use all the time when cooking, so you too can cook amazing keto meals.
The Ultimate keto kitchen must haves
We have broken down our ultimate keto kitchen must haves into the following categories –
- Food storage
- Kitchen equipment
- Appliances
- Utensils
Food Storage
Pyrex Containers – We love having a range of sizes of these containers available for any meal prep we do and also for our packed lunches for work. They can go in the freezer and in the oven (without the lids) so they are very versatile.
Quite often when preparing dinner, I will make an additional cheesy cauliflower bake in a pyrex dish, and prior to baking it pop the lid on and put it straight in the freezer. Then on a night when I have less time or can’t be bothered cooking I can grab it out of the freezer, take the lid off and pop it straight in the oven.
I prefer storing and heating my food in glass over plastic due to the potential chemical exposure. You can read more about that here.
Glass Jars – We love having glass jars to store our pantry items, such as our nuts and any baking ingredients like nut flours. It keeps your pantry tidy, your ingredients fresh and everything is easy to see and access.
We also use glass jars to store our homemade condiments and salad dressings in the fridge. I love using the ball mason jars and we also keep jars from tomato sauces etc we buy and then clean off the label and recycle them. I prefer storing everything in glass over plastic due to the potential chemical exposure.
Glass jars are great for storing your ketogenic diet staples such as bone broth, homemade mayo, nut milk, chia pudding and cold brew coffee.
Kitchen Equipment
Kitchen scales – We use our kitchen scales pretty much every day to measure out ingredients when following a recipe. They are also great for the purpose of tracking our macros, when we want to be more precise with the amounts of each food we are eating.
Make sure yours allows you to tare, so you can use the same bowl and continue to add multiple ingredients easily. It is also great if they can switch between grams and ounces so you can use them for recipes from the US or Australia/UK.
Spiralizer – Perfect for making zoodles or zughetti at home. I love that there are a varierty of different blades so you can make different thickness and shapes of noodles. You aren’t limited to spiralizing zucchini either, it is time to get creative, you can even spiralize capsicums (bell peppers), turnips, onions, cucumber and cabbage.
We love zoodles with our beef stroganoff, chorizo chilli, basil pesto or creamy mushroom sauce. In summer, this tasty salad is a perfect side for your family BBQ.
Butter dish – A must have for any butter lover (like me)! Life is so much easier if you have some room temperature butter available, rather than cold out of the fridge.
Depending on what the climate is like where you live it may not be an option to have the butter out on your counter year round. In summer, we like to store our butter in a butter dish in the fridge so it is easier to access and less messy than in the foil wrapper.
Bacon grease saver – This item is definitely on my wish list. We currently save any leftover bacon grease from baking our bacon in a small pyrex container. But having a bacon grease saver with the strainer would be awesome.
Leftover bacon grease is perfect for using in your cooking for added flavour, especially when frying up some greens, cabbage or brussel sprouts. We love to fry our eggs in leftover bacon grease.
Frying pan (skillet) – We use heavy based stainless steel frying pans and saucepans in our house. Over time we have phased out any teflon pans we had to minimise our toxic chemical exposure. I like skillets and pans with metal handles so they can easily go into the oven or under the grill (broiler).
You can season your stainless steel skillets to make them non-stick if your prefer and I have used this method before with coconut oil successfully.
Cast iron skillets are also very popular within the ketogenic community. You do need to be careful with making sure you season your cast iron pans before use and cleaning them properly. Check out this guide for more info. Perfect for making our skillet eggs.
Grease splatter screen – This would have to be one of my favourite kitchen purchases since we started following a ketogenic diet. This keeps the grease from your skillet splattering all over your cooktop when you are cooking up a storm. Just like your grandma used to have!
Casserole pots – I absolutely adore my enamel-lined cast iron casserole pots, and although they are expensive, if you look after them they will last you a lifetime. My Mum is still using one she received as a wedding present and my parents are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary this year!
I have a large round casserole pot and a shallow casserole pot both in cherry red that I use regularly. Also they are just so pretty and I love to have them out on display in my kitchen. Perfect for cooking our oven baked meatballs, chorizo chilli and beef stroganoff (you can see my casserole pots starring in the recipe photos).
Silicon moulds – These muffin moulds are great for keto baking, as quite often things can stick to traditional muffin pans or paper cases. We use them to bake our breakfast muffins and pecan cheesecake muffins and they always come out perfectly. They are also great for making individual cheesecakes, like our white chocolate ones.
We also use smaller silicon moulds for making fat bombs, our collagen cups and chocolate treats. I often make Dan some little chocolates that she loves. They are made with 85% dark chocolate melted together with coconut butter or another nut butter and then I mix in some of our keto granola for crunch. I pour them into the small silicon moulds and set them in the fridge. Once they are firm they pop straight out and are quite pretty.
Appliances
Stick blender – We love our stick blender as it is so versatile. You can use it to whizz up your bulletproof coffee and it is much less cleaning up compared to using a blender in my opinion. The bowl attachment is so handy as it is a mini food processer, without taking up all the cupboard space of a traditional food processor.
I use my stick blender regularly to make home made mayo and hollandaise sauce, or blend up a soup to make it smooth and creamy. I use it with the bowl attachment to chop vegetables or nuts and to make basil pesto and our smoky romesco sauce.
Ninja blender – These are very popular for making bulletproof drinks, as you can then drink straight out of the blender cup. I have seen versions that chop veggies as well, which look handy. Great for making nut milk, your bulletproof bone broth, smoothies or our creamy hot chocolate.
Slow cooker – We use ours to make bone broth year round and in winter to make stews and braises. We would use it at least once a week for bone broth and then for other meals on top of that. So easy to be able to chuck all the ingredients in and switch it on in the morning and come home to dinner ready!
I prefer a larger slow cooker so that I can get a larger amount of bone broth for my 24 hour time investment. When I have cooked a small portion of meat in the large slow cooker I just place it in a small heat-proof dish inside the slow cooker bowl, so it doesn’t dry out.
Check what we did using the slow cooker with the contents of our grass fed beef box delivery.
Ice-cream Maker – I don’t know about you but I LOVE ICECREAM! No low carb ice cream you can buy at the supermarket in Australia compares to a homemade version, trust me. I like this machine as there is no need to store the bowl in your freezer and it is super easy to use.
I like to make a custard mixture with heavy cream or coconut milk and cool it in the fridge. Then pop it into the ice-cream machine for a super decadent treat. It is great as you can use the sweeteners you prefer and you know exactly what ingredients you are eating. Ours usually includes heavy cream, eggs, vanilla and sukrin sweetener.
Smoker – I bought Dan a smoker for Christmas a few years ago from Aldi here in Australia and she loves it! So great for making delicious smoked pulled pork, whole chickens, jalapeno poppers and salmon.
When free range chickens are on special at the supermarket we buy 3 or 4 and cook them in the smoker. Then we pull the meat off, portion it up and pop it in the freezer. We then can grab out a portion for a quick lunch with some of our ranch dip or make some cheese shell tacos for dinner.
Deep fryer – One of the great things about a ketogenic diet – you don’t need to be afraid of fat! Chicken wings, brussel sprouts, cheese, bacon the options of things you can deep fry are pretty much endless. It is great for adding a crunchy texture. I prefer to deep fry in good quality pork lard or beef tallow, rather than vegetable oils.
Instant Pot – Another one on my wish list, but they are not easily available in Australia. So versatile – it is a slow cooker, a pressure cooker, you can also use it to steam or saute and as a warmer and steriliser. We love Nom Nom Paleo and she is pretty much an instant pot goddess. You should check out her instant pot recipes for inspiration.
Sous Vide – If you dream of a perfectly cooked steak or a 63 degree egg then investing in a sous vide cooker may be for you. This method is great as you are cooking meat in its own juices so you get a much tastier outcome and also more consistency. For more detailed information check out this article.
Utensils
Knife set – A good knife set is an essential for any home cook. We recommend investing in a good set to assist with all your keto food prep. This set offers a great range of knives, but the chefs knife is my favourite as it is just so versatile.
It is important to keep your knives sharp as accidents usually happen if you need to apply too much pressure when using a blunt knife. I find it is best to hand wash them to avoid them going blunt too quickly.
Frothing wand – I love this little device for whizzing up my coffee if I don’t want to have to wash up my blender. If I add powdered MCT oil or collagen powder to my coffee it is able to mix it in quickly. It is also great for travelling as it is very compact and battery operated.
Mince meat chopper – This is such a handy tool. Perfect for when you are making taco meat or bolognaise sauce using minced (ground) pork or beef. It easily chops up the ground meat in the pan to prevent over cooking or large clumps.
Measuring cups – Perfect for keto baking or anytime you need to measure ingredients for a recipe. It is best to measure dry ingredients in measuring cups rather than measuring jugs.
Measuring spoons – Again, perfect for keto baking or following recipes and also for tracking your food intake. I use mine daily when I am making my coffee so I know how much cream I am adding.
Pyrex measuring jugs – I have a set of 3 of these; a 4 cup jug, a 2 cup jug and a 1 cup jug, and we would use most of them on a daily basis. Perfect for measuring liquids or heating things up in the microwave, as they are heat-proof.
Grater – Grating your own cheese is the best option as you can choose the best quality cheese available to grate. Also you don’t need to worry about any starch additives that can be found in grated cheese you purchase from the supermarket. You can also grate zucchini to make into fritters or muffins and use a grater to make cauliflower rice.
Microplane – I love using my microplane grater, and not just because it reminds me of my trip to San Francisco, where I bought it. It is great to get really fine grating for lemon or lime zest, ginger, garlic or nutmeg.
So there you have it our ultimate keto kitchen must haves. These keto kitchen must haves we have accumulated over time. We don’t recommend that you rush out and buy all of these things on day one. This is designed to give you an idea of things you may want to add as you progress with your ketogenic diet.
Now that you are more prepared in the kitchen, check out our ketogenic book resources list to see some of our favourite cookbooks.
Is there any keto kitchen must haves you have in your kitchen we may have missed? Let us know what your favourite kitchen essentials are in the comments.
Check out the other posts in our Keto Beginners Guide to help with stocking your pantry and grocery shopping –
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