Miscellaneous Appliances for Meal Prep
There’s always going to be new and exotic appliances for your kitchen coming out on the market and it is our job to sift through them to find you the best products for your meal prep kitchen.
Just because they’re miscellaneous doesn’t mean they’re useless, just unique in category either by season or niche. Either way, it is good to know that options exist to fit every need when it comes to meal prep.
Whether you’re prepping a creative desert or planning a large summer day of fun, we’ve got you covered because sometimes email prep isn’t just about planning ahead but also planning in bulk for the entire party.
Bread Maker
Nothing smells better than fresh baked bread and a bread maker will ensure you have that at the snap of a finger. Bread makers are convenient devices for baking loaves of bread in standard styles.
Baking can be a meticulous science, slowing down a meal prep process that strives to be quick. Using a bread machine, you can break through with quality breads that are routinely fresh, complimenting your recipes the way they were originally intended for.
Making your own bread is incredibly more healthy too because you are in control of what goes inside the dough. Because of their short shelf life, mass-produced bread is often full of preservatives and chemicals to keep it from spoiling. They can also be high in sugar, so being your own baker can lead to great benefits on your body.
Dehydrator
Drying and curing foods is a cooking technique that has been used for ages. Not only was it a great way to preserve foods before the advent of refrigeration, it also imparts unique flavors and textures that are impossible to get otherwise.
As meal preppers, dried foods play right into our wheel house, making it easy to store for long periods of time in between cooking. Having long lasting food that is dried instead of in the fridge can also help break monotunity and provide contrasting textures as you follow your meal plan.
For the adventurous types, curing is also a form of dehydrating that uses salts and other ingredients to extract moisture. The salt imparts a strong seasoning, creating rich umami flavors in cured meats like salami and bacon.
Ice Cream Maker
Nothing says summertime fun like ice cream and anyone who’s tried it can tell you that homemade ice cream is the best you can get. Ice cream makers are perfect for turning ordinary kitchen ingredients into a magical dessert for summer days.
Meal prep doesn’t always have to be boring and routine. Adding fun dishes to your weekly plan helps stir excitement and ensure that you don’t skip meals which can lead to wasted food and time.
But to make things better, when you’re making your own ice cream you are the master of your ingredients. While this is common knowledge, it’s important to emphasize this variable in your control because sugary desserts bought at the groceries are usually filled with unhealthy additives that don’t apply to home cooking.
Sous Vide Machine
Want a steak, but don’t have a grill? No worries, sous vide machines use heat, water, and pressure to cook steaks to exact temperatures. Placing your steak into a bag, you then submerge it into the water, cover, and wait.
Once ready, the steaks are removed from the water and the bag, dried, and then given a sear on a skillet, grill, or by torch to activate the maillard reaction and create a crust.
Sous vides machines are popular not only because they are more kitchen friendly than a fiery grill, but because they offer unparalleled control over the doneness of meat. Fire will also have variables to consider whereas the sous vide can maintain constituency for easier meal prep in the long run.
Yogurt Maker
Yogurt is the basis for a lot of recipes, either as a side condiment or at the base of a sauce and many things in between. Incredibly versatile, yogurt is also great for gut health providing meaningful probiotics giving us one more reason to consider our own yogurt makers.
A yogurt maker is an appliance that uses heat and steam to create individual portions of yogurt at a time. It’s a great way to lower costs on an expensive dairy product while also removing unnecessary additives like sugar.
Prepare basic yogurt for cooking or design your own fun combinations for a light snack or colorful dessert. You can also freeze your yogurt, making the perfect summertime treat on a hot day.