There’s a funny thing about decluttering the kitchen: the tools that seem unnecessary are often the ones you end up missing first. A gadget can sit untouched in a drawer for months, then suddenly become the one thing you need halfway through making dinner.
It’s easy to get carried away when clearing out cabinets, especially if you’re trying to make your kitchen less crowded. But before tossing something just because you haven’t used it lately, think about what it actually does. Some basic tools are difficult to replace with whatever happens to be nearby.
Here are 12 kitchen staples that deserve a second look before they make their way into the trash or donation box.
Can Opener
A can opener may spend most of its life sitting quietly in a drawer, but try opening a can without one and you’ll quickly appreciate it.
Using a knife to pry open a can is awkward and can lead to cuts or damaged food. A decent can opener takes seconds to use and gives you a much safer way to get into canned beans, tomatoes, soups, and other pantry staples.
It’s a small tool, but one that earns its drawer space.
Related: 12 Items That Can Explode in Your Kitchen
Potato Masher
You can mash potatoes with a fork, but the results usually take more work. A potato masher breaks cooked potatoes down quickly while leaving enough texture for fluffy, homemade mashed potatoes.
It’s also useful for more than potatoes. You can mash cooked vegetables, beans, bananas, or even avocado with it.
If you like making mashed potatoes from scratch, this inexpensive tool is hard to replace.
Pizza Cutter
A sharp kitchen knife can slice pizza, but a pizza cutter makes the job much quicker. The round blade rolls smoothly through crust without dragging the toppings across the slice.
And pizza is only the beginning. A pizza cutter can be handy for cutting quesadillas, flatbreads, tortillas, pastry dough, pancakes, and other foods into neat pieces.
That little wheel can earn its keep surprisingly often.
Related: 12 Kitchen Gadgets That Are Hard to Replace
Colander
A colander is one of those kitchen tools you don’t appreciate until you need to drain something quickly.
It makes draining pasta, rinsing vegetables, washing berries, and cleaning beans much easier than trying to balance a pot lid or pour everything through a tiny opening.
Some colanders can also be used for steaming vegetables when paired with a suitable pot. If you’re trying to save cabinet space, choose one sturdy colander that can handle several jobs instead of getting rid of it altogether.
Garlic Press
Chopping garlic by hand works perfectly well, but a garlic press can save time when you need finely crushed garlic.
The press breaks the cloves into small pieces that mix easily into sauces, marinades, dressings, and other recipes. It can be especially handy when a recipe calls for several cloves.
If you cook with garlic often, this is one of those tools that can quickly become a favorite.
Citrus Juicer
Squeezing a lemon or lime by hand isn’t difficult, but a small handheld citrus juicer makes the job cleaner and often helps you get more juice from the fruit. Research into orange juice extraction has also looked at how mechanical extraction can improve juice recovery. A citrus juicer also catches seeds and much of the pulp before they end up in your food.
It takes up very little drawer space and comes in handy for lemonade, salad dressings, marinades, cocktails, sauces, guacamole, and countless other recipes.
Related: 15 Kitchen Scraps You Should Never Use as Fertilizer
Jar Opener
There are few kitchen frustrations quite like wrestling with a stubborn jar lid.
A jar opener gives you extra grip and leverage when your hands aren’t enough. This can be especially helpful with tightly sealed pasta sauce, pickles, jams, and other foods.
There are several styles available, from simple rubber grips to larger lever-style openers. If you’ve ever resorted to tapping a jar against the counter just to get the lid moving, you’ll probably think twice before getting rid of yours.
Grater
A box grater is far more useful than its cheese-grating reputation suggests.
You can use it for shredded cheese, of course, but it also works for carrots, zucchini, potatoes, chocolate, citrus zest, and fresh spices such as nutmeg.
A grater produces small, evenly sized pieces that can be difficult to achieve with a knife. If you’re short on storage space, a compact four-sided model can take the place of several separate tools.
Measuring Cups and Spoons
Eyeballing ingredients might work for a simple soup, but some recipes leave little room for guessing.
Baking is the obvious example. Too much flour, sugar, salt, or leavening can change the final texture and flavor. Measuring cups and spoons also make it much easier to repeat a recipe successfully.
They’re inexpensive, take up very little room, and save you from wondering whether you added a teaspoon or tablespoon.
Related: 10 Kitchen Habits That Can Make Cooking More Difficult
Rolling Pin
A wine bottle can work as an emergency rolling pin, but anyone who has actually tried it knows it’s not quite the same.
A rolling pin gives you better control over the thickness of dough and makes it easier to roll out pie crusts, cookies, pizza dough, biscuits, and other baked goods.
It can also be useful for crushing crackers, cookies, and nuts. If you bake regularly, keeping one nearby is much easier than searching the kitchen for a substitute every time a recipe calls for rolled-out dough.
Vegetable Peeler
A sharp knife can peel a potato or carrot, but a vegetable peeler usually does the job faster while removing a thinner layer of skin.
That means less food waste and less time spent carefully shaving away the outer layer of vegetables.
Peelers can also make ribbons from carrots, cucumbers, zucchini, and other vegetables for salads or garnishes. A good one is cheap, compact, and useful enough to justify keeping in the utensil drawer.
Whisk
A fork can mix ingredients together, but a whisk does a much better job of incorporating air and breaking up lumps.
It’s useful for scrambled eggs, pancake batter, sauces, gravies, custards, whipped cream, vinaigrettes, and more. The thin wires reach into corners of bowls and help ingredients blend smoothly.
If you’ve ever tried making a smooth sauce with nothing but a spoon, you already know why a whisk is worth keeping around.
Sometimes the most useful kitchen tools are the least exciting ones. They don’t take up much room, and you may go weeks without thinking about them. Then a recipe calls for one, and suddenly you’re glad you didn’t toss it during your last cabinet cleanout.
