When it comes to your approach to filling up your quota of required kitchen essentials, there’s a certain order to follow. By getting into the first item(s) it’ll immediately become apparent as to why there’s a certain order to follow, but what this effectively means is that you can indeed take your time. You don’t need to try and buy everything at once to fill up your brand new kitchen.

A set of good knives

If you’re decorating your own kitchen, or if filling it up with kitchen essentials is something which is taking up some real estate in your mind, you will have definitely noticed how good those varnished wooden knife blocks look in someone else’s kitchen. That would be a great ornamental item to have if it was given to you as a gift, otherwise all you really need in a set of knives are three of them. You need a serrated knife which is also known as a bread-knife, a pairing knife and a long chef’s knife.

So the reason why knives are perhaps the first item you need as part of your growing collection of kitchen essentials is because if you think about food prep and you could only choose one item it would indeed be your set of knives, wouldn’t it? You can prepare just about any food using knifes, even though the fact that other kitchen essential and utensils exist suggests that there are better ways to prepare your food. But if you really had to, you could make do with just your set of knives.

Chopping boards

You don’t want to slice your fingers open as a possible hazard of not wanting to use your kitchen table top to do your food cutting, do you? So, a pair of cutting boards is essential, one which is to be used for raw foods like meat, fresh produce, etc, while the other will be used for cooked food including bread.

Cookware – pots and pans

Many might justifiably argue that these should be at the very top of the list, but then again there are other means through which to prepare your food, like using your microwave oven for instance or baking and grilling in the stove oven. But yeah – go non-stick with your pots and pans, taking care to go for the type of quality that comes with stainless steel. If you’re going to get into some real home cooking then you definitely need your cookware.

Utensils

In addition to those basic utensils you’ll use for eating (forks, spoons, table knives, etc), you’ll need some of those utensils used for preparing your food, such as a vegetable peeler, spatulas, a whisk, tongs, wooden spoons, a ladle, and you can perhaps also add in a meat mallet, rolling pin and I suppose a colander can be classed to be a utensil, by some stretch of the imagination.

Measuring cups and spoons

Measuring cups and spoons usually come in full sets, so there’s no need to stress about the possibly complex task of trying to make sure you have every measurement amount covered. You can only get away with measuring in “pinches” for so long. After a certain amount of time you’ll need to get them right with the measuring cups and spoons if you’re going to be doing any serious home cooking.

Food storage containers

You won’t just be storing your leftovers or food that is to be consumed a little later with your set of storage containers, which are likely to be made of plastic. You can store your unused ingredients too instead of having them go to waste.

Bakeware

At some or other point in your cooking career, even if it shall always remain an amateur, home-cooking career, you will want to bake some goodies in the oven. Stoves these days that have ovens usually come with a nice selection of integrated bakeware, but it will never compare to what you can buy separately and for specific baking tasks.

Crockery

Unless you need to cut into something like a steak, some of the pieces from your storage containers can be used as make-shift plates until you actually get some crockery, but in reality you’re likely to buy your plates as one of the first items when building up your collection of kitchen essentials.