13 must-have kitchen supplies for plant-based cooking in small spaces
Artwork by Betsy Freeman. All rights reserved.
No need to deck out a kitchen with lots of cooking gear to make delicious and easy plant-based dinners. Listen, I cooked, wrote, then illustrated an entire plant-based cookbook from a kitchen that fits inside an 8-person van.
I discovered that minimalist equipment makes cooking delicious food easier. I simply pull out a tool or two, cook up dinner, and then wash that tool or two.
Let’s be done with piles of dishes, decision fatigue, over-stuffed drawers, and ultimately, more trash. Agreed?
Here are the must-have kitchen supplies for plant-based cooking:
Extra-large soup pot
Cast iron skillet
Extra-large sheet pan
Good chopping knife
Spoon
Fork
Little known fact, an extra-large soup pot can work just fine as a skillet with high walls and even a mixing bowl. So that’s the essential list for all the van-life folks.
The deluxe must-have kitchen supply list
For non-van lifers, there’s a sweet spot between extra supplies easing cooking, versus extra supplies complicating cooking. The sweet spot is as follows:
Extra-large soup pot: Go big or go home. Soup overflow is the worst.
Extra-large sheet pan: Get the full sheet pan with the raised edges so stuff doesn’t fly off the sides. The mini-sheet pans, though adorable, are just more dishes and a hassle.
Cast iron skillet: Cast iron is cool because it’s oven-safe for baked dishes and keeping things warm. If non-stick is preferred, watch out for Teflon because mom blogs everywhere swear that Teflon will kill you. So maybe avoid it, just to be sure.
Blender: Buy one and be done. I did not enjoy pulverizing my budget, but I do enjoy ever-so-silky sauces, dips, and smoothies.
Sauté pan: Though certainly replaceable with the extra-large soup pot, if there is another pan, let it be this pan. This is the pan when it comes to sauteéing large amounts of food in one piece of equipment minus extra mess and dishes.
Mixing bowl: Go for a big one that speaks to you.
Soup spoon: Wood splintery stuff gives me shivers, so I chose metal. In other words, it’s a personal preference thing.
Spatula: Anything flat and wide that can take on high heat, flip an egg, and scoot around some vegetables.
Chefs knife: Again, get a good one, and then cherish it forever. I’ve been in the ambulance with a friend who nearly chopped off her thumb with a cheap one, and I’m scarred for life. Was that sufficiently fear-mongering? My favorite knife is the Wustof chef’s knife, and I use it for everything.
Measure cups and spoons: A 1-cup, tablespoon, and teaspoon measurers should be just fine. Flex those 1st-grade math skills to double, half, etc. per recipe requirements. Tell no one, I eyeball most stuff these days. I know what it’s like to develop a recipe– measurements are a directional stab at truth.
A can opener: I don’t believe there’s another way to effectively open a can.
Vegetable peeler: I use this trick to awe my friends: ribboning vegetables. I also use it to rescue innocent fruits and vegetables from brown spots and other life-threatening blemishes. Much to the original horror of my boyfriend now husband, I rarely peel the skin off of anything. I do not understand the logic of peeling away the nutrients and fiber not to mention peeling time off my life. I only peel vegetables when I’m entertaining guests like the queen of England or my in-laws.
In regards to other kitchen gadgets, they are fantastic ways to collect dust samples. Don’t waste your time, unless you are, of course, collecting dust samples.
Immersion blender: The exception to my anti-kitchen-gadget diatribe. I’ll admit this little blender stick is a gift from modern times. Without dirtying up more dishes or moving around hot steamy soup liquid, you can peacefully pulverize any stewy soup into the type of cream in dreams. Putting a hot soup into a blender feels like an incredibly daunting task, so I’ve never done it.