Dec 29, 2025

5 Kitchen Gadgets to Gift Yourself with your Holiday Green

Turn your holiday gift cards into a healthy New Year!  Dietitian Nutritionist, Nicole Moretta, shares 5 helpful gadgets worth buying for your kitchen.

A food processor:

A food processor is a versatile electric kitchen appliance that automates repetitive food prep tasks like chopping, slicing, shredding, grating, puréeing, and mixing ingredients quickly and efficiently, saving time and effort compared to manual prep.  Use different blades and discs for various textures, making it great for everything from doughs and sauces to coleslaw and pie crusts. 

• Prep ingredients quickly
• Make your own dips and dressings
• Make your own nut butter 
• LEARN MORE from Consumer Reports

Immersion blender:

An immersion blender is a handheld kitchen tool with a motor and rotating blades at the end of a shaft, designed to blend, purée, or emulsify foods directly in the pot, bowl, or container they're in.  Use it to make smooth soups, sauces, smoothies, and dressings without transferring liquids.

• Make a creamy soup in the same pot as cooking (easier cleanup)
• Baby food
• Dressings and some dips
• Smoothies
• LEARN MORE from Consumer Reports

Upgrade from your Plastic Kitchen Utensils

Plastics and leach harmful chemicals (like BPA, PFAS, or PFOA) into our foods, which makes upgrading to utensils made from materials like stainless steel, wood/bamboo, food-grade silicone, ceramic, and glass a healthier option.  Look for options like platinum-cured silicone for flexibility, hardwoods (like beech or maple) for general use, and durable stainless steel for versatility, ensuring they are free from lacquers or varnishes. 

Slow cooker with high/low setting and a timer

A slow cooker, also known by the brand name "crock-pot" , is a countertop electric appliance that cooks food at a low, consistent temperature over many hours, making tough meats tender and allowing for "set it and forget it" convenience for dishes like soups, stews, and roasts by trapping steam and moisture.

• Cook soups, stews, casseroles and vegetables with little prep time
• One of my favorite meals is crock pot stuffed peppers
• LEARN MORE from Consumer Reports

Knife sharpener

A knife sharpener is a tool designed to restore the sharp edge of kitchen knife blades by removing small amounts of metal, ensuring safe and efficient cutting.

• Watch a video on how to use that particular sharpener. Believe it or not, you’re more likely to cut yourself with a dull knife because if forces you to use improper form and uneven pressure causing the knife to slip.
• LEARN MORE from Consumer Reports