Five experts reveal the time-saving gear they rely on daily to prep wholesome, nutritious meals without the fuss.
No one wants a kitchen bench crammed with cobweb-accumulating appliances. But a targeted arsenal of essential equipment makes healthy cooking at home much less like a chore, according to nutritionists and dietitians.
We asked five experts for the go-to kitchen devices they use daily to simplify and speed the task of getting a nutritious meal on the table.
Pull chopper
One of Australia’s best-known dietitians and Good Food regular, Susie Burrell, notes that the time-consuming labour of chopping fresh ingredients often deters people from cooking healthy meals. To combat this, she argues that a chopping device is an essential kitchen addition.
“A friend gave me a $7.50 pull chopper from Kmart and I use it every day,” she says. This contraption, like a manual food processor, contains just three parts: a bowl, a chopping blade and a lid with a cord that, when pulled, chops whatever’s inside it.
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“It is fantastic for chopping garlic, onion, carrots – basically the base for so many recipes,” Burrell says. This budget-friendly tool is widely available in various sizes and brands, making it an easy addition to any kitchen.
Try this: Use this to chop the produce in Adam Liaw’s veg-heavy fifty-fifty bolognese.
Mandolin
Another Good Food regular, nutritionist and bestselling cookbook author Sarah Pound, favours another tool designed to cut vegetable prep time, a mandolin. “I think a lot of people are scared of mandolins because it is frighteningly easy to slice your finger,” she says.
Taking a safety-first approach, Pound recommends using the supplied guard or a $12 metal glove from a kitchen store. “Used properly, mandolins are game-changers. Nothing slices cabbage for a coleslaw or potatoes for a gratin as quickly and precisely.”
Try this: Chef Neil Perry’s take on Italian coleslaw is a quick win with a mandolin. Slice half a green cabbage, toss with salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil and red wine vinegar at a ratio of three parts oil to one part vinegar, then fold through freshly shaved parmesan.
Air fryer
The entire point of this wildly popular machine is to sizzle up meals with less oil than standard cooking methods: up to 90 per cent less oil, in the case of deep-fried food. This makes air frying one of the healthiest cooking methods available, says Pound.
“I absolutely love my air fryer. Somehow things taste better in them, the flavour is intensified, I think because of the caramelisation they achieve,” Pound says.
Her go-to dish to cook in the air fryer – which works by rapidly circulating hot air in a small chamber – is a roast chicken that she stuffs with garlic, lemon and rosemary. “There are no hard-to-clean roasting trays, the skin is crispy and delicious. You can use it for so many things, like frittatas and even curries”
Leanne Ward, a nutritionist known on social media as The Fitness Dietitian, adds that she recommends an air fryer with a glass basket/bowl to avoid any microplastic exposure.
Try this: Pound loves making chips in her air fryer because they are healthier than deep-fried and supermarket-bought frozen oven fries. “Cut your potatoes into long wedges, par-boil them until just tender, toss them in a bowl with a bit of oil, salt and pepper and cook them in the air fryer for about 20 minutes until they are crunchy on the outside, creamy in the middle.”
Glass olive oil sprayer
Extra virgin olive oil is one of the healthiest fats to cook with due to its high concentration of antioxidants, Leanne Ward says. “So, I always recommend cooking with pure olive oil. But some of my clients want to restrict the amount they consume for weight-loss reasons, so I recommend decanting a bottle of olive oil into an oil sprayer.
“These are so easy to find online. Just make sure you buy one that is glass to avoid microplastics and preferably dark in colour to help the oil stay fresh,” Ward says. Spray it over anything you are roasting – you use less oil and the spray helps with even distribution, she says.
Try this: Spritz proteins and vegetables, such as Adam Liaw’s roasted broccoli with chilli, garlic and parmesan, with oil, then roast in a pan lined with baking paper to prevent sticking.
Slow cooker
Once dubiously known as “crock-pots” in the 1970s, slow cookers are now indispensable for busy parents, says dietitian Lyndi Cohen (The Nude Nutritionist). They offer a seamless path to a balanced diet, acting as a one-pot vehicle for lean proteins, fresh vegetables, and fibre-rich legumes.
“Most Australians eat less than the 25 to 30 grams of fibre recommended each day. This appliance makes it foolproof: you fill it up in the morning with a cheap cut of protein, chopped vegies and fibre-rich legumes such as chickpeas or lentils, then you walk away, leaving it to quietly cook all day.”
Try this: Cohen makes a classic chilli con carne, featuring a can of fibre-boosting red kidney beans, mince and chopped veg, cooked low and slow.
Thermomix
Amelia Harray, a dietitian and research fellow at the University of Western Australia, says her best friend in the kitchen is a Thermomix. This expensive piece of kit is used by chefs, as well as many ardent home cooks. Basically, a mini kitchen robot, it combines about 20 appliances – such as a blender, food processor, scale, steamer, and slow cooker –into one machine.
It’s well known for its ease of making soups, risotto and pasta sauces, but Harray loves hers for quite hardcore health-specific reasons. “I love my Thermomix (her name is Tess) because she helps me make things from scratch using whole foods, such as blitzing whole wheat grains to flour, almonds to almond flour, home-made peanut butter (crunchy or smooth), and jams from frozen berries.”
Try this: Harray makes batches of jam using seasonal fruit, such as plums or strawberries. “I use way less added sugar than many store-bought options, and it’s free of additives and preservatives,” she says. Making jam this way can shorten the shelf life, “but it isn’t an issue in my house as my kids love it”.
Pastry scraper
Despite the name, we aren’t using this under-$25 tool for scraping or dividing pastry dough. Instead, Cohen uses the flat, rectangular blade to sweep meat, vegetables and herbs prepped on her $18 Kmart bamboo board into the pot. “I saw American author Alison Roman using one; it looked so practical, I bought it immediately and haven’t looked back.”
