Kitchen Tools to NOT Buy for Your Kitchen

Most of the time, we like the "buy once, cry once" philosophy and tell people to buy the best quality kitchen products they can afford. But this isn't always the case. Sometimes people spend money they don't have to. You don't need high-end products for everything, and some products you may not need at all. Here we give you some options on how you can save money without sacrificing quality and performance.

An Expensive Bread Knife

When somebody purchased an expensive bread knife from our site, we got the idea for this article. We want to help people learn that there are certain products that they don't need to spend a lot on to get years of use. 

Bread knives are firmly in this category. Now, if you have the money to buy an expensive bread knife, there's nothing wrong with doing so. And maybe a bread knife came with an expensive set you bought, and that's fine, too. But you don't need an expensive bread knife, and you probably won't notice much difference between an expensive one and a cheap one.

Serrated knives keep their edges for a long time, and you can get good performance from a $40 bread knife as good as that of a $200 bread knife. You don't really need hard steel or steel that's been treated and tempered to hold it's edge, which always adds to the price. You also don't need heft, or a heavy handle, or even particularly good balance in a bread knife. You just need something that's going to cut smoothly through soft breads without crushing them, which most serrated blades do well regardless of what you pay for them.

It's fine if you want a Damascus steel blade or a fancy handle--but it's not necessary. So if you want to save some money, a bread knife is a great place to do so.

Our recommendations:

Mercer Culinary M23890 Millennia Offset 9-Inch Bread Knife

About $29

This, along with other Mercer Millennia bread knives, is one of our favorites. With a plastic handle and a stamped blade, it's far from fancy, but the steel is decent quality, and the knife holds up well and is even a favorite of many professional chefs. 

There are other options, including Victorinox (about $40), Henckels (forged blade, also about $40, but at 8-inches, shorter than most bread knives), and Tojiro (about $55, with a wooden handle; a favorite among home cooks, but a little long with a 14-inch blade--be sure you have the storage space).

When you choose a bread knife, here are some features to consider:

We'd love to tell you that you need a high-end bread knife because we'd make more money if we did. But you don't.

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Nonstick Anything, Especially Expensive Nonstick

We've reviewed nonstick cookware on our site, and we actually like some of it. But the more we learn about it, the less we like it, for a number of reasons. 

First of all, nonstick cookware isn't great to cook with. You have to use low heat to preserve the nonstick properties, and that, combined with the slipperiness of the cooking surface, means that it's hard to get good browning on your food--and browning is where flavor happens. 

You have to be extremely careful to not overheat PTFE pans because they can emit toxic fumes at about 500F. This probably sounds like a very high temperature, but in our testing, it took less than five minutes for an empty nonstick pan to reach 505F on a medium gas flame. So even though PTFE is "safe when used correctly," it can be tricky to use it correctly! And you must make sure that everyone in your household who uses it knows this.

And as everyone probably knows by now, nonstick cookware has serious health and environmental issues associated with it. PTFE cookware, despite claims of being "safe" and "PFOA free," still contains PFAs, the dreaded "forever chemicals" that persist in water and soil for generations and are associated with several serious health issues, including cancers. Even if you never overheat a pan, buying PTFE cookware supports an industry that has polluted the world's water supplies with dangerous toxins (and continues to do so). 

Also, because nonstick cookware has such a short life span, it's a landfill issue, too. 

Ceramic nonstick cookware is marketed as the safe choice, but we don't know enough about it to know if that's true (just as we didn't know for decades that PTFE cookware had serious health and environmental issues). The nonstick properties are also short-lived--usually even shorter than PTFE pans--and these pans require low heat to remain nonstick (no higher than medium), so it's really no better to cook with than PTFE pans. In fact, if a nonstick surface is the most important thing for you, you're better off with PTFE, because ceramic nonstick isn't really nonstick: at best, it's semi-nonstick, and most (probably all, actually, but we haven't checked so we can't say for sure) manufacturers recommend using cooking oil for "best results." Well, if you need to use cooking oil, then why buy pans that claim to be nonstick?

Here's the truth: you don't need nonstick cookware for anything, and there's no reason to buy it. Once you learn how to cook on clad stainless steel and seasoned cast iron, you won't miss your nonstick pans. Not even for eggs. 

But if you're going to buy nonstick despite our advice, at least listen to this: don't get a whole set: a skillet is really the only place nonstick makes a difference (though not enough of one that we recommend it), and it's much cheaper to replace one pan every few years than it is to replace an entire set.

It's logical to think that paying more for expensive brands of nonstick cookware (such as ScanPan, Swiss Diamond, and Caraway) will buy you safety, longer life, and better cooking results, but this isn't the case. Expensive nonstick pans (including hybrid brands like Hexclad) usually have a better build quality, so they're thicker, with better heat distribution, but the nonstick qualities are about the same no matter how much you spend. 

All nonstick, no matter how much you pay for it, lasts an average of 1-5 years. Expensive brands may last closer to five years than one year, but compared to cast iron and stainless steel, which last for decades, this is pretty pathetic. (And again, a landfill issue.)

Some people want one nonstick pan just for eggs. If you must have one, then we recommend Anolon Nouvelle Copper, which is impressively high quality for a middle-of-the-road price (about $60 for an 8-inch/10-inch set). But the best option is to learn to cook on safer, more environmentally friendly cookware like cast iron or clad stainless steel.

Ceramic nonstick doesn't last very long and may have health issues we don't yet know about (just like PTFE was considered perfectly safe for about 50 years), but Green Pan is decent quality without being too expensive (or too trendy). The Green Pan Lima line is affordable, has stainless steel handles, and is thick enough to heat evenly. It's currently about $35 for the 10-inch skillet (but prices are subject to change).

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Electric Knife Sharpeners

This is another product that we've given a fairly decent review, but if you have expensive knives or just want your knives to last as long as possible, then you shouldn't use an electric sharpener.

On the other hand, they're not the worst thing in the world, and they may be the best choice for some cooks, especially cooks who don't want to invest a lot of time in keeping their knives sharp (and sharp knives are essential!)

Here are some pros and cons about electric knife sharpeners to consider: 

Pros

Cons

If you don't have expensive knives, and all you want is a fast way to get a knife acceptably sharp (not razor sharp), then an electric sharpener might work for you. We like the Chef's Choice Trizor XV. At about $140 (prices vary by model, though they all do basically the same thing), they're not cheap, but they have a powerful motor that should last for several years. The "XV" stands for 15 (in Roman numerals), and refers to the cutting angle, so the Trizor XV will put a 15 degree cutting angle on every knife you sharpen with it. This isn't an issue with cheap knives, or knives that are made with this angle, but some expensive blades--especially Japanese blades--have a much thinner cutting angle, and you really don't want to mess with this.

When using an electric sharpener, don't press too hard, or it will put a huge amount of wear on your blades. 

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"Waterless" Cookware

We think waterless cookware is one of the biggest scams in the kitchen product industry. Yes, we know there are many people who disagree with us on this, and we're the first to admit that most waterless brands are high quality and will last a lifetime. It's just that there are equally high quality brands that will also last a lifetime that cost a lot less--and can be used exactly the same way as waterless brands that costs hundreds or even thousands more.

For more information, or if you're not sure what waterless cookware is, see our detailed article about waterless cookware, or our review of Saladmaster, which is one of the most popular brands of waterless cookware.

There are some affordable brands. We like 360 cookware (see our 360 review), which is marketed as a waterless brand yet has all the features of good quality clad stainless steel. But for the most part, any decent quality brand of clad stainless steel cookware does the job just as well. Check out our Cookware page to see our many reviews of clad stainless brands.

All-Clad, Heritage Steel, Tramontina Tri-Ply Clad, and Misen are all excellent choices without the waterless gimmick. And they do everything that waterless cookware can do.

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Expensive Cast Iron (Bare)

Cast iron cookware has become hugely popular in recent years. Several small, American-made boutique brands have come on the market to challenge older, more established brands like Lodge (also made in the US). Now, some of this high-end cast iron is beautiful, and it will perform beautifully, too. But the thing is, cast iron is pretty much cast iron, no matter how much you pay for it, so there's no really good reason to spend a few hundred on a cast iron pan when you can buy a Lodge pan for a fraction of the price.

Like all products, if you want it and you can afford it, then by all means get the pan you want. But expensive cast iron doesn't do anything that cheap cast iron can do. Yes, it's prettier, and yes, the cooking surface is usually smoother out of the box than a cheaper brand like Lodge. And most of these boutique brands are made the old school way, with better craftsmanship than a Lodge pan. But none of this results in a better pan; not really. They still need to be seasoned, and they still rust if you don't dry them thoroughly after use. And all cast iron is brittle, meaning it can crack if dropped or heated too quickly (especially when new).

The question to ask yourself is this: "Is a smoother out-of-the-box cooking surface worth the much higher price?" And if it is, then go ahead and buy a fancy brand. But if you have patience, your Lodge, or even a cheaper Chinese import, will develop that smooth surface with time, and there's no reason to spend more than about $30 on a Lodge skillet (or less if you go with a Chinese brand).

See our article on cast iron skillets for more information.

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Expensive Carbon Steel

The same thing happening in the cast iron skillet market is happening in the carbon steel market, too: there are some gorgeous high-end pans made by boutique brands that cost hundreds of dollars. Or, you can buy a standard brand for a fraction of the price. There are inexpensive brands made in the US like Vollrath and Lodge, but our favorite carbon steel pan is the French brand Matfer-Bourgeat. It's affordable, high quality, and the handles are welded on so there are no rivets on the cooking surface. 

The Matfer-Bourgeat 10" skillet is about $75 and not nearly as beautiful as some of the boutique brands, but just like the cheaper cast iron, it will perform just as well and last just as long as fancier, more expensive brands.

If you don't like the French design of the Matfer-Bourgeat and would prefer a more American type skillet, the Misen carbon steel pan is a good option, but the 10" size goes for about $100, which is quite a bit more than the M-B pan in a larger size. Unfortunately, the Misen pan has a silicone handle, and these don't last long if used on a gas burner or in the oven.

For more about carbon steel skillets, see our article The Best Carbon Steel Pans.

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Any Pan with a Gimmick