Sassy's Vegan Kitchen Essentials
Part 2

Let's continue with our chat about the most essential kitchen tools every new vegan needs.

As a Vegan since 1994, I know what works in a busy vegan kitchen.

These are the tools I use in my everyday life.

My focus is always on the best quality products for the lowest price, because that's what's important to me -- and our household budget. :)

Thanks for stopping by, and if you have any questions please feel free to ask it below or shoot me a note through my Contact Form.

Giant hugs!

Welcome to part 2 of healthy Kitchen Tools. If you missed part 1 it, you can find it here: Healthy Kichen Tools, part 1.

These tools are going to help you make healthier food as easily as possible: steamers, pressure cookers, blenders, grinders, and quality pots and pans.

Remember, these will completely change how you cook. I feel these are essential items every vegan kitchen should have.

Next, let's chat about more essential kitchen tools to consider, especially if you're stocking a vegan kitchen from scratch.

Use this guide to compare with what you already have, and then fill in the holes as desired.

Here's what we'll cover on this page:

The Glass Essentials

Glass is where it's at, for sure. Easy to clean, never stain, and I don't know if it's all in my head but I swear my food tastes better since we switched to glass.

Baking Dishes

These two Pyrex glass baking dishes (with lids!) are perfect for the vegan kitchen.

The loaf dish is great for no-meat loafs.

Mixing and Storage Bowls

I absolutely LOVE these glass Pyrex bowls.

They're perfect for mixing food as well as for storing leftovers, especially soup. They're a nice weight and the lids fit perfectly.

We also own a couple sets of these glass storage dishes. They are absolutely perfect sizes that we use allllll the time. These are critical to processing and storing all sorts of cooking ingredients.

This set is perfect. It includes two 7-cup bowls which make for the perfect size rice bowl for all sorts of grains and small legumes. You will find it to be an indispensable companion to your food steamer!

The Kitchen Tools

These are the tools I use most often in my daily cooking. Sure, I have a lot more than this, but again and again I turn to these nearly every day so I hereby claim these as vegan kitchen essentials.

A Good Chef's Knife

For everyday cooking, most people have a set of knives. Any knives will do, of course. I still have some good oldies I myself use.

But all bets are off when it comes to my chef's knife.

I looooove my Kyocera 7" ceramic chef's knife. It has an ergonomic handle making it a joy to do my slicing and dicing. And ceramic stays sharp far longer than regular stainless steel knives.

I have two of them, and when one starts to dull, I send it in to a service Kyocera recommends to get sharpened and break out the other one. You can also buy a ceramic knife sharpener

The Salad Spinner

Helpful for cleaning produce, especially leafy greens. We own this salad spinner from OXO. It's sturdy, very easy to use (just push down on the button a few times with the palm of your hand). Ours has lasted a long time.

The Small Coffee Grinder

Helpful for grinding seeds to a powder such as for use on your salads. (If you have a Vitamix with a dry container, it will do the job too.)

We recently switched to this Hamilton Beach and I LOVE it. Why? Because the little inside bowl comes out for easy cleaning! It's inexpensive and gets the job done quickly and easily.

Graters

While any grater will do, this particular OXO grater is great, no pun intended, because when you seperate the two sides, you can hold it flat for a good solid grip. It's Grate (pun intended) fore hard veggies like carrots and beets for salads. Use the side with the larger holes for this purpose.

Because it comes apart so you can use either side on its own (whether using the side with the larger holes or the medium holes), or you can keep them together for those times when you need to lean into your grating job. Overall, it's easier to clean than a regular ol' box-shaped grater.

The Strainers

These strainers made by U.S. Kitchen Supply are perfect for straining/rinsing very small foods such as quinoa and other grains. There are so many times when we need to separate out the cooking liquid.

I am always blown away by how many uses I come up with for these 4 strainer sizes.

And there are much more than that, of course! Here are a few other items we find useful:

A Microplane: I LURVE my microplane! I use it to zest lemons -- it's amazing how many times you'll want to add lemon zest because the flavor is so bright. I also use this to "finely grate" my vegan cheeses. When you use this tool with vegan cheese (such as Follow Your Heart on pizza), it helps the meltability immensely.
A Garlic Press: We've had a OXO Garlic Press for years. Clearly, I like OXO, eh? They make good quality products and are quite affordable. But this is their new model, but I have a pretty good idea that it works as well as ours! :-)
A Whisk: Ya gotta have a good whisk. And this one by KitchenAid is perfection.It's the perfect weight and size, rust-resistant, and dishwasher safe too.
Tongs: A few years ago I was browsing around our local kitchen store/cooking school and got in a convo with the owner. He said "Do you have one of these yet?" and held up a tong and said I'd use them all the time...and the rest is history! Try these Hotec Stainless Steel tongs that we recommend. I like these because you get two sizes and they can hang on a hook if you like.
Colander: They no longer make the colander we have, but in looking through various available models we stumbled upon this over this over-the-sink stainless steel colander by U.S. Kitchen Supply. I'm gonna get one for myself!
Measuring cups & spoons: This set of both measuring cups and spoons by TILUCK is all you'll need for measuring smaller portions. I like that they can be stacked away or hung.