9 Small Appliances for Healthy Cooking

Forget high-calorie fast food and take out. Roast a chicken, make vegetarian chili or more just as quickly with a multicooker. Perfect for prepping a week’s worth of healthy meals, multicookers are easy to use and take up little counterspace. Their lower heat settings help preserve the nutrients in meats, veggies, grains and more. In addition to greatly reducing your cooking time, multicookers save energy too.

Whip up a creamy soup or sauce without the added fat with an immersion blender. Great for preparing a light meal or snack for one, this handy kitchen tool fits right in a small saucepan or big cup. With an immersion blender, you can make your own tasty nut butters or a fresh salsa. Plus, it’s easy to clean and pop into a drawer when you’re done.

Snacks and a healthy lifestyle don’t usually go together. However, with a dehydrator, you can make 100 percent natural snacks like chips and sweets without adding fat, sugar or chemical preservatives. From protein-packed jerkies to dried fruits, you can make all kinds of delicious treats. Unlike with cooking, dehydrated foods also retain all their natural vitamins and nutrients. Plus, dehydrating foods lets you take advantage of sales and cut back on food waste.

Say goodbye to cheat meals and a diet high in oil and fat. Air fryers let you satisfy your craving for fried food without sacrificing your fitness goals. Air fryers cook food with blasts of hot air. Unlike a deep fryer, they can make everything from crispy fries and crunchy fried chicken with little to no oil. Air fryers also cook quicker than ovens or other appliances. With an air fryer, you can cook a complete meal of roasted vegetables and a steak in less than 30 minutes.

A healthy lifestyle often calls for preparing proportioned meals for one in advance. With a toaster/convection oven, reheating a single meal is quick and easy. A convection toaster oven lets you toast, bake and broil to perfection. Unlike a microwave, a toaster oven heats evenly. As part of a healthier lifestyle, it can be just as convenient and easy as takeout or delivery. It cooks quickly and can help you get a healthy, made-from-scratch meal on the table quicker than a traditional oven can.

Grilling makes everything from fresh salmon to turkey burgers taste better. An indoor grill lets you make delicious meals without heading outdoors. It lets you experiment with different marinades and eliminates the boredom of cooking the same healthy meals the same way. Quick and convenient, you get all the healthy benefits and flavor of grilled food without the unhealthy carbon and soot of an outdoor grill.

A rice cooker isn’t the first thing that may come to mind when thinking of healthy cooking. In spite of its name, a rice cooker can do more than cook rice. Most are great for steaming vegetables too. Some have settings that allow you to cook foods like soup, oatmeal and even homemade pizza. Of course, a rice cooker makes cooking nutrient-rich brown rice and other grains faster. This hardworking small appliance also makes it easier to switch out white rice for heart-healthier choices like quinoa and barley.

Affordable and convenient, a stand mixer is a kitchen essential. Known for creating decadent cakes and desserts, a stand mixer sometimes gets a bad reputation in the wellness world. However, it’s just as easy to make fiber-rich muffins, gluten-free cakes and all kinds of other healthier sweets. Stand mixers have attachments like bread hooks that allow you to make better breads using rice, almond and whole wheat flours. Plus, you can make sugar-free ice cream custards and oil-free salad dressings.

The health benefits of thirst-quenching, fresh-squeezed juices are legendary. Increasing your daily servings of fruits and veggies can help fight against issues like bad cholesterol, heart disease and high blood pressure. Different types of juicers vary in extraction style. For example, centrifugal juicers are good for hard foods like carrots and apples. Masticating juicers have a slower juicer technique that works well with leafy greens.