20 Kitchen Items Ina Garten Can’t Live Without

One of the most unsurprising Ina Garten kitchen items is her white five-quart KitchenAid perched on the counter of many a video. You have to imagine the cookbook queen has tried a lot of mixers over the years, so it’s telling that she’s been a KitchenAid fan since at least 1999. (You can see it peeking in the background of this photo.) This particular model boasts ten speeds (from a very fast whip to a very slow stir) and more than 15 attachment options to whip up just about anything you can imagine. It also has the stamp of approval from PureWow Vice President of Editorial Candace Davison, who’s used the brand for over a decade. “The Artisan executed on every test flawlessly (Buttercream! Rye bagels! Cookies! Cupcakes!), without overheating, bucking or shaking,” she writes. “The fact that the Artisan runs as efficiently today as it did more than a decade ago underscores its value in my mind.”

Taking a cue from Julia Child, this is the only Dutch oven Garten trusts to house her soups and stews. “Not only is it great for cooking, but it’s beautiful enough to go directly from the oven to the table,” she told House Beautiful. The durable enameled nine-quart cast iron is resistant to chips and cracks, so you can rest easy knowing this guy will be around for the long haul. PureWow’s former Senior Food Editor Katherine Gillen gave it a score of 96/100 on the PureWow100 scale, noting, “This Dutch oven is as functional as it is beautiful. The Le Creuset made for superior browning and caramelization—no hot spots and excellent heat retention.”

Garten has been quoted multiple times stressing the importance of a good, sharp set of knives. Gillen, a self-professed Ina Garten expert, confirmed that Wüsthof is the chambray-loving chef’s favorite brand. This high-quality set contains the most common kitchen knives, as well as some specialty options for more advanced home cooks.

If you’ve ever watched Garten season a dish, you’re probably familiar with her love for the PepperMate. “It’s the best,” she raved in an Instagram video. The unique refillable design makes it easy to grind as much pepper and salt as you want—without making a mess or having your hand cramp up. The ceramic mill can hold 1.7 ounces of pepper or 4.8 ounces of salt crystals. It also gives the option of a coarse or fine grind by twisting right or left, respectively.

When it comes to tried-and-true Ina Garten kitchen items, scroll through the Barefoot Contessa’s Instagram and it’s highly likely you’ll see her Cuisinart food processor peeking in the background. Garten uses it to make her legendary pie doughs, dips and sauces. After testing it out myself, I found it easy to use and intuitive once you get the hang of it, and makes food prep quick and seamless. At $250, it’s got a mid-range price point, but if you’re serious in any way about cooking, I think it’s good value for the money. My $25 blender/food processor has nothing on the power of Cuisinart’s. A stainless-steel chopping blade, grating disk, slicer, 720-watt motor and 14-cup capacity make this heavy-duty model the best of the best.

According to Gillen, “Ina loves brightening up dishes with citrus, and this gives a fine zest.” I also love the Microplane. It’s so easy to use and it’s not bulky, unlike a typical box grater. I also love that you can pop it in the dishwasher. If I don’t have a Microplane laying around, the chance that I zest something goes to zero percent. Perhaps even more impressive than Garten’s (and our) endorsement? This zester has racked up almost 2,000 five-star reviews on Amazon. “This is probably the last zester I’ll ever need to buy. It’s well made from surgical stainless steel, dishwasher safe and completely functional,” one cooking enthusiast writes.

While Garten doesn’t specify the brand, her website includes a 2.25-inch cookie scoop in her essential equipment list. And Davison, a recipe developer, concurs that it is indeed an indispensable tool. “I always felt like cookie scoops were too fussy (just eyeball it!), but ugh, Ina was right. A 2.25-inch scoop is perfect for getting uniform scoops of cookie dough and muffin and cupcake batter, speeding up prep time and yielding more consistent results. Plus, I can pop mine in the dishwasher, so cleanup is a breeze.”

Garten likes to keep her Wüsthof knives sharp and uses the Chef’s Choice 1520 knife sharpener to keep them pristine. The machine features a 100 percent diamond abrasives in a three-stage sharpener for serrated, straight and double-bevel knives, with the ability to accommodate both European- and Asian-style knives.

OXO’s Good Grips food scale was spotted in a video Garten did for The New York Times, where she gave a tour of her East Hampton kitchen. With a nearly five-star average and over 7,300 reviews on Amazon, it appears that many concur. The scale has an 11-pound capacity and digital screen that will show ounces, pounds, grams and kilograms. As someone who was an avid baker (and still enjoys being in the kitchen, albeit less frequently), I can’t extol the virtues of a kitchen scale enough. I’ve pretty much done away with measuring spoons—cooking and baking by weight is so much more consistent and reliable, so you never have any surprises. A pound of flour is always a pound of flour, but a cup can vary, yielding wildly different results.

“What I like is that something ends up with texture, so it’s not just like baby food,” she tells The Times. Using a food mill will allow you to keep a food’s texture without completely smashing it to smithereens. (Though Garten says she wouldn’t use it on her mashed potatoes, as she prefers a purée.) She links to the Moulinex Food Mill on her website, which is sadly discontinued, but OXO makes a popular one, equipped with a sturdy base, three discs (to control coarseness) and ergonomic handles.

“I love to line sheet pans with parchment paper so that all you have to do is throw the paper out and you’ve got a nice clean pan,” she says in the same Times video. “You have to throw it in the dishwasher, but it’s not crusty.” I love parchment paper for all the reasons Garten lists, and I think it also helps with the cooking. Aluminum can deflect and slow the cooking process (which is why you might tent your turkey to prevent excess browning), but parchment won’t. It’s available as pre-cut sheets and in rolls, and I opt for recycled and unbleached products when possible.

“This is the other clean-up thing I adore, the Wrap and Snap,” Garten shares. Instead of fighting with that box, all you do is just pull this out, cut it off, and you have a really simple piece of plastic wrap. I use it all the time.” It’s easy to refill and has a dual cutting system with a serrated blade and TiteCut slide cutter.

Garten says she picks up antique silver spoons, and links to vintage English kitchen spoons on her website. Not feeling like dropping $95 on two spoons, but still want to add some beauty to your countertop? I’m obsessed with these Pottery Barn ice cream spoons, which come in a set of 12 for $60.

“They’re really important. I have lots of them. If you take care of them, they last forever,” the Barefoot Contessa raves. While Garten doesn’t specify the brand, in college, I worked at a cooking store where Boos Block was the dominant and popular choice. The boards are hefty and made from hard rock maple, meant to live out on the countertop. To clean, wash with warm soapy water and dry thoroughly. You’ll need to oil it occasionally so as to prevent it from drying out.

Anyone who’s kitchen-savvy knows that an oven thermometer is an essential, and Garten has one sitting on her range for easy access. Ovens are known to be finicky, with hot and cold spots—and sometimes downright inaccurate temperature checks. (My oven is perpetually 15 degrees off.) Having a thermometer will help you gauge your oven…and potentially nail down the reason why your pound cake is still jiggly after an hour and a half. Garten links to this simple analog Taylor thermometer, which comes in at less than $10. 

I couldn’t help but notice the bevy of cake stands behind Garten as she lectured on the importance of knives. Whether you’re plating an actual cake or setting out vegetables, a wheel or brie or cupcakes, pulling out a stand is a sure way to gussy up tablescape. I’ve been coveting these Mosser cake stands for ages, and maybe this is my cue to splurge. They’re handmade by a family-owned business with beautiful colors like jadeite (obsessed), Chelsea blue and milky pink. I’m sure the Barefoot Contessa would approve.

Recreate the same voluminous swirls of icing that Garten adds to her carrot cake with pastry tips. To achieve the same generously fluffy look, you’ll want to choose the icing tip accordingly. After frosting dozens on dozens of cupcakes in high school and spending hours scouring the internet for the perfect swirl, I recommend Ateco’s #849 closed-star pastry tip.

If you make as much cake as Garten does, then you want a cooling rack handy at all times. Cooling racks are inexpensive but indispensable for cooling cakes, cookies and other baked goods, because you don’t want the crust to turn soggy by dumping it out onto a plate to cool down. Or worse, cooling in the pan—it’ll get stuck. Been there, done that. 

This wouldn’t be a true Ina roundup if I didn’t include at least a couple food recommendations, would it?  The first thing that caught my eye in her shop was the salt. I’ve purchased this brand straight from the source in Provence (Camargue is a region on the coast known for its beautiful wildlife) and can confirm it’s excellent salt. Put it on your tongue and you’ll see—Ms. Morton can’t hold a candle.

Also in Garten’s shop is Nielsen Massey’s Bourbon vanilla extract. Good vanilla is paramount when baking, and Nielsen Massey makes a good one. Founded in 1907, the brand is a favorite in the culinary world, and, according to PureWow editors, worth the splurge.