The Best Cooking Utensils of 2024

A slotted spatula, or fish spatula, might seem like an odd choice if you don’t spend much time making fish—but they also make great overall spatulas. They’re best for delicate tasks like cooking eggs and tofu and fish, but can also be great for pancakes and cookies and other tasks you’d typically do with a flat spatula. And of the offset slotted spatulas we've seen, the Wusthof reigned supreme.

Like its fellows, this delicate turner features a slight curve to the head and an angled end. Unlike a few of them, the Wusthof also has an extra angle right at the tip to more easily slide under delicate tofu skin and lightly set eggs. This made it especially wonderful for handling over-easy eggs and other delicate foods. The best part? It also worked great on burgers, pancakes, and cookies.

To top it off, the handle is sleek but with enough heft to really grab onto and maneuver. And thanks to its wood-free construction, it can easily be cleaned by tossing it into a dishwasher.

A flat cooking spatula is a kitchen staple—ideal for removing cookies from a baking tray, flipping pancakes and eggs, and any other cooking task that requires slipping under food to move it around. And the Cutco Turn n’ Serve flat cooking spatula takes the cake. (No seriously, we used it to move a cake and it worked great.)

It’s more expensive than we would typically recommend for a spatula, but this is a “you get what you pay for” situation. This high-quality spatula is pricey, but comes with a lifetime guarantee and will never send you back to your utensil drawer looking for a better kitchen tool.

The Cutco Turn n’ Serve always performs incredibly well. The flat head is thin enough to easily slide under delicate eggs and tofu, but sturdy enough to flip burgers and lift a cake from a cake turner onto a serving plate. It’s a good size as well, hitting the sweet spot between being narrow enough to fit into your brownie pan and lift out a piece, and wide enough to be useful for flipping pancakes and removing cookies from your baking tray.

The only downside we found with this spatula is that it’s metal. And while this allows it to be as thin as a delicate fish spatula, it cannot be used on a nonstick or enameled cast iron pan. So if you only use nonstick cookware, you will have to opt for a silicone tool.

Material’s Soft-Edge Turner is smooth as butter thanks to its BPA-free silicone. It's a great option for flipping eggs so you won't have to worry about breaking a yolk, and the spatula’s non-stick surface lets food easily slide off while keeping its form. The shape of this spatula is also great for flipping tofu and pancakes, thanks to the beveled edge. Extremely comfortable to hold because of the even weight distribution—this spatula is a sturdy product, without being overly heavy or bulky, due to the reinforced nylon core.

Because it’s a piece of nonstick cookware, cleanup is a breeze, whether you hand wash this spatula or place it in the dishwasher, and even light colors aren't prone to staining when matched with tomato-based sauces.

While this product is a top pick, we think the head could stand to be slightly larger. That said, it’s a great size for eggs, pancakes, smaller cuts of various proteins, veggies, and most things you’d cook on the stovetop or roast on a sheet pan.

Read our full review on the Material Soft-Edge Turner. See more of the best spatulas.

This balloon whisk is an all-around winner with a satisfying silicone grip and a featherweight lightness. The fine wire balloon is easy to clean and it breezes through recipes with flying colors.

Its shape and size make this GIR whisk incredibly versatile—plus, it made some of the quickest whipped cream I’ve ever mustered. It’s priced on the higher end for a whisk, but the quality certainly justifies the price.

See more of the best whisks we've reviewed.

The Cuisipro Stainless Steel Measuring Spoon Set is inexpensive while still reigning supreme over other measuring spoon sets. These unbendable stainless-steel spoons have a sleek, tapered look with etched-on measurements that won’t fade in the dishwasher over time. The handles are tapered so each spoon stands flat on the countertop, which is a nice (and, sadly, uncommon) feature.

The elongated, oval-sized spoons fit in most common spice jars and are held together by an easy-to-remove band for storage purposes. They come in all the common sizes (1 tablespoon, 1 teaspoon, 1/2 teaspoon, and 1/4 teaspoon) but also include the super-precise 1/8 teaspoon measurement.

See more of the best measuring cups and spoons.

Whether you’re a pro or a beginner in the kitchen, the Kuhn Rikon Original Swiss Peeler is the perfect peeler for you. And, you actually get three: This peeler set includes a green, red, and yellow peeler! It's a great tool for peeling fruits or vegetables.

The peeler is bright and attractive with a simple, super lightweight design. Its low profile easily fits in any knife roll or gadget drawer, and when it comes to performance the Kuhn Rikon peeler with ace any test you throw at it. Its carbon steel blades are sharp and effortless to use. It moved through potatoes and lemon peels quickly and barely catches up on celeriac's awkwardly bumpy surface. Of all the peelers, this is the fastest and most comfortable you can use, earning it our top spot for vegetable peelers.

See more of the best vegetable peelers.

It doesn't surprise us that the Microplane 4-Sided Stainless Steel Multi-Purpose Box Grater performs like a champ. Unlike traditional stamped-style models, the blades for this grater are etched into the metal using a chemical process that creates super-sharp edges. That allows this grater to perform above average on all four sides. The fine holes result in beautifully zested lemons and piles of airy, fluffy Parmesan, whereas the coarse holes offer long strands of mozzarella and potato shreds that made the best latkes in the group.

It isn't just about performance, either. The small features that make this model go above and beyond are unmatched. The fine blade panel is removable for ease of cleaning, and the wide design makes the rest of this dishwasher-safe grater simple to clean, too. The feet stay out of the way of shreds, allowing the contents to happily pile up underneath the grater without clogging up the mechanisms. As an added bonus, all the blades are made in the U.S.A.

See more of the best graters.

As soon as we held the OXO Good Grips Kitchen And Herb Scissors, we knew they would be a top-performer. They're so comfortable, that they could probably be used all day long without fatiguing our hands. The finger bows on the handles are both wide and long enough for small and larger hands, and there isn't any uncomfortable pressure from the handles as you work. The thick, squishy pads on the inside of the handles are meant to cushion hands and keep them from slipping as you work (even if your hands are wet or oily). It isn't just the handles that vault the OXO to the top; these shears are well designed all the way around. They never accidentally come apart as they're being used, but it's still simple to detach one blade from the other for easy cleaning. And other than the satisfying “click” when closing the blades, they operate smoothly and quietly.

When it comes to performance, we have no complaints about the OXO shears. The ultra-sharp shears have one micro-serrated blade that grips onto slippery food like raw chicken while the other blade slices through foods with ease. They may struggle ever so slightly to get through the breastbone of the chicken, but that isn't unusual for kitchen shears. As far as other materials go, the OXO has no problems chomping through things like cardboard, hard plastic clamshells, and twist ties, yet they still manage to cut through delicate items like herbs and kitchen twine cleanly without creating torn edges.

It’s worth noting that these shears don’t have many additional features—they do have an herb stripper for taking herbs like rosemary and thyme off the stem, but overall we don't really miss any of the extra bells and whistles from other models on the market. The OXO is a solid pair of shears that gets the job done—no matter the material—and they’re available for a value price. What more can you ask for?

See more of the best kitchen shears.

The unassuming EZ-DUZ-IT probably looks exactly like the can opener you grew up with—and for good reason. What it lacks in special features and flashy design it makes up for in pure power and rock-solid construction, making it our top choice for most people. The EZ-DUZ-IT easily pierces lids, stays attached to the edges, and makes its way around cans without catching or resisting along the way. Its slim rubberized handles are easy to grip and prevent hand fatigue when opening can after can. And with such an intuitive, straightforward design, there’s little room for user error.

While the EZ-DUZ-It excels in ease of use and speed trials, its durability is what pushes it ahead of the pack. It's all-metal construction makes us confident that it will survive many years of daily use, including being jostled around in drawers and dropped off the counter, and its Amazon user reviews support our theory. You could probably drop this thing off a four-story building without breaking it, but we wouldn’t recommend that. In a world of flimsy plastic levers and dulling blades, the EZ-DUZ-IT is a steadfast companion that's in it for the long haul. The only drawbacks of the opener are that it produces sharp-edged lids and is designed for right-handed people, but these are standard features of most traditional rotary openers.

See more of the best manual can openers.

The Robo Twist gets our highest rating for jar openers for a simple reason: It's the only device that easily opens containers ranging from, from a wide-mouthed pickle jar to small jam jars. It even works on big pasta sauce jars that, for some reason, was mission impossible for a very similar automatic device we found.

Here’s how it works: You place the pod containing the motor and two AA batteries (not included) on top of your jar and press the big green button on top. You keep the button pressed down as two outer arms with rubber grips move in toward the sides of the jar or bottle. Then you let go of the button as two inner arms move in to place rubber grips around the lid. Once that happens, the inner arms twist and—voila, every time—the lid opens, often with a satisfying pop. Then you wait a few seconds for the arms to reset to their original position.

The manufacturer says the Robo Twist should work on lids ranging from 1.2 inches to 3.5 inches across, and everything we tried was in that size range. It does not recommend using the device on plastic items, so you may need something else for those mayonnaise and peanut butter jars. The instruction manual suggests you lightly hold the sides of small or tall jars – presumably more prone to spillage – and that seems prudent, really, with any container.

While we can't speak to the average battery life of the Robo Twist, or how long it holds up to frequent use, we do know that after more than two dozen openings it was still going strong for us.

See more of the best jar openers.