My Minimalist Kitchen
I love food. I love watching shows about food. I love to cook. I love scrolling for recipes on Pintrest until I’m so hungry I need to put my phone down and grab a snack. So, one would think I own every kitchen gadget under the sun but that’s not the case.
I’ve mentioned a few times that moving across the country twice has made me a minimalist. I HATE moving. So, I actively try to reduce the number of things I own so that when I do have to move it’s not that bad. Plus, being an engineer, I like being efficient and a cluttered kitchen is anything but efficient.
Before she sold her house and went on the road, Bea Johnson, the mother of the zero waste movement, could fit her entire wardrobe into a carry-on suitcase. Her husband and sons could do the same. So, when they went on vacation, they packed up their whole wardrobe and their small personal belongings and rented their house on Airbnb. How awesome is that? #Goals!
While I’m nowhere near that point, (and I’m not sure I’d want strangers living in my house while I was on vacation) having so few possessions that I can easily pack up and leave is something I aspire to. Along the same lines of thinking, I keep my kitchen as minimal as possible while still being able to cook a full Thanksgiving dinner. The last time we moved I was able to pack the entire kitchen into two medium storage bins!
So, what’s in my minimalist kitchen?
Let’s start with the big items–pots and pans.
- 7.25-quart Le Creuset Dutch Oven
- 7-inch nonstick pan
- 12-inch nonstick pan
- 1.5-quart stainless steel pot
- 2-quart stainless steel pot
- 5.5-stainless steel pot
- 12-inch Cast iron pan
Everything but the small nonstick pan and the Dutch oven are stored in a bottom cabinet with my pasta maker and oven mitts.
I cook nearly all my meals using the Le Creuset Dutch Oven. If I had to live with only one pot/pan, this would be it. I use the small nonstick pan for eggs and the large one for pita bread and tortillas. The two smaller pots are for individual portions of mac and cheese and other sauces. I use the large pot to boil pasta and steam vegetables. The cast iron pan my husband uses to fry bacon and whatever he chooses since I don’t use that pan.
I only have two plug-in appliances in my kitchen–a toaster and an electric kettle.
I used to have a crockpot, blender, food processor and a bunch of other things that just sat in my cupboard for 364 days a year. They would only see the light of day for that one random recipe. After a while I realized I didn’t need any of it and I gave them away. Now we only have these two and they get a lot of use since we eat a fair amount of bread and the kettle is used to make tea, coffee, and warm up bottles of milk for my toddler.
Here’s our coffee area directly across from the stove:
I’ve always been a curious home cook. I love trying to see what I can make from scratch–from pasta to pastry dough I like to see how things are made. And so far, I’ve been able to do it with just these tools.
- wine opener
- vegetable peeler
- meat thermometer
- spoon rest
- can opener
- pizza cutter
- microplane
- ice cream scoop
- citrus juicer
- metal tongs
- silicone spatula
- wood spatula
- kitchen shears
- chef’s knife
- two wood spoons
- rolling pin
- metal spoon
- slotted spoon
- pairing knife
- bread knife
- cheese grater
- ladle
- metal slotted spatula
- silicone slotted spatula
- potato masher
- measuring spoons
- measuring cups
Along the counter where the stove is, I have four pull out drawers. The one to the right of the stove contains the whole list above except for the spoon rest, measuring cups/spoons, and knives in their drawer:
I probably have one too many stirring utensils, but they are still in good shape and don’t take up that much space, so they’re staying for now.
Next to this drawer are all the utensils. Sometimes the vegetable peeler, wine opener, and meat thermometer end up in this drawer so my toddler can’t reach them.
The drawer to the left of the stove is the spice drawer where the measuring cups and spoons live:
And the fourth drawer is just for cloth napkins.
Here are the larger tools that don’t fit into drawers:
- Pyrex measuring cups
- Pasta machine
- Funnel
- Metal sifter
- Colander
- Stainless steel steamer basket
Some other items not shown include:
- 4 glass nesting mixing bowls with lids
- 3 nesting sheet pans
- rectangular metal cake pan
- muffin tin
- rectangular pyrex dish
- 2 square pyrex dishes
- square pyrex lid
- bread pan
- Chemex coffee funnel
- metal coffee filter
- silicone baking mat
- cork trivets (to put hot pots on)
Now that you’ve seen my minimalist kitchen, here are a few tips if you’d like a simpler kitchen too.
Evaluate Usage
Open your kitchen cabinets and take a quick scan. What items haven’t been used this month, this year, or even this decade? Chances are that if you haven’t used it in a year, you’ll probably never use it. So, maybe that crockpot that you used once and never touched again can find a new home where it will get used all the time? Or that breadmaker you got as a wedding gift and used only once, wouldn’t it be better off being used by someone else than gathering dust in the dark corner of your cabinet?
Eliminate Duplicates
If there are multiples of anything, consider donating them. Maybe you and your significant other both had can openers prior to living together. But is there really any reason you need two now?
Don’t just stop at identical duplicates, see if one item can replace the function of another. For example, when I make pizzas from scratch, I make eight small pizzas. That means to get all the pizzas out in a timely manner, the most convenient thing would be to have four sheet pans, but I only have three. So, I use a metal cake pan (the walls are taller than a sheet pan) to bake the last round of pizza. This saved me from having to purchase another sheet pan.
Mmmm…I love homemade pizza:
One of my pyrex dishes came with a lid. So, it can also double as a food storage container. If I had too many food storage containers, I would eliminate those before getting rid of my pyrex dish since it has a dual purpose.
Here are a few more dual uses for common items:
- Cups as cookie or biscuit cutters
- Flour sifter as a strainer
- Citrus press as a ricer
- Wine bottle as a rolling pin
- Muffin tin as an ice tray
By finding multiple uses for different items you can eliminate redundancies in your kitchen.
Let’s Dish
Think about intentional duplicates as well. How many dishes do you really need? I’m not a dinner party type of girl. I like to go to dinner parties but I don’t care to host them. So, I have four small plates, four large plates, four large bowls, and three small bowls. (My husband broke one of the small bowls while washing the dishes.) I have four small pyrex bowls and four tiny pyrex bowls meant to hold ingredients and spices while cooking but they are great small bowls for cereal for my kids or small snacks. These are all the dishes I have, and they fit on one shelf in my kitchen.
Knife Skills
I remember hearing one of the Food Network chefs say that nearly every kitchen gadget can be replaced with better knife skills. I’ve always kept this in the back of my mind when testing out new recipes. I’ve had this knife block for over ten years and I still love it. There’s not 20 knives like most knife blocks I see. It has the minimal amount of knives I need with no repeats.
- Kitchen shears
- Bread knife
- Chef’s knife
- Pairing knife
I get them sharpened at the farmer’s market when they get dull, so I don’t have to purchase new ones. If you think about it, good knife skills can replace several aisles worth of gadgets at a kitchen store. From quick choppers to garlic rollers, basically any gadget with a blade can be replaced by knife skills.
To prevent new items from entering your kitchen or to eliminate kitchen clutter, ask yourself if you can accomplish the same thing with a knife. If you can, then give away the gadget or don’t purchase it. Plus, those kitchen gadgets are always a pain to clean. By using a knife you save yourself the hassle of trying to get a brush or sponge in the crevasses of the gadget.
Borrow First
So, you’ve gotten rid of the items you never use, and you’ve eliminated the redundant items. You’ve decluttered your kitchen and it’s never looked better. You feel awesome and ready to use your kitchen by testing a new recipe. You are so excited to try it out, but the recipe requires a tool you don’t have.
If you are trying a new recipe and need a bread pan or an immersion blender for example, try borrowing this item before committing to it. If it’s your first time baking a loaf of sandwich bread, you’re probably super excited. And like me, if it turned out like crap, you’re probably done trying to make homemade sandwich bread. (Good thing I get sliced bread plastic-free at Panera now).
Luckily, I borrowed a bread pan from my BFF who had two. If I had bought a bread pan and made crappy bread, I’d be stuck with a bread pan that would never get used again. I feel like this is exactly how you get a kitchen full of stuff you don’t use. Single recipes that call for some kitchen tool you don’t have, and a recipe fail that leads to the gadget never being used again.
Before committing to a new kitchen tool, see if you can borrow it first–no one needs a cabinet full of failures.
Second Hand & Built to Last
If your friends don’t have what you’re looking for check local thrift shops or neighborhood Facebook groups to see if you can find what you’re looking for. If it doesn’t work out, you can always bring it back to the same place and you would have paid less than buying it full price.
If you’ve exhausted all other efforts and need to purchase the item new. Make sure you buy one that’s built to last. It would be a shame if you went through all this trouble, ended up with a successful recipe and the item you purchased broke on its second use.
Benefits
There are so many benefits to a minimalist kitchen. First, you can always find what you need. If you only have 5 pots/pans in your pots/pan cabinet, chances are it’s pretty easy to see all of them.
Second, having less stuff and less clutter, means you’ll have more space to cook. If your cabinets are overflowing with appliances and gadgets, they probably spill over to your countertops, which makes it more difficult to have, for example, four pizza pans out at the same time.
Also, by working on knife skills or borrowing things you need you save money. Who doesn’t like more money?
Finally, using less gadgets means less items to clean when you’re finished. If you used four gadgets that could all be replaced by a knife, that’s three extra things you have to clean at the end of your meal. Having a minimalist kitchen saves you time in cleaning and maintaining stuff.
What do you think? Are you interested in decluttering your kitchen? What are some of your favorite kitchen hacks? Tell me in the comments!
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