The holidays are a time for family, but they’re also a time for food, making it and eating it. And if you’re buying something for someone who loves that, you may love this guide.
Food brings people together, but it’s also a great hobby and delight for many at home. And because of that, the preparation of food via a gadget can make for a great gift idea for folks who love doing that.
If you’re buying for a budding chef of some kind, we’ve assembled a variety of handy gadgets that just might help in the kitchen or outdoors, and let an inner chef come right out and serve.
Breville Multi-Chef Cooker
Price: $170
Convergence is king for most gadgets, but in the kitchen, convergence isn’t always a thing. Fortunately, with the Breville Multi Chef, it definitely is.
A combination of rice cooker, risotto maker, steamer, slow cooker, and hot plate for sautéing, the Multi Chef can become a quick go-to gadget for anyone keen to cook and only have one gadget to do it all.
Panasonic Bread Maker
Price: $359
Bread is one of those things so many of us can’t live without, and if you’re buying for someone like that, a bread maker that can make basic and advanced breads could well be that.
Panasonic’s SD-R2530 doesn’t have a great name, and certainly not one that rolls off the tongue, but it will let you make bread and jam with ease, or even some pizza dough.
LG NeoChef Microwave
Price: $399
Microwaves don’t always get attention because they’re mostly there to simply heat things up, but if you want to use them for cooking, you may find recent models do more. In some cases, much, much more.
LG’s NeoChef comes with a humidity sensor to help cook food, not just heat it up, and includes settings based on protein type and some for food. For instance, the Australian model of the NeoChef comes with a cooking option for “meat pie”.
It’ll also let you make yoghurt if you so choose, soften butter or ice cream without turning them to liquid (though you can do that, too), and reheat a variety of things using the sensors inside. This is one microwave you may want to read the manual for.
Nespresso Vertuo Lattissima
Price: $749
A coffee machine you don’t have to think about, the DeLonghi-made Nespresso Vertuo Lattissima takes Nespresso’s large Vertuo pods and gives you the ability to quickly make a milk-based cup of coffee without any expertise whatsoever.
Literally a case of popping in a pod and letting the machine go to work, the Vertuo Lattissima is all about making a mug-sized cup of coffee with ease, and that can only be a good thing.
Kenwood Chef Titanium
Price: $999
When it comes time to actually make some food, folks who love to mix ingredients and make are going to want an appliance that’s built for today and made to work.
That could be the ideal description for the recent Kenwood Titanium Chef Patissier mixers, a stand mixer that comes with two bowls, a dough tool, two mixing beaters, a whisk, a scale built directly into the mixer to weigh your ingredients, a light in the top to help you take photos as you mix, and a touchscreen in the side to let you trigger mixing modes with ease. It’s about the smartest a mixer gets.
Traeger Grills Pro 575
Price: $1599
A meaty barbecue and grill made for cooking delicious meats and such, Traeger’s Pro 575 isn’t just yet another BBQ, but one endowed with an app.
Technically, it uses Traeger’s “WiFire” technology, which includes a built-in meat probe that can communicate the temperature of the food via the app on a phone, and uses little pellets to get different wood flavours all too easily.
Samsung AI Oven
Price: $3699
If you think BBQs can get modern with an app, imagine what you can do with an oven.
Samsung is thinking about that with its 76 litre Flex Door Oven, which comes with an AI-assisted camera to not only let you capture shots of your food, but monitor how the cook is going. Using AI, Samsung’s oven can recognise some ingredients and look for burning, giving you more than just an idea of the temperature, but what’s going on in your cooking process.
Outside of that AI camera thing, Samsung’s oven includes the ability to steam, air fry, and even air sous vide, and plays nicely with Samsung’s SmartThings technology, too.
