5 Smart Kitchen Appliances You Should Add To Your Counter (According To Users)

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Our kitchens play a huge role in making our houses a home. It's where we can exercise our creativity, show our love through food, and share recipes that are passed from one generation to another. In many ways, it's where a lot of family memories are made, where children grow up enjoying meals that they're going to crave for the rest of their lives. Knowing this, doesn't it make sense to invest in ways to make your kitchen better? And these days, there are so many smart kitchen appliances that can make your countertops work even better for you.

Depending on what you like to eat, there are so many unconventional kitchen appliances that make cooking more convenient, practical, or exciting. While we've mentioned kitchen tech that isn't a great buy, it doesn't mean you can't find some that are well worth the counter space. For example, you can invest in appliances that help optimize your meal preparation, such as through better measurement or perfecting cooking time. Alternatively, you can buy machines that can help cook certain ingredients or dishes that you cook on an almost daily basis. So, apart from the plenty of cooking gadgets you can get for your kitchen, here are some other highly-rated smart appliances that should probably be on your upcoming Christmas wish list.

Part of having a healthy diet is having a mix of different proteins, vegetables, and carbs. And while you're still in the early stages of learning how to eat healthier, smart appliances like the Etekcity Food Nutrition Scale can help you gain perspective. Just under $40, it's capable of measuring weights from 2 g to 22 lbs, so it's ideal for many food measuring applications that require accuracy. Apart from the scale itself, what sets it apart is its accompanying app, VeSync, which lets you scan existing food barcodes and check against a million items in its database. Alternatively, you can also manually add details for items that are not found in the system. In addition, it gives you nutrition reports, which you can share with your personal trainers, doctors, or just to have as personal benchmarks.

On Amazon, the Etekcity Food Nutrition Scale has an impressive rating of 4.6 stars from over 161,300 reviewers, which makes it both popular and highly-rated. Not only that, more than ¾ of all buyers have even rated it a perfect 5 stars. Among the things that people have mentioned liking about it include how it's made of food-grade stainless steel, has long-lasting batteries, and is pretty accurate. From an aesthetic standpoint, several users have pointed out that it has large fonts, looks modern, and is easy to store. And when it comes to uses, people have mentioned using it to measure everything, including coffee, baking, and meal preparation.

For many people, they assume that they're bad at cooking, when they just don't actually have the right tools in their arsenal. With idiot-proof smart kitchen appliances like the Anova Culinary Sous Vide Precision Cooker, you can make so many dishes perfectly and with just a push of a button. Despite weighing only 1.7 lbs and measuring 12.8 inches, the Anova Sous Vide Cooker is a gift that keeps on giving. Priced at $70.29, it even has installment options available of up to 6 months for qualified buyers. Although you'll have to shell out more money if you want to have access to its app, whether it's $1.99 per month or $9.99 per year.

So far, over 14,800+ people have given the Anova Culinary Sous Vide Precision Cooker a pretty positive average rating of 4.6 stars. In general, they've sung praises on how it can work great even without the app subscription, which several people have mentioned is more for just recipes. Not to mention, there were a couple of buyers who had one for years with no problem, with the exception of some minimal scaling due to hard water. If you regularly cook for big groups or large families, Anova also sells a more powerful model, the Precision Cooker. Priced at $104.95, it has a faster flower rate, adjustable clamps, and longer continuous cooking time. It's also quite popular and more than 11,000 people have rated it around 4.4 stars.

If you're trying to watch your protein intake, chances are you are eating eggs a lot. Unfortunately, not everyone has the time to set a timer, wait for their eggs to be cooked, and take them out at the exact moment to get that soft-boiled consistency. But with kitchen appliances like the Evoloop Rapid Egg Cooker, you can get satisfaction without the hassle.

With prices starting at $29.99, this egg cooker lets you cook eggs in different ways — a tray that can hold six eggs for boiling, an omelet bowl, and poaching trays. Out of the box, it also has a measuring cup that has both a piercer and instructions for how much water you should put if you want hard-boiled, medium-boiled, or soft-boiled eggs. In addition, while it tells you when it's done cooking, you can also set it to keep the eggs warm. Afterward, you'll just need to rinse them with cold water to get them to the perfect hardness. Available in four colors (black, retro green, silver, and white), it's not only pretty compact, but also BPA-free.

An Amazon's Choice product, the Evoloop Rapid Egg Cooker boasts a 4.5-star average rating from over 3,500 people. Apart from being able to cook soft or hard-boiled eggs perfectly, some other benefits that buyers have mentioned include how easy it is to peel the eggs, how good it looks on the counter, and that it's pretty child-friendly.

Sometimes, there's nothing more satisfying than the smell of fresh bread in the morning. Next to the odd satisfaction of making something from scratch, you can be more particular about using quality ingredients or even just adjusting the components to fit your specific dietary requirements. In addition, it's great when you're trying to manage portions, since you can make only what you think you are able to consume. But, how do you even start baking bread at home? You can invest in a bread maker, like the Cuisinart Convection Bread Maker Machine.

Capable of running up to 16 programs, you can set the crust from light, medium, to dark, and you can also choose the loaf sizes. Compared to other bread makers, it has a nifty automatic dispenser, so you don't have to worry about your nuts all ending up at the bottom. And if you're not sold on the presets, you can also select your own timing. Priced at $259.72, it ships with the bread-making machine unit, kneading hook, measuring cup, and spoon.

That said, if you don't have bread that often or don't have as much counter space, Cuisinart also offers a compact option, which starts at a lower price of $203.68. However, it's important to note that it does have fewer features and a much smaller window for you to see the bread rising. Either way, both models have collectively garnered an average rating of 4.4 stars from 15,800+ Amazon reviewers.

In our youth, many of us would just shove whatever bread in our toaster and hope for the best. But as we get older, we develop certain preferences, whether it's the type of bread or how brown it is. And with the Mecity 2 Slice Toaster, we can start every day with the perfect toast. With its real touch control, you can select one of six browning levels, so you can set it to a light toast or one with a good burn, depending on your mood. Next, you can also select the bread type, which can be one of the following: bagel, gluten free, white, waffle, muffin, and grain. Although Mecity does recommend that you keep bread slices less than half an inch thick.

Apart from its toasting capabilities, it has other smart features which make it a good addition to your smart device portfolio. For example, it has a built-in memory function, which remembers the last settings you input, so all you have to do is press the lever. In addition, it has a smart management feature designed to counter over-baking, as well as an energy-saving function. Lastly, it has nifty defrost and reheat settings too. Priced at just under $50, this smart toaster is available in five colors (cream, ice blue, black, pearl grey, and stainless steel). An Amazon's choice product, over a thousand people seem to be pretty satisfied with it and have given it an average rating of 4.5 stars.

To be part of this list, we looked for kitchen-related appliances which have more than a thousand reviews on Amazon. This is to make sure that there is enough of a sample size in terms of feedback and to assure some degree of manufacturing consistency. We also included items across a wide range of price points from those under $30 up to around $250. In this way, you can opt to get what's within your budget or save up for your ideal appliances in the future. In some cases, wherein there are similar products available, we opted to include the ones that have more reviews or unique features that set them apart. However, in some cases, we also included other models from the same brand that have added or slightly different benefits.

Next, we narrowed down our search to appliances that have an average rating of at least 4 stars. Often, this is an indication that the product generally functions the way it's supposed to and meets the general expectations. In addition, we looked at some of their best reviews to highlight what people like about them, as well as their worst ones, so you can decide if they're dealbreakers to you. We also took note of Amazon's Choice products, which are typically items vetted by the online retailer for three things: high ratings, reasonable prices, and fast shipping times.