Looking for Great Kitchen Christmas Gifts? Avoid These 20 Worthless Tools, Say Professional Chefs

Our expert, award-winning staff selects the products we cover and rigorously researches and tests our top picks. If you buy through our links, we may get a commission.Reviews ethics statement Looking for Great Kitchen Christmas Gifts? Avoid These 20 Worthless Tools, Say Professional Chefs Career chefs explain why onion goggles and 19 other kitchen gadgets aren't worth the money. David WatskyManaging Editor / Home and Kitchen David lives in Brooklyn where he's spent more than a decade covering all things edible, including meal kit services, food subscriptions, kitchen tools and cooking tips. David earned his BA from Northeastern and has toiled in nearly every aspect of the food business, including as a line cook in Rhode Island where he once made a steak sandwich for Lamar Odom. Right now he's likely somewhere stress-testing a blender or tinkering with a toaster. Anything with sesame is his all-time favorite food this week. Gimmicky kitchen tools may often end up unused in a drawer. Connect Images/Getty Experienced home and professional chefs can tell you that when it comes to kitchen equipment, quality matters far more than quantity. Reliable and trusted cookware, knives and food processors are worth their weight in gold. If you're looking for fantastic kitchen holiday gifts, the classics are always a great choice. Zooey Liao/CNET But which other tools and gadgets are great as holiday gifts? I asked professional chefs, and they were refreshingly direct. A recurring theme among these kitchen professionals is a preference for fundamentals -- choosing versatile, time-tested equipment over specialized gadgets with limited uses. Take avocado slicers or meat claws: the tasks these tools promise to simplify can often be handled just as effectively, if not better, with essential equipment you already own in your kitchen. While some kitchen gadgets are underrated, many are simply not worth the space they occupy. To separate the essential from the superfluous or downright useless, I asked culinary pros to share the tools they swear by and the gadgets they'd skip. Their advice will help you avoid falling for flashy products and instead invest in items that you'll reach for every single day. Masaharu Morimoto Celebrity chef, restaurateur Masaharu Morimoto shared his pick for the most overrated kitchen tool. Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images 1. Mandolin Chef Morimoto encourages beefing up your knife skills to make thin and uniform vegetable slices. Milk Street Why: "While it brings good slices, mastering proper knife skills gives you more control, precision and safety in the long run. Mandolins can be bulky, hard to clean and risky if you're not extremely careful. Relying too much on a mandolin or tools like a two-in-one apple cutter or a tomato corer can hold you back from developing real technique. Taking the time to learn how to handle a sharp chef's knife or Japanese blade will help you in almost every recipe." Culinary instructor Eric Rowse knows a gimmicky kitchen tool when he sees one. Institute of Culinary Education 2. Onion holders Why: "These look like a weapon for...

Preview: ~500 words