Why Slow Cookers Are Kristen Kish's Favorite Kitchen Gadget - Exclusive

As a classically trained chef, food influencer, and current host of Bravo TV's "Top Chef," Kristen Kish spends a lot of time in the kitchen. In her role as a food professional, she is constantly getting an insider's peek at the tools of the trade — including a slew of trendy new devices and long-favored kitchen equipment staples. So, when Tasting Table sat down with the chef for an exclusive interview, we had to know: What sort of kitchen gadgets does she favor the most?

It turns out that, even with all her accolades, honors, and sharply trained techniques, she is more like the average home cook than one might expect. "A Crockpot or any home version of a slow cooker or a pressure cooker is one of my favorite gadgets," explained Kish. Her reasoning will likely sound familiar to anyone who spends a great deal of their life in the kitchen: It comes down to time. "You can cook a lot of great things in a short amount of time," she said.

Although Crockpots and other home slow cookers have been a staple of kitchen counters for decades, pressure cookers have become more popular and accessible for home cooks in recent years. Professionals know that anything that can shorten the length of cooking time for a certain dish — or set the cooking of it on near auto-pilot — is a kitchen gadget worth having.

"In restaurants, we use pressure cookers," said Kish. "You want to speed up that time. A lot of people are a little bit scared of them ... but now they make home versions." In particular, brands like Ninja and Instant Pot have become go-to options, offering safe and easy-to-use functionality. 

The amount of Instant Pot recipes available to home cooks grows by the day. With these devices, pressure and slow cooking can be done in one unit, many of which have the added faculties of air frying and rice cooking as well. Whether you want to try tenderizing a cut of meat that demands low and slow cooking, or prepare a multifaceted one-pot meal, these devices are unmatchable in terms of efficiency and reducing time spent at the stove.