13 Kitchen Tools You Never Need To Buy New
If there's anything we relish more than receiving a compliment on kitchenware and decor, it's being able to respond with "Thanks, it's from Goodwill." The gratification we get from a little good-natured boasting about economic savviness surpasses the money saved from shopping second-hand, and the thrill of the chase for a specific item supersedes the mindless, seemingly endless scrolling we fall into otherwise.
Don't get us wrong, our kitchen is a thoughtful curation of items from small shops and thrifted, vintage staples picked up from Goodwill, garage sales, and Facebook Marketplace. As we build our kitchen, the more we can see how certain gadgets do not need to be bought new. With a little patience, planning, and pursuit, you too can find a shortlist of kitchen tools secondhand. That way, you can spend the extra cash on those fancy steak knives you have your eye on or the Vitamix you want to bring home in time for smoothie season. Here is a list of the items you should never purchase new — especially if you're willing to rummage through a couple of secondhand spots for them.
Colander
Colanders are an essential in even the most cooking-averse households. They're a necessity for everything from boxed macaroni and cheese to laborious homemade pasta. But unlike the microplanes and cute plates that you need to get your dishes Instagram-ready, a colander can't complete a cute look. More often than not, the holey contraptions fail to make it into the final cut for folks moving cities, and instead land in donation piles every day.
Colanders vary in price based on the material and brand; the classic, uncoated metal model without any frills tends to run around $10 to $15, while a pre-owned colander costs less than half that. Plus, getting midway into a cooking project only to realize that your kitchen lacks one of these draining essentials might cost the price of your entire meal. Sure, hacks exist for the occasion when you find yourself without a colander, but nothing can stand in for the convenience of a well-made and sturdy one. If you find yourself without one following a big move, take a trip to a local thrift store to find a replacement one.
Measuring spoons
Even though kitchen scales are ideal for baking, it's still important to have measuring spoons on hand for loose-leaf teas, morning coffee, and to keep track of spices and seasonings for future recipes. Though sets of measuring cups often are left scattered throughout the secondhand store, measuring spoons, bound together by a keyring, typically remain intact.
Even though a new set will only set you back around $10, the act of reusing pre-loved measuring spoons still saves enough for a cup of coffee. Plus, it will at least spare any wasteful packaging the new spoons surely come attached with. Plus, you can use the set you got at Goodwill to infuse your home with style or personal flare. Though, this can also be an opportunity to leave your basics blank as an interlude to your kitchen's existing style. They can be a brief pause between cutesy items or add a pop of color to an otherwise neutrally-toned kitchen.
Ice cream scoop
Not everyone owns an ice cream scoop — or they may not think that they do. This forgotten-about kitchen item is often seen as an afterthought, considering that it's easy to consume Ben & Jerry's straight from the carton. The old-school, classic scoop remains the ideal design for scooping up ice cream — not some fancified, new-fangled iteration.
Save a chunk of change and keep your eyes peeled the next time you're circulating a thrift store. You may just find a worn-in icd cream scoop that will force you to find new excuses for eating ice cream straight from the pint container.
Cooling rack
We've flubbed more recipes than we care to admit because we failed to realize the importance of using a cooling rack to prevent overbaking. The simple, elevated frame proves invaluable when attempting somewhat finicky baked goods, such as an angel food cake or a rolled cake, where the edges of the dessert benefit from cooling down to room temperature quickly. Simply setting your pan on the oven top or kitchen counter traps the heat under the pan and can cause an insulation effect.
Although the design may be simple, a brand-new cooling rack tends to run somewhere close to $20 — and the aisles of most resale shops will have a perfectly good one waiting for you for a fraction of that price. While it's not a requisite for any non-bakers, it's a disappointing article to realize that you don't have on hand while in the throws of baking. Stashing one away in hopes of broadening your baking skills, or even better, meeting someone who will bake from your house, is worth the paltry buy-in the next time you pass one in a secondhand shop.
Wine decanter
Like whiskey rocks and cheese knife sets, most wine decanters fall into the clutches of resale stores as people declutter old holiday gifts or wedding presents. Although it's really only handy if your household drinks wine, a wine decanter is a must-have for bottles that need a kiss of air before they can be consumed.
Wine decanters range from $30 to $100 or more — making them quite an expensive item. Serious wine connoisseurs may even spend several hundreds on one of them. So, be sure to keep your eye on some of the high-value, cast-aside decanters at your local store. The delicate glass vessels can also easily break, so keeping an extra on hand will only soften the blow when one chips in the wash or smashes tableside. Source yours from a thrift store and save yourself the self-flagellation when a routine fiasco leaves it shattered.
Yes, a wine decanter occupies a chunk of real estate inside of a cupboard despite its infrequent use — and there's the rigamarole of washing and drying it. But if a decanter lends a leg-up to luxurious bottles, it's worth the mild irritation — as long as a lofty price tag isn't involved. Pro tip: Keep in mind how many stores might misfile these premium items in the vase section rather than with the wine glasses and cocktail cups where they belong. Make a sweep through the floral aisle to score misfiled decanters.
Cake pans and muffin tins
We swear that every recipe calls for a completely different-sized cake pan. While you can make the trek to grab a new pan for sheet cakes, rolled cakes, angel food cakes, and (so many) more, you may realize that these pans go missing after they are brought to potlucks and picnics. Instead, you'll want to stock up on cake pans, muffin and pie tins, and, of course, gelatin molds a week or so ahead of an event where you plan to utilize them so you know you have them on hand for when you need them.
Take a tip from us and travel to secondhand shops with a pocket measuring tape to ensure you're snagging the right size. While brands like Our Place and Great Jones offer vibrant colors and trendy baking molds (for at least $30 a pop), it may be better to spend the money on high-quality ingredients or cake-decorating gadgets than on a pan that will inevitably be hidden in the compartment underneath the stove.
Pyrex glassware
Pyrex is a glass measuring pitcher that can outperform an individual set of measuring cups in every regard. They're easy to break, but they're hard to replace immediately after their destruction. The 100-plus year old glassware company remains a crucial kitchen staple, and its vintage vessels are always in demand. The shelves of antique stores and flea markets alike boast both the clear, glass, multipurpose jugs with an easy-pour mouth and the artifacts from yesteryear. Both are great for households looking for a proper container to measure rice, bake brownies with, or serve snack mix.
A set of Pyrex measuring cups hovers around $25, and baking dishes are about the same. A nested set of mixing bowls are priced around $20, and the collector's era of Pyrex at high-end boutiques cost well into the hundreds. In comparison, a thrifted Pyrex can be assembled piecemeal based on what bowls you need. The search for the aforementioned vintage items, however, functions as more of a hobbyist passion than an opportunity to penny-pinch. Hunting for valuable relics might not bolster your kitchen with anything other than kitsch and cuteness, though the thrill of the chase provides a slow-burn type of recreation for avid thrifters.
Mason jars
Even though canning projects can save money in the long run, having to purchase brand-new jars every time you want to pickle something or make jam can cause the cost to skyrocket. While canning sets can cost a pretty penny, resale shops only charge cents for the same containers sans lids — and those ring-sealed tops only run about $5 for 12.
Sanitizing your canning equipment in a pot of boiling water is the best practice for any preservation project, so you'll need to do this for new jars or secondhand ones — just be sure to remove those pesky price stickers beforehand. Another perk of picking up pre-loved canning jars is that you're not limited to a single shape or size. Instead, you have the freedom to play around with varying dimensions depending on what you're canning.
Rolling pin
If you're picking up on a baking motif forming in this list, you're smelling what we're cooking — or baking, if you want to get literal. Unlike the routine act of low-impact cooking, firing up your oven and psyching yourself up for an afternoon of baking requires an amount of intention most of us can only muster quarterly. And one essential that you'll want to have on-hand for when this mood strikes is a rolling pin.
Rolling pins run anywhere from $5 to over five times that, depending on material and quality. Pins made with cheap wood, colorful plastics, and even weighty marble can all be stumbled upon in resale stores, probably due to how infrequently their average owner puts them to use. Arming yourself with a rolling pin on your next trip to your favorite thrift shop will leave you ready the next time the baking bug bites.
Grill tongs
If you live in a rainy city, you know the feeling of ruining at least one pair of grilling tongs after neglecting to tidy up the utensils following a rare sunny day's barbecue. So instead of succumbing to heartbreak when you ruin a cute set of tongs, invest instead in what your local Goodwill has to offer.
Yes, you'll be reduced to rifling through the hodgepodge of loose kitchen utensils. But tongs will always stand out in a crowd of corkscrews, citrus reamers, and more because of their size. Though it's a relatively inexpensive item to buy new, if you're not a full-blown grill-master, a basic, thrifted pair of tongs will suffice. Relying on tongs that have known the grates of a grill other than your own means you can destroy, lose, or even double-purchase the integral grilling accessory time and time again without worry.
Spice and coffee grinders
Spice and coffee grinders are another potential gift-gone-wrong. If you wear the chef's hat in your home kitchen, then you know that spice grinders are a sneaky secret weapon for homespun spice blends for hot pot broth, curries, barbecue rubs, za'atar blends, and more. Stop relying on pre-mixed blends and hone in on your own house mixtures fit for your taste buds.
While not every cook needs a spice grinder, thus their abundance at thrift stores, the device comes in handy more often than you'd imagine. Spice grinders cost about $20 to $30 new and secondhand grinders sell for around half that. Try to aim for a gently-used or never-opened grinder when you make your trip to the thrift store.
You may need to hit at least two resale stores before unearthing a grinder of your own. But, it's time that you don't have to spend using your mortar and pestle — which means that this spice grinder will essentially pay for itself. Just remember to plug in the grinder at the store before you purchase it to ensure it works.
Shot glasses
Though not everyone takes shots at house parties, there is some value in keeping a half-dozen of these 1½-ounce glasses around for spontaneous bursts of the party spirit, your rowdiest friends, and the occasional homebound boilermaker. Shot glasses, one of the chintziest items in the housewares section of a thrift store, cost under a dollar a pop. So if you plan on hosting a Super Bowl or Oscars affair, you might as well squirrel away a small smattering of these miniature, party essentials.
These glasses are often printed with cute designs, dad jokes, or bad puns, which means you can amass a collection of them to fit the personality of your house or — even better — pay homage to your most frequent guests. If your mother-in-law is from Texas, find a glass imprinted with the state's sizable outline. Or, if your bestie obsessed with Garfield or another animated idol, search for one with the cartoon's visage every time you circulate the glassware section of a secondhand store. Soon enough, you'll own a stack of shot glasses ready for a rager.
Vintage cookbooks
It's easy to get lost in the cookbook section of a grocery store. While you might stumble into a new, under-appreciated publication, sorting through the spines of vintage volumes could also amass hidden treasures. They're handy for discovering forgotten recipes of yesteryear, learning some off-trend plating techniques, and even arranging a thoughtful display stack for the coffee table. Vintage cookbooks offer a perspective into past eras, and secondhand shops often sell them for an absurdly inexpensive price.
Though they're dangerous if you're a card-carrying cookbook hoarder, limiting yourself to a book or two a visit proves more challenging than finding one worthy of your shelves. Try curating a library where you only allow a book per region, style, or epoch to enter your collection. The chase to assemble an eclectic library feels like a never-ending game and offers an opportunity to brag about your finds whenever guests are over.