More Than 50% Of People Agree This Kitchen Appliance Is The Most Useful

In the kitchen, do you prefer to do everything by hand — whipping egg whites for meringue, grating potatoes for latkes, or even beating cream into homemade butter – or do you prefer to outsource those tasks where possible? If you fall into the latter camp, then your kitchen might be home to plenty of appliances, ranging from the Instant Pot to a toaster oven to a food processor. These helpful machines aid in quickly and efficiently producing a variety of tasty meals, desserts, snacks, and beverages, with some of them, including the Instant Pot and air fryer, attracting die-hard fans (via The Atlantic).

But as anyone with a small kitchen has experienced firsthand, these handy appliances can quickly crowd a kitchen. Those that we really and truly value will continually be reached for, while those that aren't that useful will be tucked into a closet — or, more likely, given away to make room for something better. Here at Tasting Table, we wanted to know which kitchen appliances our readers really love — and one old standby easily took first place among those polled.

For many of us, the microwave may have been the first appliance we learned how to use solo as kids, whether we were nuking a paper bag of popcorn on movie night or melting some American cheese over tortilla chips for "nachos." And while most of us have probably moved on to more sophisticated microwave tasks such as melting chocolate for brownies or baking fluffy mug cakes, a recent Tasting Table poll of 626 respondents shows that the microwave is still one of the most popular kitchen appliances. A full 59% of those polled, or 372 respondents, said it's the kitchen appliance they use the most.

The air fryer, which folks love for reheating leftovers, crisping bacon, and "frying" chicken wings, came in a distant second place, with 126 respondents, or just over 20%, ranking it as their most-used appliance. About 8% of respondents cited the toaster oven as their most-used, with the Instant Pot and a classic blender ranking fourth and fifth, respectively. 

The microwave may have been an accident of its inventor, but it's one of the happiest accidents to occur to the kitchen in a long time, per the poll.