Essential Tools For Your First Kitchen

Hooray! You just got the keys to your new place, but that's just the first step toward making the place a true home. Sure, there are plenty of big-ticket items to buy — furniture, window treatments, and maybe even some appliances, just to name a few things that are probably already on your shopping list.

Click here to see the Essential Tools for Your First Kitchen Slideshow

But what about equipping the kitchen? If it's your first time venturing into the local housewares store, it may be a daunting task figuring out just what to buy for your first kitchen. After all, you don't want to buy too much — or too little.

Do you really need a melon baller? Or a coffee grinder? Maybe a frying thermometer would be neat to have around, but do you really need one? The same thing goes for the garlic press. These tools all have some things in common — they all accomplish only one task, and they are things that a first-time home cook isn't going to need.

But, on the other hand, you don't want to be halfway through cooking a dish, say, lasagna, when you suddenly realize you don't have everything you need to finish it — say, a baking dish or a colander. Especially if there are guests impatiently tapping their collective feet and breathing their collective sighs.

That's why The Daily Meal has put together this handy list that will help take the headache out of shopping for your first kitchen. Relax, sit back, and get ready to burn a hole in your wallet.

Will Budiaman is the Recipe Editor at The Daily Meal. Follow him on Twitter @WillBudiaman.

This was originally published in October 2012.