Kitchen Design Elements That Facilitate Easy Home Cooking

The kitchen is often referred to as the heart of the home. It is where meals are prepared and a place where families come together to create long lasting memories. The perfect kitchen is one that not only looks good, but offers up a high level of functionality for you to perform various tasks such as cooking, baking, cleaning, and washing up. If you’re struggling to make full use of your kitchen, it may be time for you to give yours a much needed makeover.

Today, we look at 5 kitchen design elements that facilitate easy home cooking, so grab a glass of your favourite wine, sit back, relax and read on to find out more.

1. Appliances Make A Kitchen

Let’s be honest — a kitchen isn’t really a kitchen if it doesn’t contain a wide variety of appliances that allow you to prepare your meals in the most quick and efficient way possible. Some absolute must haves in any functional kitchen include a blender (immersion, countertop or both), a food processor, slow cooker, microwave, electric kettle, and an oven. These basics will cover almost any recipe you’re looking to whip up and will also help ensure that your dishes always turn out the way they’re supposed to.

If you’re an aspiring masterchef, some other appliances that you can think about adding to your basic arsenal include a pressure cooker, rice cooker, sous vide machine and even a deep fryer.

2. Consider Your Countertops

When it comes to countertops, there are two things to consider. First, ensuring that you have enough counter space to comfortably prep your ingredients is crucial. A kitchen lacking in counter space won’t be able to perform as efficiently or as effectively as it could, and chances are you won’t be able to cook as efficiently either. If you’re short on space, a great way to instantly add brand new counter space to your kitchen is to purchase a movable kitchen island to ensure that your kitchen space stays nice and flexible for all sorts of food prep.

The second thing to consider is your countertop material. A great and affordable all rounder material is Honed Granite as it is incredibly resistant to scratching, chipping, cracking and heat, making it one of the most durable kitchen countertop options around. Some other popular options include butcher block style surfaces, laminate that is super budget-friendly, and stainless steel that lends a modern, industrial look to the space.

3. Organize Items Within Reach

Running around the kitchen like a headless chicken looking for various ingredients isn’t exactly our idea of easy home cooking, which is why organizing and keeping frequently used items and ingredients within reach is so important. Ingredients such as spices, oils, and other seasonings should be stored within an arm’s reach so that you can quickly and efficiently prepare dynamic dishes without having to race around the kitchen. Items such as knives, pots, pans and cutlery should also be well organized and stored in an easy to access, central area that allows you to get meals from the pot and onto a plate in a jiffy.

We highly recommend magnetic spice jars that you can stick on your fridge and magnetic knife strips that you can easily attach to your splashback for quick and easy access that also happens to save a lot of space!

4. Avoid Open Shelving

Open shelving has been all the rage in recent years (mainly for aesthetic purposes), but if you’re someone who wants the kitchen to be a fuss free zone, we highly recommend avoiding open shelving at all costs. One of the biggest downsides to open shelving is the sheer amount of dust and dirt these shelves tend to accumulate, which eventually translates into you spending hours dusting, cleaning, and wiping. Wall cabinets are a much better solution as not only are they easy to maintain, but they also help keep clutter out of sight and out of mind — perfect for those of us who aren’t Marie Kondo.

5. Electrical Outlets – The More, The Merrier

Last but not least, if there is one thing you can’t have enough of in your kitchen, it’s electrical outlets. Due to the number of various appliances you have in the kitchen (some of which you may use concurrently), it is vital that you have enough outlets to ensure that you are able to multitask without wasting a single second. Our biggest tip is to install multiple outlets on your backsplash and on your kitchen island so that you’ll have access to electricity whenever and wherever you may need it.

If you don’t own your own home, a great renter friendly solution is to double your plug-in space with something like a 6 outlet individually switched powerboard, or to use an extension cord. It may not look very chic, but it’ll get the job done.

There are plenty of critical design considerations when it comes to creating a kitchen that facilitates easy home cooking, and these are just 5 of our favorites that we’ve shared with you today.

Do you have any tips for making the most of your kitchen space? Drop a comment and let us know — we always love hearing about innovative kitchen design solutions that we haven’t come across before!