Kitchen Gifts Under $50 for People Who Really Cook

An instant-read thermometer is the kitchen tool that makes the biggest difference for the least money, and most home cooks still don't own a good one. It ends the cutting-into-the-chicken-to-check routine: push the probe into the thickest part, read the number, done. The ThermoPop 2 gives a reading in 2 to 3 seconds with the standard 4.5-inch probe and is accurate to within 1°F between 14 and 208°F, the range that covers meat, fish, bread and custards.

The round display is 1.26 inches across, lights up and turns itself to read the right way up in either hand, which matters at a dark grill. It's rated IP67 against splashes and rinsing, runs about 4,000 hours on one CR2032 coin battery, and turns off after 10 minutes. Each one comes with a NIST-traceable calibration certificate, so the number on the screen has been checked against a standard. There's one button and no menus.

The catches: it's a probe you hold, not one you leave in the oven with a cable, so it won't alarm when a roast hits temperature. ThermoWorks also sells it with an 8-inch probe for a little more (still under $50), which is better for a deep pot of oil or a large roast; check which length the listing is before you order. And it isn't listed as dishwasher safe: a rinse and wipe is the care.

Most spatulas are a silicone head pushed onto a wooden or plastic handle, which is where batter collects and where the head eventually comes loose. GIR makes each spatula as one piece of platinum-cured silicone, so there is no seam to clean and nothing to come apart. It goes in the dishwasher on any rack and is heat-resistant to 425°F, enough to stir a pan of sauce or scrape melted chocolate without softening.

The set covers the three jobs a baker actually has. The Ultimate (11 by 1.9 inches) mixes batter and folds in egg whites; the Skinny (11 by 1.5 inches) reaches the bottom of a tall jar or a blender cup; the Mini (8.3 by 1.4 inches) handles small bowls and the last of the peanut butter. It comes in six colors, from plain black to a speckled one called Sprinkles.

The catches: these are spatulas for scraping and stirring, not flipping; GIR sells its flat turners separately. 425°F is plenty for a pot but not for resting the head on a ripping-hot cast iron pan. And the color you get from the Amazon listing may differ from the one in our photo, so check the color name before you order.

The long, narrow Microplane is the tool food writers mean when they say zester, and it's the least expensive gift here that a cook will use nearly every day. Its stainless steel blade turns a lemon's peel into fine zest without the bitter white pith underneath, and turns a block of Parmesan into soft, lacy shreds that melt into pasta. It does the same for ginger, garlic, nutmeg and chocolate.

The Premium Classic is the older Classic with three changes Microplane made for home kitchens: a soft-touch handle that's easier to hold with wet hands, non-scratch end tabs that let it rest on the rim of a bowl while you grate, and a reusable plastic cover that keeps the teeth sharp and keeps fingers away from them in a drawer. It comes in a dozen colors; we link the black one.

The catches: it's narrow, so grating a whole pile of cheese for a crowd takes a while; a box grater is faster for that job. The teeth are very sharp, so it's a gift for an adult cook, and the cover should go back on after every use.

A cutting board is the thing in a kitchen that gets replaced last and used most. Epicurean's boards are made in the United States from a paper composite, and unlike a wooden board they're made to go in the dishwasher. They're thin and light, a quarter-inch thick, so this one stands in a dish rack or slides into a cabinet next to the baking sheets.

The All-in-One is the version that combines Epicurean's best-liked details: a juice groove on one side to catch what runs off a roast chicken or a sliced tomato, a flat side without a groove for chopping, and four silicone feet that keep it from sliding on the counter on either side. Epicurean lists it as knife safe, heat resistant, stain resistant and NSF certified, the food-safety standard used for restaurant equipment. At 14.5 by 11.25 inches it's big enough to chop an onion and a pepper without running out of room.

The catches: a quarter-inch board doesn't have the heft of a thick wooden one, and it isn't the handsome block you leave out on the counter. Paper composite also feels firmer under a knife than wood. If they already love their wooden board, this is the everyday board for raw meat and the dishwasher, not a replacement.

A half sheet pan is the hardest-working piece of bakeware in most kitchens: roasted vegetables, sheet-pan dinners, cookies, toasted nuts. It's also the one most people own in its worst state, warped and stained. Great Jones' Holy Sheet is a half sheet in bright colors, blueberry, raspberry, broccoli and pepper among them, with a nonstick coating the company says is made without PTFE and PFOA.

It measures 18.5 by 13.5 inches with a 1-inch rim, the standard half-sheet size for a full home oven, and it's made of aluminized steel and weighs 2 pounds. Great Jones calls it dishwasher-friendly and good-looking enough to carry straight to the table, which is the point of the color: it's a sheet pan that doesn't need to hide in a cabinet.

The catches: it lists right at the top of this budget, so it uses all of it. Nonstick coatings of any kind last longer with wooden or silicone utensils and gentle washing than with metal spatulas and scouring pads. And a half sheet won't fit a toaster oven or some compact apartment ovens, so if you're unsure, measure theirs first.

Most cookbooks give recipes. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat teaches the four things that make any recipe work, so a cook can taste a dish and know whether it needs salt, a squeeze of lemon, more fat or more time. Samin Nosrat, a chef and teacher, explains each element in plain language, and Wendy MacNaughton's more than 150 illustrations walk through the lessons where another cookbook would use photographs.

The second half has more than 100 recipes with dozens of variations, the everyday dishes the lessons build toward: vinaigrettes, roast vegetables, braises, a flaky pie dough. Michael Pollan wrote the foreword, and the book is the one behind Nosrat's Netflix series of the same name. It suits two people especially well: a new cook who wants to understand why recipes work, and a regular cook who has stopped improving.

The catches: it's a book to read, not a book to flip through for dinner tonight, and it's 480 pages of hardcover. It has illustrations rather than photographs of finished dishes, which some cooks miss. And it came out in 2017, so check they don't already have it on the shelf.