10 Pieces Of Kitchen Tech That Are A Total Waste Of Money

It doesn't matter what era you come from, people have been pitching kitchen tools for decades. Companies used to hock them in TV adverts and infomercials in the old days. Today, it's much the same but now you seem them in the form of TikTok videos or YouTube Shorts. The culture of selling you kitchen gadgets you probably don't need is alive and well. Some of those tools do indeed serve a good function while others are only good for the occasional use and spend most of their lives taking up space. 

One such example is the garlic press. You peel a clove of garlic and put it in the press. It then pushes the garlic through the little holes to create fresh minced garlic on cue. Folks who frequently cook with a lot of garlic swear by the garlic press as an excellent single-use kitchen gadget that saves a ton of time as garlic is often tricky to deal with, especially for beginner and intermediate cooks. Such tools can save time and make cooking more enjoyable. 

Other tools may not have the same distinction as the garlic press for a variety of reasons. For example, the product may too niche to use consistently and simply takes up space most of the time. In other cases, a little technique or creative thinking with basic kitchen tools like blenders or chef's knives forego the need for a specific tool. Whatever the case may be, there are a ton of useless kitchen gadgets out there — let's take a look at a few.

Let's go ahead and drop this bomb early. Most single-use kitchen gadgets are a complete waste of money. It's not that they don't work. Most of them can perform their intended function. It's that most of them are such niche products that there isn't an occasion to use them regularly. Most food can be prepared simply with the aid of the basics and having specialized tools for everything simply introduces a load of clutter for a bunch of metal and plastic that don't really get used. 

The examples here are endless. You have avocado slicers, egg cubers, milk frothers, corn kernel cutters, pickle pickers, vegetable spiralizers, strawberry slicers – the list goes on and on. Particularly egregious are the pickle pickers, which are just larger versions of jeweler's pick up tools designed to pick up small rocks and stones. Many of these are newer products but even older ones like cookie cutters only have limited uses. After all, those Halloween cookies are fun, but it'll be 365 days before those cookie cutters get used again. 

There are two exceptions to the rule that virtually any single-use gadget is useless. The first is if you actually do use the gadget regularly. For example, there are people who eat avocado toast multiple times a week who would be well served with a high-quality avocado slicer. Additionally, some gadgets, like the Slap Chop, are great for folks with disabilities. Ultimately, frequent use and disabilities are the best reasons to own single-use kitchen items. 

Moving along that same thread, the overwhelming majority of single-use kitchen machines are also fairly pointless. These machines are actually worse than the aforementioned single-use gadgets because machines tend to be larger than tools and, thus, take up way more space. Plus, machines can break down and lower quality machines may not even perform the function very well for the amount of time, money, and space they require. After all, big repair firms are targeting ice cream machines for a reason — they break constantly.

Examples of this are similarly long and include things like ice cream machines, hot dog steamers, popcorn makers, cotton candy makers, and other such machines. Crepe makers are just small, round electric griddles with a lip so the batter doesn't spill over. You can buy a regular electric griddle and a set of omelette rings and achieve the same effect while still being able to use those items to make things other than crepes. The same logic ultimately applies here. There are a bunch of ways to make ice cream without a machine, so do you really need a whole machine for something you likely won't use but a few times a year?

However, the same exceptions also apply. If you genuinely make ice cream weekly to take to work or for your family, then an ice cream machine is a worthy purchase that'll save you tons of time. Also, we're going to make an exception for rice cookers since rice is a staple crop and many people eat rice multiple times a week. Plus, rice cookers can make other things too, like cake, fish, beans, and even eggs. 

The Juicero is legendary in how terrible it was. Technically, you can't buy this anymore because the company has gone out of business but in the realm of useless kitchen gadgets, this one makes the all-time worst list for sure. In fact, this product was so derided that for a period, it was the poster child for hyper specialized and over-engineered IoT kitchen gadgets that people genuinely disliked and were worried would take over their kitchens. After all, who wants to pay $700 for a machine that immediately locks you into a subscription? 

So, what made the Juicero terrible? Well, everything, but we'll be more specific. The machine only existed to squeeze fruits and vegetables into juice. The problem is that you couldn't use your own fruits or vegetables. Instead, you had to buy Juicero packets sold by Juicero that would be loaded into the machine and squished. Thus did Juicero become the very definition of creating a problem nobody had with a solution nobody needed. Pouches cost $7 and didn't deliver $7 worth of juice. 

The jokes were legendary. Bloomberg posted an article showing that you could open the pouches and squeeze as much juice out of it with your hands. Juicero tried to get out of it by arguing that the Wi-Fi connectedness of the machine could reject recalled or expired fruit pouches, and the company did eventually lower the price of the machine to $400. Ultimately, it wasn't enough and Juicero will go down in history as one of the best examples of a bad kitchen gadget that wasn't worth the money. 

We've already tackled one-use kitchen gadgets on this list, but the Frankformer is such an abomination that it deserves its own placement on the list. This gadget is simple to explain. It a plastic contraption that you use to cut a hot dog such that it looks like the brand's mascot, the Happy Hot Dog Man. As a professional blogger, that's a sentence I am not happy that I had to write. The Happy Hot Dog Man is creepy at best and terrifying at worst. Why is it smiling like that? It's unsettling. 

So, let's get to the brass tacks. Should you want to cut up your hot dog and turn it into a creature of some sort, a little creativity and a paring knife will perform this exact thing with a little practice and patience. Paring knives are good at other things as well and it takes up less space in the kitchen drawer. In fact, you can probably do with any knife provided that the tip is sharp enough to carve a mouth and eyes into your hot dog. 

In short, this thing is not only completely useless as it's easily replaceable by something most people have in their kitchen but the character itself is fun the same way that horror movies are fun. It runs for $10, which is quite a lot for a molded piece of plastic that's sole purpose is to cut hot dogs to look like the kinds of things children have nightmares about. Skip this one, it's not worth it. 

Of all the materials that are used to make cutting boards, glass is arguably the worst. On the face of it, glass cutting boards don't look bad. They can come with cool designs or have that clear, clean aesthetic that some people quite enjoy. They also come in all shapes and sizes and they're fairly inexpensive on sites like Amazon. They are, after all, usually just piece of tempered glass with some rubber feet to keep them from sliding around. 

Here's the thing. They're terrible all the way around. The most obvious reason is the break risk. If the glass breaks, you'll have irretrievable shards of it in whatever food is in the immediate vicinity and cleanup is a pain. Wood and even plastic cutting boards don't run the risk of shattering if you press too hard. Additionally, glass is terrible for your knife, causing it to dull quicker as the blade bounces off of the cutting board with each slice of a fruit or vegetable. That means more work to keep your knives in top shape, which is irritating. 

Other cutting board materials have their detriments as well but most of them are pretty easily avoidable. Plastic cutting boards can chip over time and there's a growing concern about them releasing microplastics into your food. Wood boards require extra maintenance to remain in top shape but it's usually not a big deal. Wood is your best bet for cutting boards, though, and we recommend those. Just don't buy glass. 

The whole point of grilling food is enjoy the great outdoors, introduce some grill flavor to your food, and achieve those beautiful grill marks that steakhouses have been using as a marketing tactic for decades. So why, pray tell, would you want to cover your grill grates with a mat that eliminates the very grill marks you seek to achieve? Unfortunately, these little gadgets exist to do just that, and their very existence is baffling. 

Okay, let's take a step back on the drama train. These mats are designed to let you cook food on the grill while avoiding the cleanup that comes after and it prevents food from falling between the grates. While those are valid concerns, that's also part of the experience of grilling on a grill. If you want a flat surface with no grates, a frying pan serves an identical function and if your frying pan is cast iron or stainless steel, you can put it on your grill to get a similar result. 

There are other, better alternatives to having a piece of plastic or fabric cover your grill while you cook on it. Getting a flat-top grill from brands like Blackstone avoid the problem entirely and you get the experience of cooking outdoors with the comfort of a flat grill top. An even better idea is something like a cast iron grill or griddle set that you can lay right over top of your existing grates. You still get a flat top capable of searing meat and grill marks if you want. In short, don't get a mat, there are better options for a little more money. 

Herb shears seem like a decent idea on the face of it. They are essentially four or five pairs of scissors stacked up. This lets you cut consistently sized bits of herbs or seasonings quickly without the need to measure. In practice, these things really are just four or five pairs of scissors stacked on top of each other. It does the exact same job as a normal pair of scissors the exact same way except it does it multiple times per snip. 

First and foremost, most people who own herb scissors lament how irritating they are to clean. Herbs get stuck in the spaces between the blades quite easily and can get gunked up in the tighter spaces near where the blades connect to each other, which makes cleaning even more annoying. When too many herbs get stuck between the blades, they tend to mash together and instead of pretty individual pieces of seasoning, you end up with almost a paste in some cases. 

Many people keep a pair of kitchen shears in their kitchen that will literally do this exact same task. Kitchen shears are easier to clean and have a variety of potential uses from cleaning chickens to opening wine bottles. A solid pair of kitchen shears are worth their weight in gold in the kitchen and replace tons and tons of tools like the herb scissors. Sure, it'll take a little longer, but you'll get more consistent results and the extra time you spend chopping will be saved when you go to clean regular kitchen shears. 

If you've ever looked at eggs and thought that they would be better in the shape of a cylinder, then Rollie is the product for you. The premise of the gadget is simple enough. You load it with eggs. The machine cooks the eggs and ejects it out of the top in a cylinder shape. The company says you can do all sorts of things with it, like putting your eggs on skewers or tossing it in a bun or tortilla for easy breakfast sandwiches or burritos. 

Here's the thing, there is something oddly unsettling about how this thing cooks eggs. The cylindrical shape isn't terrible but watching it pop up out of the machine makes it feel unappetizing. The Guardian's review of the product refers to the product coming out of the Rollie as "an alien parasite in search of a host body." They also say that this is a new way to cook eggs the same way that chopping off your legs is as new way to lose weight. It's hard to disagree with the notion. The eggs are completely edible but somehow, it doesn't look that way.

There are dozens of ways to cook eggs. Tubular isn't the best one. The form factor is too restrictive to do anything truly creative and cooking eggs isn't so difficult that it requires mechanical assistance. Plus, watching the machine actually function is surprisingly uncomfortable. This isn't worth the counter or cabinet space it'll take up and if you happen to not like it — which is not unusual among Rollie owners — it'll be nearly $50 down the drain.

Admittedly, this one might come off as a little bit elitist. Many are familiar with the iconic KitchenAid stand mixer. The brand has been making these mixers since 1919 and it's one of the most popular kitchen gadgets of all time. It's useful, practical, and versatile. Plus, modern KitchenAid have attachments that allow you to do anything from making pasta noodles to grinding, mixing, and casing your own sausages. For this list, it's those attachments that we'll be focusing on. 

Since the stand mixer is such a useful gadget, especially for people who bake a lot, many companies have come out with their own. In terms of being a stand mixer, most off-brand stand mixers are up to the task of mixing batters, kneading doughs, and whipping egg whites or cream. This is not an attack on stand mixer brands that aren't Kitchen Aid. In fact, if all you want is a stand mixer, there are options that meet or sometimes exceed KitchenAid depending on your expectations. 

With that said, stand mixers are heavy and large. That means they take up a ton of space and they're not always easy to move or store. If you're going to have one, it may be a good idea to get one that has an attachment system so that you can use it for other things. KitchenAid is the best example of this and a Kitchen Aid mixer with attachments can replace a lot of the otherwise single-use gadgets in the kitchen. For example, you can get a spiralizer attachment, thus eliminating the need for a standalone spiralizer. This versatility makes it an engaging option when shopping for stand mixers. 

Finally, we come to novelty kitchen gadgets. These are the worst offenders. They are generally only good at one thing and their novelty value means that they're typically not very good at doing that one thing. These are tools that are often jokes or unusual ways to do a thing that people normally do with basic kitchen utensils. The Rollie Egg Master is technically a novelty product, although it was gross enough to list on its own. Novelty products can be fun or funny, but they are still a waste of money.

Some examples include the Karoto Carrot Sharpener that is quite literally a pencil sharpener for carrots, the Alli-Grator that is as cheese grater that folds up into an alligator, and the condiment gun that shoots ketchup onto your hot dogs and hamburgers. All of these products work to their designed specifications. However, it's hard to tell if someone ever looked at the carrots on a salad and thought that it be better if the carrots looked like pencil shavings. Plus, cleaning that condiment gun has to be a nightmare. 

For the most part, novelty items are harmless. They're still a waste of money, though. For example, this $20 dish brush shaped like a gnome's head is quite clever, functional, and frankly, adorable. That said, if you strip away the novelty, you can get two functionally identical dish scrub brushes for half the price. The same goes for the $15 Karoto Carrot Sharpener. You can get a reasonably good vegetable peeler for $10. Novelty costs more and it's usually not worth it.