A home cook who already owns good knives and pans rarely has the small, inexpensive tools that make one task easier: a fine rasp grater, a bench scraper, a thin fish spatula.
Check your private link before you choose: it shows their wishlist, their interests and gift ideas in the budget. A wishlist line like “I bake bread” points to the scale and the bench scraper; “no more kitchen stuff, please” means pick something else.
Eight tools a keen cook often lacks
1. A fine rasp grater
A long, narrow stainless-steel grater with tiny sharp teeth, made for lemon zest, Parmesan, nutmeg, garlic and ginger. Most kitchens have a box grater, and its smallest holes tear zest instead of shaving it. Good sign: lemons and a block of hard cheese in their fridge. Skip it if one already hangs on their utensil rail.
2. A bench scraper
A flat stainless-steel blade about 15 cm wide with a handle along the top. Bakers divide dough with it. Other cooks use it to carry chopped onions from the board to the pan and to clear flour or crumbs off the counter in one pass.
3. A fish spatula
A thin, flexible, slotted metal turner with an angled edge. It slides under fish skin, fried eggs and pancakes without breaking them. Skip it if they cook mostly on non-stick pans, because metal scratches the coating. If they post photos of their dinners, check which pans are in the shot.
4. An oven thermometer
A small dial that stands or hangs on the oven rack and shows the real temperature. Many home ovens run hotter or colder than the knob says, especially older ones. They'll use it if they complain that cakes burn on the outside or that recipe times never match their oven. It's light and flat, which helps if you're sending gifts in a virtual Secret Santa.
5. A spider strainer
A wide, shallow wire-mesh basket on a long handle. It lifts dumplings, gnocchi, fries or blanched vegetables out of boiling water or oil in one scoop, without tipping the pot into a colander. It earns its place if they fry at home or make dumplings in batches. A basket 12–15 cm across fits almost any home pot.
6. A pocket scale that reads to 0.1 g
This one is for bread bakers. A normal kitchen scale counts in 1 g steps and is unreliable for 3 g of yeast or 9 g of salt. A pocket scale the size of a phone weighs both accurately. Look for bread flour bought in bulk and a jar of dried yeast in the cupboard. Skip it for someone who cooks by eye and never bakes.
7. A stack of matching deli containers
Plain clear plastic tubs, all in one size so every lid fits every tub. Restaurant kitchens use them for prepped vegetables, stock and sauces. A sleeve of twenty 500 ml tubs replaces a cupboard of mismatched boxes. Worth it if they cook on Sunday for the whole week or freeze soup. Skip it if they've switched their food storage to glass.
8. A granite mortar and pestle
A heavy stone mortar, 18–20 cm across, for pesto, curry pastes, garlic crushed with salt and whole spices. Small ceramic or wooden ones are too light to grind seeds or pastes well. Good sign: whole cumin or coriander seeds in the cupboard and Thai or Indian dishes on repeat. It's heavy, so hand it over in person rather than sending it.
What to skip
- A chef's knife, a cutting board, wooden spoons, a garlic press and a peeler: a keen cook already owns them.
- Pans. Cooks are particular about them and usually buy them as a set.
- Pre-filled spice racks. They hold ground spices that lose their aroma quickly, and a cook already buys their own.
- Single-job gadgets such as avocado slicers, banana cutters or five-blade herb scissors. Each one does a job a knife already does and takes up drawer space.
- Aprons and oven gloves with slogans.
Giving a knife
A chef's knife is hard to choose for someone else. Handle size, weight and blade shape are personal, and most keen cooks already have one they're attached to. There's also an old superstition, found in many countries, that a gifted knife cuts the friendship. The usual fix is for the person who receives it to hand over a small coin, so the knife counts as bought. If you give one anyway, tape a coin inside the card with a note saying what it's for, so they can “pay” for the knife even without knowing who gave it.
Two knife gifts carry less risk:
- A paring knife. It's small, used for peeling and trimming, and far less personal than a chef's knife. The coin applies here too.
- A whetstone, if they have good knives but no stone yet. The common starter is a combination stone with a 1000-grit side for sharpening and a 6000-grit side for polishing the edge.
For a colleague or a low budget
For a colleague whose kitchen you've never seen, a rasp grater, a bench scraper or an oven thermometer is small, light and hard to get wrong, and all three fit a low budget. More options are on our gifts for coworkers, low-budget, mid-budget and gift ideas pages.
If you're the cook in your group, make sure your wishlist says which pans you use and whether you bake. The Secret Santa generator shows it to whoever draws you, on their private link.