It’s been ages since I shared any confessions, but I’ve been saving this one for a rainy day. Here it is: we LOVE kitchen small appliances in our house and we have WAY too many of them.

Some of them are totally useful, probably a staple in most kitchens, and not all that weird. These include:

Keurig machine (we also have a French press) – we use this every morning for coffee. If it dies, we’ll look at just getting a coffee pot since Brian wasn’t drinking coffee when we got the Keurig. We use ours with reusable K-cups and coffee from Costco so it doesn’t cost us anymore than a regular coffee pot.

Toaster Oven – we use this instead of a toaster, but it has convection so I also use it for baking small pans of cookies/chicken/whatever.

Blender – we have a Ninja blender with the big pitcher and 3 on-the-go cups. I’d say we use this almost every day for smoothies. We also have a (separate) coffee grinder.

Slow cooker – we have the original 6 Qt Crockpot one and it gets used at least 3 times a week to cook meat for supper while we’re at work.

NEW fun appliances include our Instant Pot, which I got for Christmas and I LOVE for meal prep on the weekends and for making homemade yogurt, applesauce, soup, etc. etc. and a T-fal acti-fry air fryer which Brian desperately wanted. It makes delicious sweet potato fries, chicken wings (no oil!), and other roasted veggies. We have yet to try a stir-fry in it, but I’m sure I will love that too. I couldn’t rationalize buying either one of these appliances but I have used each of them at least twice a week over the past 6 weeks.

Here are some of our more obscure small appliances:

Breakfast sandwich maker – I’ve been using this more and more because Molly loves breakfast sandwiches and she will happily eat them in the morning. I use whole wheat english muffins, egg and cheese in hers and sometimes send them for lunches too.

Yonanas maker – we haven’t used this since the summer, but it is a great healthy option compared to ice cream. Brian bought me this once for our anniversary because he noticed that I “love to freeze bananas” lol.

Breadmaker – We don’t use this as frequently as we used to because Brian and I are trying to eat less carbs and I CANNOT resist homemade bread. It’s still great for making dough and the kids love homemade bread too.

Vegetable spiralizer: Used most frequently for zucchini noodles, although I also make sweet potato noodles sometimes. I use this a few times a month.

Mandolin slicer – this one is on its way out; haven’t used it in almost a year. We used to use it a lot for potatoes.

Dehydrator – Brian’s parents bought us this for Christmas a few years ago for Brian to dry his hot peppers, which has been great for him. We’ve been using it A LOT lately (several times a week) for apple chips, beef jerky, and kale chips. I’ve also tried zucchini chips and they were delicious! Next up is fruit leather sometime.

Rice cooker- this one is on its way out because our new Instant Pot cooks rice!

Waffle maker – we actually need to replace this because the one we have isn’t non-stick anymore and it was cheap. The girls love waffles and I prefer to make them from scratch and warm them up throughout the week. I also love to cook scrambled eggs in a waffle maker.

Electronic food scale – I’ve found this very handy (and quite small) especially when I’m trying to track macros. It’s also great for baking or some recipes without conversions.

Immersion blender – fantastic for pureeing soups and homemade apple sauce which I make every single weekend.

Popcorn maker – we use this quite a bit; we used to use it more, but we’ll still never let it go because it makes homemade popcorn taste delicious.

I’ve put a lot of thought into why I love having so many of these little appliances (they do take up a lot of space, obviously, and I am trying to embrace minimalism a bit!). Although there are a few that we have gotten rid of or intend to get rid of, I use most of them quite regularly. I know that my oven and stove can do a lot of this cooking too, but having some of these appliances that I can just set and forget about are great because I can focus on other things (i.e. cleaning, other meal prep, parenting, kid time).

I’d love to share some more of the ways we use these appliances in another round up post if anyone is interested – they all help me REMARKABLY with ahead-of-time meal prep and healthy snacks.

Do you have a weird obsession with small appliances in your kitchen?! Any fun recipes to share with me?