15 Useless Kitchen Gadgets That are a Complete Waste of Money

Some kitchen tools and gadgets are indispensable, like meat thermometers, a good spatula, and of course, the trusty knife you use for everything. However, there are a plethora of useless kitchen gadgets you just don’t need.

Some of them are marketed to do a unique task, but one that you can probably do with a fork or knife. Others basically suck the joy out of the cooking process. Following are 15 gadgets to skip if you hope to avoid wasting money.

What’s your happiest s’mores memory? Were you by a campfire under a starry sky, with the smell of smoke in the air and the delicious taste of s’mores on your tongue?

If so, we hope you understand why a microwave s’mores maker just misses the point entirely. Now, go outside and use the firepit.

Another silly way to needlessly kill childhood nostalgia is by using a cookie dipper. Sure, you’ll get that tasty cookies-and-milk flavor, with all of the right textures and flavors.

But what about the raw joy of just dunking the cookie in milk with your fingers, carefree and joyfully? A cookie dipper simply reminds you to be less messy — which kind of ruins the moment anyway.

Speaking of dipping tools, you can purchase a pickle picker, which will spare you from having to dunk your fingers in the pickle jar, hopefully preventing the spread of germs in the process.

While you don’t have to admit if you use your fingers, there’s one surefire way we guarantee you can get the pickle out hygienically: Use a fork.

Cupcakes are delicious, fun-sized desserts that bring delight to those of us with a sweet tooth. But what we can’t understand is why anyone would need a cupcake maker to bake them.

Cupcake pans do their job just fine in the oven, and once cooled are easy to clean and convenient to store. This poor device just seems redundant.

Making an omelet can be tougher than it looks, given you must make sure the egg is cooked to the right texture before flipping it adeptly.

That doesn’t mean you need to turn to an omelet maker to do it, though. Practice makes perfect, so don’t write off the pan and spatula just yet.

While omelets can present some challenges, making a quesadilla is easy. This is why you don’t need a dedicated quesadilla maker. How many makers do you even have room for?

Again, all you need to do is flip, and this is even easier than with an omelet.

The pan and spatula are your friends. Use them.

Biting into a hot cob of corn that’s dripping with butter evokes memories of late-summer cookouts and autumn family dinners.

Sometimes you have to take the kernels off the cob, though.

This is something that really can be done quite easily with a knife, so there’s no need to bring a corn cob stripper into the equation. Really.

We get it, sometimes it’s difficult to spread the butter on your toast just right. But how is a butter dispenser going to help you with that? Can’t you simply let the stick soften a bit at room temperature?

Plus, how does jamming a stick into a giant syringe help? Finally, we don’t even want to imagine the cleanup with this gadget.

It’s not tough to cook an egg: You literally just boil water, put in an egg, and use an egg timer. Or you can scramble it. Heck, you can even use the microwave.

That’s why we can’t imagine anyone needing a dedicated egg cooker.

There is so much wrong with this gadget. For one, why would you ever make bacon in the microwave?

Instead, bake it in the oven or cook it on the stove, and voila, you’re done.

If anyone from Italy is reading, avert your eyes: Someone really made a countertop pizza oven that rotates as it cooks.

Even if you don’t have an oven, you probably have a toaster oven. There’s just no need for something so specialized.

Pro tip: If you really must buy any of the devices on this list, check out the deals at Amazon. The website is often a great place to find items at the best prices.

Looking for another unnecessary pizza gadget that will make Italians mad at food? It’s pizza scissors, which are exactly what they sound like.

Perhaps this product is great if you aren’t adept with a pizza roller. But can’t you just use regular scissors? Or even (gasp) a knife?

OK, it’s cute, we’ll give you that. And it might be fun for kids to use and safer than a knife.

But otherwise, a banana slicer is just doing what a knife has done for centuries.

If there’s one thing avocados are famous for, it’s the difficulty of getting them when they are perfectly ripe. They’re either too green or instantly too soft.

But it’s not exactly rocket science when it’s time to make your guac. You simply slice with a knife, scrape out with a spoon, and mash with a fork. A specialized masher is not necessary.

The last unnecessary egg gadget on this list is an egg separator. It’s straight up a waste of money.

Just crack the egg, and hold the yolk in the shell as the white comes out and be done with it. You got this!

There are plenty of items that are helpful in the kitchen, like a good chef’s knife or a cast-iron skillet. But there also are many kitchen gadgets that just aren’t worth the money.

Plus, who has room for all of the specialized unitaskers out there in their kitchen? So, do yourself a favor and let your forks, knives, and spoons be the powerful multitaskers they already are.

Avoiding the siren song of these devices is a great way to save more money.