Kitchen gadgets for athletes are kind of love/hate, right? We all want the gadget that will make it easier to eat healthy more often, and save time, but we end up buying a ton of crap as a result. (We owned an egg hard-boiler, for instance. Though at least that was a gift… that we did eventually give away!) We have a few that we genuinely use at least weekly, often more, that we think are well worth the investment and really do make eating well a lot easier. They’re not earth-shattering, but I guarantee they work ridiculously well for time-crunched athlete who want eating heathy to be easy.
(Note: the ones I recommend here tend to be pricier models versus the bargain basement ones, but that’s because they’re the ones we’ve bought at retail because we’ve also bought a lot of crappy bargain ones over the years that didn’t hold up. Buy good quality now, avoid hassles/broken crap later.)
A Pressure Cooker
It is almost annoying how useful this thing is. Stews in an hour instead of 10, bone broth in 40 minutes, a whole chicken cooked perfectly in 50? Hell, yes. And—as I recently learned—you can hardboil 15 eggs at a time to absolute perfection in this thing. As far as time savers, a pressure cooker is the #1. I know it’s super cliche and nearly out of style at this point, but it’s honestly been the greatest piece of kitchenware we’ve gotten… and we were really reluctant about it at first because we didn’t want another big kitchen thing taking up space! But we use it at least twice a week, and more in the winter when we’re more stew-inclined.
Easy Instant Pot Recipes for Busy Athletes
A Good Blender
This, like I’ll say about the Soda Stream in a minute, is one place where spending money at the outset saves in the long run. I’ve owned a lot of cheap blenders in my time, and when we finally got a Vitamix, that’s when I started actually using a blender! Before then, I broke them regularly, they couldn’t blend ice, and they definitely couldn’t blend a hot soup! For getting a lot of veggies snuck into a meal, for turning squash into a creamy soup and for the obvious athlete-friendly post-workout smoothie, a good blender is critical.
(Psst… for a good blender recipe, check out my high-protein salad dressing here!)
A Good Knife
I cannot stress enough how helpful a good knife is when it comes to salad prep. The amount of veggies I eat because it’s easy to chop them is exponentially greater than when I lived in my college apartment with garbage knives. It’s hilarious what makes a difference when it comes to moving the needle towards healthy eating, but if you make it easy to add a ton of veggies to each dish, you’ll add more veggies to each dish. It’s not exactly rocket science. (Insert rocket joke referring to arugula for the Brits. I’ll see myself out.) Pro tip here: Please don’t get a cheapie knife block assuming that more is better. Just get an 8 or 10-inch chef’s knife. That’s the only one that needs to be amazing.
Making a Baller Big Salad — Your Quick Video Guide + Recipe
A rice cooker
As someone who cannot cook oatmeal or rice without wrecking it on a stovetop, this $20 gadget is a lifesaver. It’s critical if you’re a serious athlete who regularly makes rice bars as ride food or loves a good burrito bowl. (Also fantastic for quinoa, and in a pinch, we even used it as a hot plate to cook eggs in a hotel!) And yes, your Instant Pot can cook rice but we’ve found that a) pulling it out just to make rice feels a little like overkill and this is much easier to clean and have on the counter, and b) a lot of the time, they’re going simultaneously because we’re making a side dish of rice for whatever is cooking. Also, I don’t love how Instant Pot rice turns out, I haven’t gotten the hang of it yet, but that’s more a personal failing.
A Soda Stream
I started writing ‘a water carbonator’ as the title to this one but that is inaccurate. We’ve bought off-brand ones in the past, and you know what? One broke and one went out of business and it was impossible to get a new cartridge. So in this case, I am NOT brand-agnostic and I will say that the Soda Stream is the way to go. It saves a ton of cash if you’re a seltzer person, and I also love it for making much more watered-down cocktails that still feel indulgent but force me to hydrate while I drink!
My final caveat: Less really is more with kitchen stuff. If you get any of these, make sure you have the space to keep them front and center, because if you have to store them in the spare closet or the garage, they will not get used. I promise.
