Kitchen Gadgets

I have found that a key component of staying sane, while acknowledging the amount of home cooking required when adhering to a low sodium diet for heart failure, is the use of helpful kitchen gadgets.

Eating a low sodium diet is tough, mainly because it is so much extra work preparing most of your meals from scratch. There are so many kitchen gadgets on the market. Are any of them helpful? I wanted to share what I have found to be useful.

Helpful kitchen gadgets for heart failure meal prep

Slow cooker

In my experience, it is essential that I cook in bulk, and rice based dishes, stews, braising chicken, vegetable based dishes, etc. are SO easily cooked IN BULK in a slow cooker.

A slow cooker was designed to cook in bulk. Keep in mind though that if you have fluid restrictions the liquid in a soup or stew is included. However, there are many different kinds of meals that can be cooked in a slow cooker, and you can easily even find cookbooks just for slow cookers. You can also find slow cookers cheaply at second hand or thrift stores.

Pressure cooker

This is the same idea as above. A pressure cooker can easily cook in bulk. The benefit is that it can cook stuff in a few hours. You can put everything in a slow cooker and have dinner ready within an hour. I have found that it is great for rice and bean dishes using dried beans.

Blender

Our blender has been an unexpected joy! We admittedly got a pricey Vitamix blender for Christmas, but I am sure cheaper blenders would be great, too.

The benefit of ours is that it has the motor to blend nuts into nut butters, milk, etc. I absolutely love it.

Aside from what I mentioned above, I make (salt free) salsas in bulk SO easily and quickly in a blender. Also, if you are not flavoring dishes with cream, cheese, or loads of meat, you end up using sauces. A blender is great for making yogurt, olive oil or vinegar, based sauces in bulk. Making homemade (salt free) pasta can be made in bulk and cheaply, and a blender can help. Said another way, a blender goes way beyond making smoothies and you can easily make foods in bulk. Admittedly I have made high protein (salt free) smoothies in seconds in a blender that were terrific. Again, keep in mind fluid restrictions when eating smoothies too.

Food chopper

This was another surprise gadget for me, although it makes sense. Eating more fruits and vegetables (salt free, yay!) means more cutting things up. And cooking in bulk means cutting A LOT of things up. A food chopper is the same idea as a food processor, but cheaper and smaller. My kitchen has limited storage space. I have a Mosiac Food Chopper, and it can cut different sizes and has a 1L bowl to make chopping in bulk easier. It can dice or chop, and can handle meat, fish, nuts, fruits and vegetables. It makes food prep easier.

What kitchen gadgets help you?

Are there any other kitchen gadgets that make cooking heart healthy meals in bulk easier for you?