First Kitchen Essentials: The 20-Item List for a First Apartment (And 10 to Wait On)

Most first-apartment kitchen checklists have eighty to a hundred items on them. They are written by shops. A person moving into their first kitchen can cook almost anything with twenty, and the other sixty are what fills the drawers people later ask us how to organise.

This is the list we would hand to someone standing in an empty kitchen. It is also a useful housewarming gift guide, because most of these are things people either forget or buy badly. There are no product links on this page.

The twenty

Cooking

One chef’s knife, 20cm. Not a block of six. One decent knife does ninety percent of all cutting. Spend the most here.
One small paring knife. For the ten percent the big one is awkward at.
A wooden or plastic chopping board. Never glass. Big enough that things do not fall off the edge.
A large frying pan, 28cm. Non-stick is fine to start. Cast iron if you want one that lasts.
A medium saucepan with a lid. Pasta, rice, soup, sauce. Around three litres.
A large pot. For anything the saucepan cannot hold. Five to six litres.
A baking tray. Roasting vegetables, oven chips, anything that goes in the oven flat.
A wooden spoon and a silicone spatula. The spoon for stirring, the spatula for scraping.
Tongs. The most used tool in most kitchens once people own a pair.
A colander. Draining pasta, rinsing anything.

Prep and measuring

A vegetable peeler. The Y-shaped ones are easier for most people.
A box grater. Cheese, carrots, ginger, zest. Four tools in one.
Two mixing bowls. One large, one medium. Stainless or glass, and they nest.
Measuring spoons and a measuring jug. Or a digital scale, which replaces both and is the first thing on our under-$25 list.
A can opener. A plain manual one. The electric ones break.

Eating and storing

Four of each: plates, bowls, forks, knives, spoons, glasses, mugs. Four, not eight. Nobody hosts a dinner party in their first month.
Food storage containers. A set of five or six with matching lids. Glass if you will microwave in them.
Tea towels, three. One in use, one in the wash, one spare.
Oven gloves. Real ones, not a folded tea towel. This is how people get burned.
A kettle. Even if you do not drink tea. It is the fastest way to boil water for anything.

Ten things to wait on

These all show up on the shop checklists. None of them is needed until you have cooked for a few months and know how you actually eat.

A knife block set. Six mediocre knives instead of one good one.
A stand mixer. Wonderful if you bake weekly. Dead weight if you do not.
A full pan set. You will use three of the seven pieces.
An air fryer. Popular for a reason, but a baking tray and the oven do most of the same job. Decide after a month.
A blender. Only if you know you make smoothies or soup.
A toaster. The grill in the oven toasts bread. Buy one once you notice you miss it.
A spice rack with spices. Buy spices as recipes call for them. Pre-filled racks are stale before they arrive.
A dish rack. A folded towel works for a while. Buy one that fits once you know the counter.
Speciality gadgets. Garlic press, egg slicer, avocado tool, herb stripper. All replaced by the chef’s knife.
A coffee machine. A cheap pour-over cone or a French press makes better coffee than a cheap machine. Upgrade later, in the order our coffee gear guide suggests.

The order to buy them in

If the budget does not stretch to all twenty at once, buy in this order: knife, board, frying pan, saucepan, wooden spoon, plates and cutlery, containers. That set makes a pasta, a stir fry, eggs, a soup, and leftovers for tomorrow. Everything else can follow a pay cheque later.

If you are buying this as a gift

The best housewarming gift on this list is the chef’s knife, because it is the item people most often buy badly for themselves. The second best is a good set of storage containers, because nobody buys those until they have thrown away three lunches. Avoid gifting anything from the wait-on list; it is the fastest way to give someone a cupboard problem. For more ideas that will not duplicate what they own, see our guide to gifts for people who love cooking.

Once the boxes are unpacked

Twenty items fit in any kitchen without any organisers at all. Put the cooking tools by the hob, the knives by the prep space, and the cutlery by the table, and you are done. If the kitchen is small, our guide to organising a small kitchen covers the rest.

For the spice question, see the first spice rack: 12 spices to start with.