Best Holiday Kitchen Deals

The Ninja Pro AF141 is an easy-to-use air fryer with a measured capacity of 3.8 quarts and a range of cooking functions, including a dehydrate setting. It’s not the quietest air fryer, but it’s not especially noisy either, and our testers found it easy to clean. It comes with pre-programmed settings for cooking different foods, plus a recipe book and cooking charts to help guide your cooking. You’ll get a 1-year warranty with this machine.

The price has gone up $10 from its Black Friday low.

The Chefman RJ38-2T is not only earns our recommendation, but it also carries CR’s Green Choice designation, meaning it has less of an environmental impact than other air fryers, based on its design, energy usage, and other factors. This air fryer receives top scores for its ease of cleaning and noise, and a very good score for ease of use, which reflects how easy it is to set your desired time and temperature.

The 1.7-quart Cosori Lite CAF-LI211 may be a good choice for small households and anyone with limited counter space. It has a 9x10-inch footprint, plus it includes a dishwasher-safe basket, programmed settings, and a digital display. What’s more, this model was a standout in our tests, receiving high marks for being easy to use and clean, and it cooks quietly. This air fryer comes with a two-year warranty.

The Keurig K-Supreme is a scaled-down version of the Keurig K-Supreme Plus Smart, and we expect both to perform similarly. They are among the K-Cup creator’s top-of-the-line brewers showcasing the brand’s latest features. The baseline version now on sale offers four different brew sizes and an over-ice brew mode. This Black Friday/Cyber Monday price is the best we’ve seen all year.

Here’s another one: This is the best price we’ve seen all year on the single-serve Nespresso Creatista Plus—and it still costs a pretty penny. In our tests, this coffee maker delivered each cup of coffee quickly and consistently. In addition to its pod coffee convenience, it comes with a milk frother for drinks like lattés and cappuccinos. Nespresso is a top-scoring brand for owner satisfaction in CR’s member surveys, which reflect how likely owners are to recommend their coffee maker to friends and family.

The Nespresso Vertuo Lattissima earns very good scores in our tests for first-cup speed, repeat cup speed, and convenience, and offers controls for brew size and strength, giving it a very good score for brewing range. This machine may be pricey, but it comes with a built-in milk frother and a 16-ounce carafe. Nespresso machines do require Nespresso capsules, which are more expensive than K-Cups, but considering owners’ satisfaction with their Nespresso machines, the cost may be worth it for the coffee connoisseur in your life. 

The Café Specialty Drip (C7CDAAS3PD3) offers WiFi connectivity, enabling control through Alexa and Google and making it a smart addition to a connected home. We found that this coffee maker was very good at brewing coffee for optimal taste, and it was also easy to clean. This is the best price we’ve seen on this coffee maker in the last several months—and at Amazon, it just dropped an additional $30, marking a truly stellar deal.

The unassuming, inexpensive Hamilton Beach 12-Cup Programmable 49465R, which typically costs $40, might be easy to miss, but it can brew a mean cup of joe at a fantastic price. It has all the essentials in a basic black-plastic finish. It’s programmable and has auto-shutoff. What’s more, it does a superb job in our brewing test and can make a fresh pot in just 10 minutes. This model also performs strongly for convenience and carafe handling in CR’s lab tests. But it’s worth mentioning that this model is more prone to overflow, unlike some other models we’ve tested.

We found the KitchenAid Semi-Automatic Espresso Machine was impressively well-built, especially given its budget-friendly price. It may take some getting used to for beginners, but we found that it produced reliably good espresso shots. This model comes with numerous accessories, including a milk jug for steaming (the only model we evaluated that offered this).

The powerful 1,400-watt Ninja BN701 Professional Plus With Auto iQ is an excellent model when it comes to durability and convenience. It also earns a near-top-level rating in our puréeing test, meaning it can serve up very smooth soups. But it earns only a so-so rating in our icy drinks and noise tests. This Ninja comes with seven speeds and a removable blade, and its 9-cup capacity means it can handle a lot. It was $20 less for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but this is still a nice discount.

The 600-watt NutriBullet Original NBR-0801 Personal is a great value that nailed the functional aspects of our lab testing, earning top-notch ratings for ice crushing, making icy drinks, pureéing raw vegetable ingredients into a soup, and durability. That elevates it to one of the highest-rated, most budget-friendly, and lightest personal blenders (4 pounds). Where it falls short is its mediocre ratings for predicted reliability, owner satisfaction, noise, and convenience (it’s push-down operated). So while it can make excellent smoothies, soups, and salsas, it can also develop problems within the first four years of ownership. It has one speed and comes with 18-ounce and 16-ounce cups.

As its Category 5 name suggests, this gun-metal-finish blender is noisy, but its commercial-grade horsepower takes blending to the next level. In fact, it’s Cuisinart’s most powerful blender ever. With variable speed control from 1,500 RPMs to a turbo-boosting 30,000 maximum blending power, it also features automatic load sensing, adjustable presets, digital display, and a setting memory function. It comes with an extra-large, 64-ounce BPA-free Tritan plastic jar with a soft-grip handle.

The Ninja BL770 plays two roles: as a full-sized blender, and as a personal blender with an internal spinner and cup that’s meant for small batches. It’s a very good performer either way, handily crushing ice and capably preparing smoothies and other icy beverages. It’s also very convenient—though more so when using the full-sized blending jar. In puréeing, the personal-blender version is the star, though the full-sized version still purées very well. The Ninja BL770 is noisy, though—especially when using the full-sized jar. Predicted reliability and owner satisfaction are impressive for both versions.

The Ninja TWISTi High Speed Duo’s intelligent programs and five push-button functions eliminate guesswork while blending or pulsing soups, smoothies, frozen drinks, spreads, and more. The 1600-watt power blender has hybrid-edge chopping and crushing blades, a built-in twist tamper, and a removable drizzle cap that allows ingredients and ice cubes to be added while processing. If you like hearty soups and tasty smoothies, this slightly noisy blender might be for you.

A stand mixer like the KitchenAid Artisan Series KSM195PSBK is a prized possession on many bakers’ countertops. This stand mixer earns an excellent score for whipping time in whipped-cream tests and an excellent score in our mixing tests, where we observe how much a mixer labors when mixing thick chocolate-chip cookie dough. It comes with a stainless steel bowl with a handle, a whisk, and a dough hook. This model can also run attachments like a pasta maker or spiralizer, bought separately.

The Our Place Always Pan 2.0 is one of the top-rated nonstick frying pans in CR’s tests. We find that it cooks evenly, and its handle is sturdy and is cool enough to the touch that you won’t need a potholder every time you reach for it. Its nonstick food release is very good, and it earns a very good score in our nonstick durability test. This pan is induction-compatible, the manufacturer says it’s oven safe to 450° F, and it’s on sale for about 25 percent off for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. 

You can expect even cooking and easy cleaning with the Hestan ProBond Professional Clad 8.5-inch frying pan, based on our lab tests. Our testers found that four eggs cooked consecutively with oil slid off the pan without even a nudge. This pan is dishwasher safe—and oven safe to 600° F, meaning it can easily withstand the high heat of a broiler. However, keep in mind that it’s on the smaller side among the pans in our ratings; most of the ones we’ve tested are approximately 10 inches.

For the gift-giver looking to impress, the Hestan ProBond Professional Cladd set is the priciest stainless steel cookware set in CR’s ratings, and it’s now 20 percent off. This set receives excellent scores for speed of heating and cooking evenness. And for those nervous that stainless steel may cause food to stick, never fear: it also receives an excellent score for food release, meaning eggs cooked with oil slid off the pan with little to no effort in our lab tests. You may want to have a potholder at the ready when cooking, though, because its score for handle temperature is just so-so. This 10-piece set comes with a lifetime warranty.

The GE Profile Opal 2.0 Nugget Icemaker is one of the best options on the market, according to CR’s tests. GE claims it can produce up to 24 pounds of ice a day (our testing did not last long enough to hit the max). It’s also among the quieter icemakers we tried. This slick-looking model makes the nugget type of ice and does it faster than all other models, which earned it the only top score for speed. It also has the highest water capacity and features a large, removable plastic water reservoir, which means fewer refills. It is the priciest in our ratings, making this discount even more important if you’re thinking of buying it.

This AGLucky icemaker produces bullet ice and is among the most efficient in our tests. Its good score for speed is slightly slower than the Opal, and it’s slightly noisier than the GE model in our ratings, and the Vivohome model, above, ranks third in our tests. The company claims it can produce up to 26.5 pounds of ice per day. It has a self-cleaning function and, depending on where you purchase it, comes in up to five colorways (black, green, gray, red, and white). It measures 12.6 inches high, 8.7 inches wide, and 12.3 inches deep, making it countertop-friendly, and its tank capacity is comparable to the other models except for the winner.

One of the best insulated containers we tested at resisting leaks and odors from food, you can now snag this Stanley Adventure To-Go Food Jar for a few bucks off in frost white. In our evaluations, it (mostly) maintained its temperature retention capability. The BPA-free jar can accommodate 12 ounces of food, features a screw-on lid, and has a pressure-release feature. The company claims that food will stay hot or cold for up to 4 hours. 

The Meater+ meat thermometer is one of the most reliable digital thermometers. It’s easy to use, and given its top-notch accuracy, you won’t need guesswork to determine the doneness of brisket and other fleshy delights. It’s shaped like a thick ink pen with dual sensors—one to check the internal temperature and one for ambient temperature—and its size makes it better suited for girthier cuts. The Meater+ transmits temperature readings wirelessly to the companion smartphone app.

The KitchenAid Gourmet 4-Sided Stainless Steel Box Grater features four sides for grating, shredding, slicing, and zesting, along with a convenient 3-cup container that fits neatly inside to catch your grated or sliced ingredients, making prep and storage a breeze.

The GE G8P1AASSPSS food processor could be a good option for those who frequently have large slicing and shredding jobs. It has a 12-cup capacity and excels at those tasks. It also receives a very good score for chopping, but does less well when grating and puréeing, the latter being a task better suited for a blender. This food processor comes with a dough blade, and separate discs for slicing, shredding, julienning, grating, and emulsifying.

The price has gone up about $20 at Amazon.

The 500-watt KitchenAid KFP1318BM food processor masters our tests for chopping and shredding, and it’s one of the lower-priced options with a fairly large claimed capacity of 13 cups. Of the big guys, it’s the lightest, weighing just 8.3 pounds (less than half the weight of some of the other models we’ve tested). That makes it a compelling choice if you plan to store it in a cabinet and lift it out for each use. One downside: The parts and motor are covered by just a one-year warranty. We’ve seen better deals on this food processor in the past year, but this discount of over 20 percent makes it a worthy purchase right now.

The Zojirushi NP-GBC05 Induction Heating System rice cooker may be pricey, but in CR’s tests, it receives an excellent score for convenience and a very good score for its controls. It also receives a very good score for how well it cooks one cup and three cups of rice. This rice cooker is the only one in our ratings that employs an induction heating system that turns the pot itself into a heating element, surrounding the rice with heat instead of relying on heat radiating from the bottom like most other rice cookers.

Kate Spade can make even your kitchen more fashionable with this Kate Spade All In Good Taste 888394 2-Slice toaster. And it’s not just a pretty accessory. It earns excellent scores for toasting time and color range, meaning you can have a crispy slice or two toasted just the way you like in a snap. Plus, it’s easy to clean, earning an excellent score in those lab evaluations. This toaster earns only a mediocre score for toasting one slice evenly, but if you generally prefer more than that, this may be the toaster for you. At half its list price, you might also consider snapping one up as a holiday gift for another toast-lover in your life.

The Hamilton Beach Gourmet 22996 2-Slice toaster is a relatively simple and straightforward toaster compared to some of the more souped-up models we’ve tested, but it does an excellent job all around in our toaster tests. You can expect a single slice and a full batch to come out evenly browned, and because of its color range performance, you can expect it to achieve your desired toast color, whether that’s very light or very dark.

The top-scoring Hamilton Beach 31156 is the only toaster oven in our ratings to excel in all of our tests for toast, plus it does a solid job at baking. It has a novel design: two bread slots for toasting, as you’d find on a dedicated toaster, and a small oven cavity underneath. For those who prioritize toast but want basic toaster oven features, this model may be the right pick.