15 Kitchen Utensils That Will Give You Abuela-Status Cooking Skills

Taking those first few steps away from the family home into some sort of adulthood is a painful process. As the keys on our ring multiply, things get complicated: there’s the expense, the responsibilities, the interminable laundry. The cruelest gut-punch of them all may well be having to abandon all that good home cooking: the rice and beans, the tostones, homemade salsa. If you work all day or live on your own or — gasp! — are the one in charge of getting dinner on the table, there is nothing more comforting and nostalgia-satisfying than the smells of home from your own kitchen right now.

Of course, you don’t have all day to simmer stock for the pozole or fold tamales, so make sure you grab a box of stock and pre-ground masa at the store. Below, we’ve got you covered with all the gadgets you will need to make the dishes you crave at home. Some of them are the same the same utensils the abuelas use, while others are updated versions of classic tools that will make your life even easier. No one is suggesting that it is even possible to top your abuela’s ajiaco, but that shouldn’t stop you from trying

5 Olla Express/Instant Pot

Instant Pot Kitchen

Canned beans are a wonderful convenience and I am grateful for them, but sometimes a long-simmered pot of beans is the only thing that will do. Before you start to consider how long it takes to cook dried beans, having to remember to soak them the night before or lose 8 hours cooking them on the stovetop, I will remind you of two words you might not have heard since 1980: olla express. The clunky, unsexy pressure cooker, with its black, plastic handles and wobbly piston dancing at the top. It had the power to explode in your face and unleash a hot lava of frijoles negros if you didn’t open it right, yes, but it also cooked them right up in a flash. The great news? No more hot bean lava explosions — now we have the instant pot, which is great for more than just beans.