Cooking in a fast-paced environment can be a hand full. With the different ingredients to prep, and steps to make, it can quickly get overwhelming. Thankfully, with the right time-saving tools, one can spend half the time it takes to prep and cook a dish. Here are the top five time-saving tools you must have.

Food processor

If you’ve been on “salad duty”—chopping up all the ingredients—whilst growing up, a food processor is a dream come true. Making salads in seconds, this tool is a must-have in every kitchen. Slicing, dicing, shredding, grating, grinding, mincing, and chopping. A major time-saver. It’s super easy to make salads or add vegetables, herbs, or nuts to recipes.

Kitchen shears

Kitchen shears are a crossbreed of a sharp knife and scissors. It’s one of my favourite time-saving tools. Understandably, many people underestimate the multifunctional use of this tool and limit it to cutting things open. Shears can be used to debone chicken, cut bacon, pizza, herbs, trim dough, and the list goes on. Think of it as a super knife rather than kitchen scissors.

Vegetable peeler

This is a great and inexpensive tool to quickly prep vegetables and fruits. It doesn’t just save time but it helps to stop wasting the fruit or vegetable being pealed. With a sharp peeler, you can quickly and evenly remove the outer skin. Did you know the round edge at the end of most peelers is meant to be used to remove the “eyes” of potatoes? Now you know.

Measuring cups

Amateur or Professional, measuring cups make life in the kitchen a lot easier. It’s a hassle-free way to follow the exact measurements of a recipe whether you’re cooking or baking. When it comes to making a great dish, eyeballing, guessing, or checking Google for the measurement conversion may not give you the best results. Precision is needed to avoid adding too much of one ingredient or the other.

Pressure cooker

Whoever invented this bad boy deserves a Grammy, Oscar, and all the awards in the world. Cut cooking time in half with the use of a pressure cooker. Beans, meat, chicken, and tough goat meat will bow down at the sight of it. Some pressure cookers take things a step further with a steaming rack, to cook veggies while your meal cooks below.