10 Kitchen Essentials You Should Be Grabbing From Dollar Tree

Shopping at the Dollar Tree can sometimes feel a little daunting. Sure they've got cards and little toys perfect for stocking stuffers, but if you're looking to do a proper shop you don't imagine walking into a Dollar Tree... right? Well it's time to reconsider where you should be picking up a few quintessential kitchen essentials at least. Dollar Tree sports a surprisingly robust selection of kitchen and dining needs. The collection is not only rather large but it also contains many recognizable name brands that are sold at a higher price elsewhere.

You may be wondering about the quality of the products you will be receiving from Dollar Tree. After all, most of the products are being sold for under $2. While there is an old adage that says "you pay for what you get," in some circumstances all a utensil or gadget needs to be is functional. You should give everything a rinse when you get home but honestly you should be rinsing every new utensil or tool you'll be using in the kitchen anyways. While it's not recommended you go shopping for fine chefs knives or high-grade ingredients at your local Dollar Tree, it will be worth your time and your money to check out a few of the less fancy necessities for your kitchen. Prices may vary based on location.

Dish and glassware are arguably some of the more important things one can have on hand. While you can always use disposable items after a while those become cost prohibitive, and that's not even taking into account the environmental cost. Having a permanent set of dishes and cups for everyday use will not only give you microwave safe alternatives to disposable plastic dishware, but also gives you a clever way to add dimension to your dinner table.

Dollar Tree offers a wide variety of dishes and cups from plain white, unadorned dishes to seasonal prints that really pop off the plate. Dollar Tree even offers glass alternatives to suit current trends. You can get a set of good quality plates and cups for a family of six for just under $20. If you're buying your dishware anywhere else you're most likely overpaying as a quick glance at Amazon shows that even the most basic and plain dish set is priced at nearly double what Dollar Tree is selling its for. The stoneware offerings in particular are durable, microwave safe, and come in eye catching colors.

Unless you're an enormous food supplier or an industrial processor with the need to peel and scrub thousands of pounds of vegetables per hour, you're most likely using a simple hand peeler for your potatoes and carrots. The same can be assumed for any cheese shredding that may need to be done. In fact if you lack a grater, vegetable peelers slice cheese with ease. While there are some automatic peelers that are appropriate for home use they are generally expensive and take about as much time to use as the hand variety. There's a reason that hand peelers and graters are ubiquitous within both home and professional kitchens.

Dollar Tree sells both peelers and graters and both are designed with function over form. Peelers and graters are just a few of a handful of kitchen tools that are just as efficient for a dollar as they would be at higher prices. Unless you're looking for an aesthetic peeler rather than a practical one there is no reason not to pick up the McCormick Vegetable Peeler at Dollar Tree for $1.25, since Walmart is selling the exact same product for $8.97. Considering you should be replacing your peelers annually, there is really no reason not to go with Dollar Tree considering there is absolutely no difference in product quality.

Whether you're a meal prepper, parent to small tummied kids, or simply like to cook a lot more than you eat the chances are you need some reliable food storage. It can be difficult to keep up with the needs of your food storage if you, like so many, tend to forget about your leftovers or don't bother to prevent sauce stains with this simple oil trick. While there are ways to reliably clean plastic containers that held moldy food it's still recommended that you toss the tupperware rather than reuse it. That's where Dollar Tree comes in. It sells a wide variety of food containers from the well known plastic variety to acrylic containers that are drop safe and see through. The printed patterns can also really liven up your kids lunchboxes.

Doing a quick price comparison with Walmart shows that in general, Dollar Tree sells the same amount of storage containers for $3 that Walmart sells for $7.94. So when you've just recently cleaned out the fridge and disposed of many of your less salvageable containers and need to replenish your stock save yourself some cash. Dollar Tree even offers Rubbermaid in circular, square, and rectangular varieties if you're feeling brand loyal.

Let's face it: No one particularly enjoys doing dishes. Especially the big dishes. The pans, the pots, the trays. It's always such a hassle to wrestle them around the sink, or get them to fit safely into the dishwasher. Thank goodness for foil pans, then. If you're not looking to dirty a pan to make chicken Parm, bake a pie, or need to quickly hack a steamer basket, foil pans are your friend. These pans and trays are oven safe and easy to toss. A no hassle way to clean up after yourself and just get on with enjoying your meal.

Walking through any old supermarket you'll often find bundles of these disposable foil pans for about $5 for two. Dollar Tree, on the other hand, is selling them for $1.75 for one. The price difference isn't that immense, but if you're planning a large cookout or are lacking a solid choice for pans at home then go ahead and save every penny you can. With the wide selection of utensils and barbecuing essentials available at Dollar Tree these foil pans are sure to make any event a breeze to clean up after, even if it's just your everyday dinner.

If you ever helped your grandmother make a batch of cookies or a cake then you'll know that one of the best parts of the whole experience was getting to lick the spoon afterwards. These oversized utensils each have a different purpose based on what material they're made out of. For example, wooden spoons are essential for making sauces. Every kitchen seems to have a veritable bouquet of spoons and spatulas hanging out in one corner for every occasion. If you don't have at least a metal, wooden, and plastic version of both stirring spoons and spatulas, then perhaps it's time you did.

Dollar Tree sells spatulas and spoons of nearly every kind. Silicone handles, silicone tips, silicone everything, metal ends, and even bamboo wood varietals. Any material preference you have for your stirrers and flippers can be accommodated for $1.25. If you're looking for aesthetically charming utensils, then good news. Dollar Tree sells seasonally themed spatulas that are as cute as they are useful. All in all these spoons and spatulas are inexpensive and functional. It is always good to have a few spares around anyways on the off chance you have a few more pots on the stove than expected.

Common sense provides that you shouldn't be reaching into the oven and pulling out your cookies with your bare hands. That's what oven mitts were designed to help with. We're past the days where you have to wrap your hand in a towel and hope nothing slips wrong. While there are still dangers to using oven mitts with wet hands, it's still a far safer bet to use these ubiquitous mitts to protect your hand than hoping you've covered yourself with a loose dishrag.

You won't find fancy silicone gloves at the Dollar Tree, but you can find an entire wall of the traditional mitt style. Unlike some of the other entries on this list, Dollar Tree sells so many charming colors and patterns that if you're aesthetically minded you should absolutely choose to shop here. Other places sell the same patterns and prints of the basic oven mitt design for over $7, while you can buy a matching set of mitts and potholders at Dollar Tree for $1.50. Whether you're looking for a quick and functional mitt or a cute and humorous stocking stuffer the Dollar Tree has you covered. It offers everything from solid colors, seasonal prints, and amusing sayings. It's a little something for every kind of taste.

Whether draining a pot of pasta or rinsing off fresh fruit a colander is an important tool for every kitchen. It's important to know what you'll be using your colander for the most and buying one based on that need. However if you find yourself buying a new colander, consider keeping your old one around and using it for a fun gardening hack. Thankfully, colanders and strainers are another on the list of kitchen essentials that don't need to look fancy, they just need to be functional.

Dollar Tree only sells plastic colanders which are best suited for hot jobs like the aforementioned pasta straining. The plastic does not conduct heat the way that metal does so it is far and away the safest option to pour near boiling water into. The only downside is that plastic colanders are more prone to scratching and staining than their made-of-metal counterparts. However at $1.25, a little scratching or staining makes it easy to simply pick up another, as the same kind of strainer sells for over $6 other places. Another bonus if you're focused on the aesthetics of your kitchen over the base functionality of things is that Dollar Tree sells up to three different colors of colander making matching your decor much easier.

Not to sound like a broken record, but tongs and whisks are two kitchen utensils that simply do not need to be fancy. If they function, they're fine, and Dollar Tree sells different sizes of both whisks and tongs. While their color and material selection may be slightly limited the store offers good silicone options for both. It also sells metal tongs, and metal tongs with silicone heads. So whether you're flipping a piece of fish in a non-stick pan, barbecuing some chicken, or anything in between you can find all your tong based needs at Dollar Tree.

Whisk material selection on the other hand will vary location to location. Still if you're looking for a very specific size and material of whisk, you may luck out. Please be aware that what Dollar Tree has out is what that Dollar Tree has available for that day. No matter what Dollar Tree will have a couple of solid silicone whisks available and when competing stores offer a single silicone whisk for over $5 it becomes clear why you should be stopping into Dollar Tree first. Make sure you know how to use a whisk, as many people are using them wrong.

While Dollar Tree offers a wide variety of excellent kitchen essentials, one thing it does not sell are stainless steel life-time surviving measuring cups. That's not to say the measuring sets the store does sell are bad in any way shape or form. Dollar Tree sells plastic measuring cups that fulfill their function, and offer a sleek red or white option so they can look good doing it. The store even offers dry and wet ingredient measuring cups for all your measuring needs.

Say you didn't use a simple oil trick to make sticky liquid measuring less of a pain and find yourself with an irredeemably sticky ½ cup. You could head out to Walmart and pick up the cheapest ½ cup option for $6.99, or you could pop into your local Dollar Tree and pick up a whole set for $1.25. It takes the fear out of using stubborn ingredients like honey or molasses when you can easily dispose of the measuring cup and move on. One issue with the plastic measuring cup varietal is that any text on the outside will inevitably rub off with prolonged use. Luckily, even without knowing exactly how much of one ingredient you may have in your cup the measurer can be easily repurposed into food scoops for yourself or a pet.

It may not surprise you that a good baker's essential quartet of parchment paper, aluminum foil, wax paper, and plastic wrap can be found on the shelf at Dollar Tree. However, it may surprise you to learn that not only does Dollar Tree sell the name brands you love, but that they are available for less than you'd pay for at your local shopping center. If you're willing to abandon your preferred brand, that price gap widens significantly.

Even if you're unclear on the differences between wax and parchment paper you're sure to know that each of these bake saving essentials have steadily been getting more and more expensive over the years. If you're an avid home baker or simply a fan of quick and easy storage options for leftovers, then Dollar Tree has you covered. You don't have to scrimp and save each scrap of aluminum foil anymore. Go ahead and cover your cookie sheet in it. It will reduce your clean up time significantly. Line your cake pans with parchment paper and take the time to cut the lining perfectly to your pan. You can afford to waste those chopped off edges now.