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To let you in on a little behind the scenes action here at Epicurious, our plucky little team spends the month of November sifting through literally thousands of Black Friday discounts, as well as plenty of Black Friday “discounts” (oh really, there’s a $2 off deal on a some ice cube tray I’ve never heard of before? Thanks. Pass.). We do that in an attempt to give you the best deals on kitchen products we know, we love, we have rigorously tested. But even after we’ve culled what we find in the overwhelming number of spreadsheets and emails, there’s still a lot left for you to deal with. As the leader of the team that tests hundreds and hundreds of items every year for our product reviews I wanted to make this nice and easy for you: This short list of 15 items represents the ones I think are essential pick ups this year.
Spinn Coffee Maker
I’ve been going on (and on and on according to some people in my life) about the Spinn since I first used it earlier this year and pegged it as an early finalist for our Kitchen MVP awards. It doesn’t exactly make espresso, pour-over coffee, or cold brew—but it will try to trick you into thinking it does. It uses a centrifuge to adjust coffee brewing parameters like time and extraction to simulate the coffee you get from all those brewing methods. The results, for something that only requires a single button push to do, well, everything, are quite impressive. If you don’t want to own a baker’s dozen of coffee brewing apparatuses like I do, this is the sort of Swiss Army Knife machine you should pick up instead. It’s 40% off for Black Friday. If you want to complete the package, consider picking up the Spinn milk frother, which can do both hot and cold foam for your cappuccinos and lattes.
Fellow Ode Generation 2
Sorry to come at you with more coffee, but this is a deal on my absolute favorite coffee grinder. Fellow’s equipment is beautiful across the board, but their Ode burr grinder is wonderfully compact and such a heavy duty piece of equipment for the price. The only thing it can’t do (as I go on at length about here) is grind for espresso, but if you make your coffee literally any other way you’ll be delighted with this.
Breville ovens
Breville countertop ovens (call them toaster ovens, call them air fryers, call them dear family friends) are as close to an oven oven as you can get while staying in the small appliance category. They can do just about anything, including cooking a small turkey, fitting an entire Dutch oven inside to bake bread or slow cook, and bake multiple racks of cookies at once. They also do all the toaster oven stuff: frozen pizzas, french fries, nuggets for the kids. For the better part of a year I’ve actually been exclusively using Breville’s Joule oven as my only oven while my kitchen got ripped apart and I was able to keep up a surprisingly robust level of cooking. The Joule comes with smart features from the wonderful nerds at Chefsteps who program recipes like the one for peanut butter cookies that toggles heating elements automatically to ensure browned bottoms without overbaked tops. It’s $100 off right now, but if you aren’t a techy features person, the Smart Oven Pro can do almost all of what the Joule can do for more than $100 less.
Le Creuset Dutch Oven
A good Dutch oven is a fundamental building block of any cookware set. You need it for braises, simmered sauces, bread baking, and deep frying, just to name a few. And Dutch ovens don’t come any better than Le Creuset’s. The 5.5-quart size is what we think you need for most cooking projects. Do note that the pricing on these changes based on which color you choose, so if you want the best deal you may not get to be picky about what it looks like on the stovetop.
Tineco Floor S7 Pro
I hate cleaning. I’m also bad at it. One thing that has made me a more useful partner in this respect though has been the acquisition of a Tineco mop vac, that is, a cordless machine that both sucks debris off your floor and washes simultaneously. My colleague Emily Farris (who is an excellent cleaner) has called these “life changing” pieces of equipment and I’m inclined to agree. They may be even more life changing for the cleaning challenged like me. The very best mop vac we’ve tested from Tineco is 30% for Black Friday and whether you like cleaning or not, picking one of these up will make it faster and more enjoyable.
Thermapen One
The only way you should be judging the doneness of any kind of meat in my opinion is by taking its temperature and the best way to do that is with an Instant read thermometer. Thermapen has long made our favorite instant read and their super fast Thermapen One is more than 35% off.
Vitamix Propel 510
It wouldn’t be a big sale day without a discount on a Vitamix blender. This year I’m liking the Propel 510 deal. The larger Propel 750 is also on sale but it costs a bit more. The 510 is going to do all the blending you need and save you some money in the process. Here are two secrets I’ll tell you after using several Vitamixes: Bigger is not always better. Sometimes It’s hard to get everything pressed down towards the blades in a larger container, and, unless you have a lot of soup to make this 48 ounce size will work for most applications. Also, paying for more programs on a blender (the 750 has five to the 510’s three) is not the best use of money. You can accomplish much of what a pre-programmed blender session does on your own.
All-Clad D5 10-Piece Set
As a general rule we at Epi don’t like to recommend sets of pots and pans. I know they call like a siren to anyone who has ever made a wedding registry, but they typically make you pay for a few substandard pieces or pieces you don’t even need at all. Not so with this small set from All-Clad. The brand’s D5 line is elite from its stock pots to its skillets and there are good practical uses for everything in here. The 50% off deal puts it over the top. If you’re revamping your cookware collection, you’ll probably need to supplement this set with things like a Dutch oven (see above) or a cast iron skillet, but this will get you almost everything you need.
Oxo everything
I think Oxo’s best stuff is generally small and inexpensive, so seeing a few dollars off might not move you to jump on a particular deal, but this is your chance to Oxo up your kitchen junk drawer and start using better designed measuring cups, peelers, and scrapers. Here are some of the most vital things Oxo has on sale.
GE Profile Smart Stand Mixer
During our stand mixer testing, the big knock on this Wi-Fi enabled mixer (other than its price tag) was that it was too big and too powerful. But I think there are lots of people out there who might believe it’s impossible for a stand mixer to be too powerful. Also, if you use the companion app you can rely on the mixer’s technology to automatically adjust the torque to prevent over- or under-mixing. Also, the price is less shocking at the moment because it’s 50% off what it was when we first reviewed it.
