Winter cometh, but Black Friday kitchen deals are already here. From the only toaster oven you’ll ever love to chef-caliber aprons, we’ve got your back on the best among a flood of kitchen deals. Each one has been personally tested, and attested to, by WIRED staff as fit for your winter nesting or holiday prepping needs. This is the same stuff we’d use in our kitchens, but a heck of a lot cheaper than usual.
Here are some more Black Friday deals, plus our tips for navigating Black Friday. For more recommendations, check out our many product guides, including the Best Cookware and Tools for Small Kitchens, Best Pizza Ovens, and Best Blenders. Or check out the Best Black Friday Coffee Deals.
WIRED Featured Deals
WIRED’s Black Friday 2024 Coverage
Appliance Deals
Photograph: Amazon; Getty Images
The Zojirushi rice cooker is so beloved by the WIRED Gear team that we put out a guide just to different Zojirushi cookers. It’s versatile and simple to use, with fuzzy logic circuits that adjust cooking time and temperature based on moment-to-moment moisture readings. The result is some of the best rice you’ve ever made, whether brown or white or red. The LGC05XB is one of the most basic Zojirushi models, but it never feels basic. It’s the one I keep in my house, and I love it without reservation.
You’ve got an air fryer (what?). You’ve got a smart toaster (what?). You’ve got a combination air fryer and smart toaster. Sing it, or don’t, to the tune of that old epic poem about Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, but the facts remain: The stand-alone air fryer is mostly dead, and the combo oven has taken its place. The Breville Smart Oven is a standout among combo ovens for its even-better-than-expected versatility. The Smart Oven will convect multiple pounds of less fatty french fries, it’ll roast a 14-pound turkey, and it’s even good at baking or reheating pizza. Will it also do tacos—or at least the fillings for tacos? I feel like you know the answer.
Photograph: Ninja
Let’s say you love slightly healthier french fries and chocolate cake. But you don’t have the counter space to give up to a big combo air fryer and toaster like the Breville? Enter the similarly versatile Ninja Max XL, which won’t leave you scrambling for countertop space to carry out other tasks such as prepping vegetables, as attested by WIRED contributor Emily Peck. You can choose settings that include Max Crisp, Air Fry, Air Roast, Air Broil, Bake, Reheat, and Dehydrate. The Max Crisp setting makes for crispy fries, while the Bake setting successfully makes a small chocolate cake. Even better, you don’t need a phone app to operate it.
Is Balmuda the Toaster the perfect little toaster? Is an appliance better because it brings you a bit of joy when you use it or just look at it? It’s a slippery slope, wrote WIRED contributor Joe Ray in his happy review of this Japanese-made little toaster and steamer (8/10, WIRED Recommends). The toast is good, of course. Cheese toast even better. The device’s steaming function livens up old bread, or helps fresh bread retain its springiness even after toasting. But really: How often does a toaster oven bring you joy?
Once you make ice cream at home, that’s it—you’re addicted. It never stops; there must always be ice cream available. Fortunately, Ninja’s Creami can make all kinds of things, not just ice cream. Reddit is full of recipes from people making protein-rich, less-sweat treats in their Creamis. One thing to be aware of: The Creami is not small, so make sure you have plenty of counter space before you invest.
Pizza Oven Deals
Photograph: Ooni
Ooni pretty much invented the category of home pizza oven when the company launched a dozen years ago, and almost everything on its site is 20 percent off right now. The Volt is Ooni’s electric oven, which is what we’ll recommend you use indoors during the winter, assuming you don’t plan to make your pizza in a coat. WIRED reviewer Adrienne So has made everything from roasted broccoli to cookies in her Volt, and she prefers it to the Volt’s closest competitor, the Breville Pizzaiolo.
Kitchen Accessory Deals
Photograph: Vitamix
The Vitamix FoodCycler is the OG of countertop composters, a handsome indoor device that looks like a breadmaker but is in fact a maker of wondrous, nutritious compost. Just throw in your veggie scraps, your pet food, your green waste, and potato skins, drop the lid, and process the results into soil. Plenty of high-tech food recycling devices products have followed its example, but the FoodCycler still holds its own, as long as you don’t get too ambitious with “compostable” packaging or a pile of banana peels. Even at regular price it remains the lowest-cost device our reviewers heartily recommend.
Most thin aprons won’t withstand a sauce mishap and will leave you nursing wet pants. Not these sturdy waxed numbers from Hedley & Bennett. These are the sort you might expect to find in professional kitchens. There’s very little a dad likes to hear more than that a gift is “what the professionals use,” and so small wonder WIRED’s commerce director, Martin Cizmar, put this toward the top of his list of gifts for dad. But there’s an apron for everyone, in themes that range from “bagel lover” to Star Wars. Pretty much everything Hedley sells is at least 20 percent off for Black Friday, so you’ve got your run of the place.
Photograph: Fly By Jing
You already know the person in your life whose hot sauce collection substitutes for all the excitement they otherwise can’t have on a Tuesday. Chances are they already have plenty of feelings about Sichuan-style chili crisp—the crunchy, umami-rich, fried-shallot chili sauce that can happily adorn anything from Sichuan noodles to vanilla ice cream. Fly by Jing is a cheffy, spendy, and slightly more complex take on the genre than unimpeachably classic brand Lao Gan Ma, and therefore fodder for a gift. Note that the whole Fly by Jing site is at least 20 percent off. If I recommend the Big Boi size instead of the basic 6-ounce, it’s the result of my own illiberal habits where chili crisp is concerned.
Soda Maker and Juicer Deals
Photograph: Emily Peck
The Ultra looks like a bullet and it’s built for speed. It’s a quiet but whippet-quick personal-sized blender that’ll whizz together a hummus or a berry smoothie in 30 seconds. The controls are simple: One button pulses, the other blends for a half-minute. And despite its wee size, it sports a powerful 1,200-watt motor and titanium-coated blades that come with a five-year warranty. If your breakfast or lunch routine demands speed and simplicity, this is the wee blender we recommend.
The Ninja Thirsti’s water compartment makes it a bit thirsty for counter space, but it’s our recommended sparkling device for those who’d like to make their own flavored sodas rather than simply zhuzh up some fruit juice. The system, already reasonably priced even when it’s not discounted, comes with a variety box of flavor pods and a CO2 canister. Flavors include lemonade, dragonfruit, watermelon lime, and strawberry kiwi—which may include some B vitamins or a little caffeine for pep. A light appears when the CO2 canister is running low, which is a helpful feature that most machines don’t have.
