17 Kitchen Gadgets That'll Be Extinct by 2025

Whether you’re a master home chef or a total kitchen newbie, cooking can be cumbersome – so it’s natural to turn to new tools to make things easier. However, all those gizmos and gadgets can take up a lot of precious space – and some are more useful than others. From outdated utensils that can be replaced with more efficient (or eco-friendly) options to devices that sounded like a good idea (but really just collect dust), we’re betting that the following kitchen tools will be extinct – or forgotten – in the next five years.

red coffee maker with single-use pods, red mugs, bread, strawberries and jam on white surface

Pexels/Karine Monteiro

1 / 17

Say Goodbye to Single Use

Ah, single-use coffee pods. Are they convenient? Absolutely. Environmentally friendly? Unfortunately, no. As green living becomes more important to us all, it’s likely that one-and-done plastic coffee pods will be phased out in the future.

white manual scale with jars of candy in blue kitchen

Pexels/Lina Kivaka

2 / 17

A New Weigh

Whether you’re tracking macros or baking up a storm, food scales are key to many kitchens – but it may be time to let go of those big, manual scale options. New digital food scales take up less space and give you instant, accurate and easy-to-read results.

metal garlic press and garlic on beige surgace

Pixabay/Ulrike Mai

3 / 17

Don’t Press the Issue

While a garlic press may save you a few seconds when it comes time to mince, you’ll likely spend double the time cleaning the garlicy bits out of this kitchen tool – making it a gadget worth forgetting in the future.

Unsplash/Marcelo Leal

4 / 17

The Right Time

Manual egg timers and kitchen timers may be nostalgic, but are they really necessary anymore? When everyone has a digital timer on their phone, it seems superfluous to take up precious kitchen space with a separate timer.

black cookbook holder stand in modern white kitchen

Unsplash/Becca Tapert

5 / 17

Lose the Stand

With more and more of us looking up recipes on tablets and iPads, special stands to hold your page open might become a thing of the past in modern kitchens.

black egg cooker machine with six brown eggs

Pixabay/Iva Balk

6 / 17

Eggy Machinery

If you love boiled eggs, you might be the owner of an electronic egg cooker machine – but how often do you really use it? Egg cookers are convenient if you eat hard-boiled eggs a few times a day, but otherwise they take up a lot of counter space for the occasional craving. Since cooking eggs really is as simple as boiling water in a pot, this might be a kitchen gadget that’s soon to be relegated to the past.

Pixabay/p_kennedy123

7 / 17

In Hot Water

While we suspect classic stovetop kettles will always have a place in our hearts, hear us out: if you’re a real tea lover, it can feel like an eternity waiting for water to boil (and that squealing sound isn’t exactly soothing). An electronic kettle heats water in seconds (sans the “it’s ready!” squeals).

fresh loaf of brown bread on blue and white towel on wooden surface

Unsplash/Jørgen Håland

8 / 17

Bye-Bye Bread Machine

While an at-home bread machine is indeed a great way to fill your kitchen with the mouth-watering smell of fresh-baked bread, it’s also a huge space-taker – especially when you can get the same end-result in the oven.

four white jars with neon-colour plastic straws

Pixabay/Marjon Besteman-Horn

9 / 17

Sips of Plastic

With single-use plastics set to be banned as early as 2021, it’s time to phase out those fun (but decidedly not eco-friendly) straws from your home. Instead, invest in a set of reusable straws that will last for years.

yellow egg slicer machine with brown egg on white surface

Pixabay/Esther Merb

10 / 17

Single-Use Slicers

It seemed like a good idea at the time: a specially shaped slicer to make cutting your egg or your avocado or your mango or some other food easier. The reality? A knife and cutting board will do the trick just as well, without cluttering up your kitchen.

blue metal colander on white bread box in kitchen counter

Unsplash/Jana Niggeloh

11 / 17

Chuck the Chunky Colander

With kitchen space at a premium for most people, it can be hard to stay organized. Replacing clunky kitchen tools – like a big metal colander – with a collapsible version saves serious space.

old-fashioned silver can opener on white background

Pixabay/WikimediaImages

12 / 17

Can Do

If you’re still straining your hand by opening that can of soup with your great-grandma’s vintage metal can opener, you’re in for a treat: new models offer easy, ergonomic and even electronic options that are worth the upgrade.

pink, white and brown cake pops on polka-dot background

Pixabay/Beirge

13 / 17

Cake-Pop Creators

Remember when cake pops first popped into your life? These tasty spheres of cake and icing burst into the dessert scene in the late aughts and were instantly popular – so popular, in fact, that special trays of cake-pop silicone molds were a thing. However, as much as we still love to munch on sweet bites of cake at a birthday party, we don’t need to take up space with designated equipment (just make the pops round by using your hands, instead).

metal manual egg beater on white background

Unsplash/Crissy Jarvis

14 / 17

Beat It

Save your arm strength: manual egg beaters are less efficient (and way harder to use) than electronic mixers, making them prime candidates for phasing out of the cupboard.

green stand mixer, bottles and paper towels on wooden counter

Unsplash/Kaur Kristjan

15 / 17

Pack up the Paper

The days of using throwaway paper towels for every little mess are fading away, as we become more and more aware of our environmental impact. By using more reusable and sustainable materials for kitchen messes, paper towel holders on display could become a thing of the past.

modern kitchen with black utensils and flowers on counter

Unsplash/Mitchell Henderson

16 / 17

Put Away Plastic Utensils

Plastic utensils – from cooking spatulas and whisks to disposable cutlery – can be less safe in the kitchen (due to melting or BPAs). Instead, opt for wooden, metal or other BPA-free materials.

Unsplash/Alex Munsell

17 / 17

Stop the Pop

No matter how much you love the buttery goodness of popcorn to go with your family movie night, do you really need a special machine that can only be used for popping popcorn? While a popcorn machine may be cute, it’s another example of a kitchen gadget that takes up more counter space than needed (especially when you can enjoy popcorn at home via the microwave or stovetop just as easily).