Winter is coming, but Black Friday kitchen deals are already here. From the only toaster oven you’ll love to high-end chef’s aprons, we’ve got you covered with the best of the many kitchen deals. Each one has been personally tested, and proven, by the WIRED staff to see if it’s right for your winter nesting or vacation prep needs. These are the same things we would use in our kitchens, but much cheaper than usual.
Here are some Black Friday deals, and our tips for navigating Black Friday. For more recommendations, check out our many product guides, including the Best Cookware and Small Kitchen Appliances, the Best Pizza Ovens, and the Best Mixers. Or check out Friday’s Best Coffee Deals.
Featured Wired Deals
WIRED’s Black Friday 2024 Coverage
Electrical Deals
Image: Amazon; Getty Images
The Zojirushi rice cooker is so popular with the WIRED Gear team that we’ve released a guide to different Zojirushi rice cookers. Flexible and easy to use, it has discrete logic circuits that adjust cooking time and temperature based on minute-by-minute moisture readings. The result is the best rice you’ve ever made, whether it’s brown or white or red. The LGC05XB is one of Zojirushi’s basic models, but it doesn’t feel basic. It’s the one I keep in my house, and I love it without reservation.
You have an air fryer (what?). You have a smart toaster (what?). You have a combination of an air fryer and a smart toaster. Sing it, or don’t, to 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 stands out among combo ovens for its better-than-expected versatility. The Smart Oven will cook several pounds of low-fat french fries, roast a 14-pound turkey, and is great for baking or reheating pizza. Will it also make tacos—or at least taco fillings? I feel like you know the answer.
Image: Ninja
Let’s say you like a little healthy french fries and chocolate cake. But don’t have the counter space to provide a large combo air fryer and toaster like a Breville? Enter the similarly versatile Ninja Max XL, which won’t leave you scrambling for countertop space for other tasks like preparing vegetables, as WIRED contributor Emily Peck testifies. You can choose settings including Max Crisp, Air Fry, Air Roast, Air Broil, Bake, Reheat, and Dehydrate. The Max Crisp setting is perfect for fried foods, while the Bake setting successfully makes a mini chocolate cake. Even better, you don’t need a phone app to use it.
Is the Balmuda Toaster the perfect mini toaster? Is an electronic device better because it brings you less joy when you use it or just look at it? It’s a slippery slope, wrote WIRED contributor Joe Ray in his enthusiastic review of this Japanese-made toaster and steamer (8/10, WIRED Recommends). Toast is good, of course. Cheese toast is even better. The device’s heating function revives stale bread, or helps fresh bread stay delicious even after toasting. But really: How often does a toaster oven bring you joy?
Once you make ice cream at home, it’s just that—you’re addicted. It never ends; there should 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, low-sweat meals for their Creamies. One thing to note: Creami is not small, so make sure you have a large counter before investing.
Pizza Oven Deals
Photo: Ooni
Ooni pioneered the home pizza oven category when the company launched a dozen years ago, and almost everything on its site is 20 percent off right now. The Volt is an Ooni electric oven, which we would recommend for indoor use during the winter, assuming you don’t plan on making 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
Photo: Vitamix
The Vitamix FoodCycler is the OG of countertop computers, a cute household device that looks like a bread maker but is actually a good, nutritious compost maker. Just toss in your vegetable scraps, pet food, green waste, and potato skins, throw in a lid, and process the results into the soil. Many food recycling technology brands have followed suit, but the FoodCycler still holds its own, as long as you don’t go too far with “fertilized” packaging or lots of banana peels. Even at its modest price it remains a low-cost device that our reviewers wholeheartedly recommend.
Most thin aprons will not withstand the danger of sauce and will leave you nursing wet pants. These are not solid wax figures from Hedley & Bennett. These are the types you might expect to find in professional kitchens. There’s very little a dad likes to hear more than a gift that’s “what the pros use,” and WIRED’s commercial director, Martin Cizmar, puts this at the top of his list of gifts for dad. But there’s an apron for everyone, in themes ranging from “bagel lover” to Star Wars. Pretty much everything Hedley sells is at least 20 percent off on Black Friday, so you’ve got your spot.
Photo: Fly By Jing
You already know the person in your life whose collection of hot sauce takes the place of all the happiness they won’t have on Tuesday. They probably already have a lot of feelings about Sichuan-style chili-crisp—a crunchy, umami-rich, fried-shallot chili sauce that can happily garnish anything from Sichuan noodles to vanilla ice cream. . Fly by Jing is a cookable, decadent, and more sophisticated version than the classic Lao Gan Ma, so fodder for a gift. Note that every Fly by Jing location is at least 20 percent off. When I recommend the Big Boi size instead of the basic 6-ounce, it’s the result of my own bad habits where the chili crisp is concerned.
Soda Maker and Juicer Deals
Photo: Emily Peck
The Ultra looks like a bullet and is built for speed. It’s a quiet yet fast personal-sized blender that will whip up hummus or a berry smoothie in 30 seconds. The controls are simple: One button hits, the other is mixed for half a minute. And despite its 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 needs speed and simplicity, this is the wee blender we recommend.
The Ninja Thirsti water dispenser makes the counter a little thirsty, but it’s our recommended sparkling device for those who’d rather make their own flavored sodas than just drink fruit juice. The system, which is already reasonably priced even if not discounted, comes with a variety of flavor pods and CO.2 a container. Flavors include lemonade, dragonfruit, watermelon lime, and strawberry kiwi—which may include B vitamins or a little caffeine for a pep. A light appears when CO2 the canister runs out, which is a useful feature that most machines don’t have.
