I Tested The Laziest Kitchen Gadgets

Everyone wants cooking to be easier, except instead of leaning on proper technique and mastering efficiency in the kitchen, more and more people are leaning on cooking gadgets that promise to make cooking simpler. But most of these gadgets often make the whole process lazier. I mean, you end up with a worse product. So where do we draw the line between easy and lazy? So I bought the laziest cooking gadgets I could possibly find, and today we're putting them all to the test. If they lower our effort and time making something, and it's still good, then it passes. But if it results in a lower quality result at all, it fails and is classified as a lazy cooking gadget. So it all starts off with our first item, a $1,700 cooking robot, the Pasha. It has a thousand recipes in it, pre-programmed. It cooks everything for you from start to finish. So the question is, where is this going to land for us? I'll be honest, you still have to do the prep and the shopping. It does not have arms or legs or a brain, or I guess it kind of has a brain. We're going to be doing butter chicken. I thought, I have a recipe for butter chicken, let's see how this compares to mine. 1,000 calories a serving, 81 grams of fat, mother of pearl. It's telling us what goes in where. So we're going to follow the directions and fill up each individual container with the prepped items. And I have a little friend, his name is Christian, who's going to help me do all this today. All right, boneless chicken thigh, 12 ounces, goes in container A. So container B gets heavy dairy cream, and four tablespoons of unsalted whole butter. Ginger garlic paste, five ounces of red onion puree. You fill each one up, and then they just clip into each zone, like you literally just slide it out, and it just, boom, clips right in. Oh, what? That's so sick. So these are all the individual spices already loaded up into here. Turmeric, methi, salt, red chili powder, garam masala. It is limited, though. You cannot put more than six spices in any of the recipes. Curry spatula in. Okay, start cooking. Here we go. I'm so nervous. Oh, yo! Oil? I don't know why it's stirring the oil. I've never, I've personally never done that. Oh, oh. First one. Hit it, hit it. Tap it out, man. Oh! Whoa! Wait, it's not going to stir, like, the onions first? I'm blown away by that. The fact that it didn't stir the onions is crazy. Oh! There's not even chicken in there! The pasha is supposed to be a set-it-and-forget-it cooking solution, so we're going to let it rip for an hour, and after we test all of our gadgets, we're going to pit it against my own butter chicken recipe to see who wins. Now, on to the next gadget. You might be wondering what this device is. It's a garlic roller, correct! So Christian, I'm going to give you two cloves of garlic, I have two cloves of garlic, and we're going to see who peels it faster. And go. It's done. Wow! That actually worked crazy good. I'm actually shocked. I might use this. Let me try that, let me try it. All right, now you peel one. All right, you ready? Go. There's multiple layers! Ah! I was so close! I think it works, too. Yeah, it's kind of cool. I like that one. Hey! Not lazy. Next, we have the Rotato. Rotato. Look at this thing, dude. Absolutely beautiful. First, you take, like, a potato, for example. Stab it on there, bring this down. It's supposed to make peeling easier. Let's see. Oh, it stops on its own! I mean, it kind of peeled it unevenly, and it didn't finish peeling it. But it was really cool. Now, try doing that with 40 f***ing potatoes. But you know you can do other things. Not just potato. You could even do a mango. It's so perfect. Is he going to do it in one go without breaking? Grab that end. It's one single strand. This is how long the mango skin is. That's kind of sick. I mean, it works! It also missed a spot on here as well. I mean, it did peel a tomato actually really nicely. Really ribbed. I don't know if I dislike this or not. Maybe, like, while it's peeling... I've always wanted to eat a mango like that. Salt me, baby. I mean, it's lazy, but efficient. I could be doing stuff while that's peeling. Okay, yeah. Moving on. We have the newness. Pineapple corer. In my opinion, I don't see how this is even going to save you time or effort, really. Because you still have to use a knife. Step one. It wants you to cut off the top. Center the blade on the pineapple. Twist it slowly until reaching the bottom. How deep do I go? Oh! Whoa, that's satisfying. Dog! Tunnel vision, dog. Oh, she's sweet. That worked out so good! It is a shortcut. It's consistent. The only downside is there's quite a bit of waste. There's a lot of pineapple in here that ended up not getting cut. This much pineapple. You don't necessarily need this tool. You can core a pineapple easily. Here's how you do it. He's going to time me to figure out how long this takes. So, you're going to cut off the top and then the bottom. Turn it over. And then you'll trim the sides down. Try to stay as close to the skin as possible. If you get too close to the skin, you end up with these sort of, like, little needly bits. And then in half. In half again. Remove the core. Turn. Remove the core. Turn. And your pineapple is done. 35 seconds, chef. At this point, you can actually cut your pineapple into any shape you want except for a ring. But like, if you want to cut it like a brunoise, you can do that. Or you can take it and you get bigger cubes. Or you can cut it into batons. Or you can cut it into, like, did we get the point here, guys? It doesn't need to be expensive. A $10 knife will do the same job. That's not $10. I mean, it takes strength to get that done, too, so it's not making it easier for anybody, like, physically. For the amount of waste, I'm going to say lazy. Just learn the knife skills and don't waste your food, you know? Next up, the auto stirrer. What better item to test than a risotto? The whole point of this is to stop the necessity of always having to stir, stir, stir. The rice is going to go in. I'm so tempted to shake the pan, but... It's an auto stirrer, guys. Might as well add our, uh, shallot and garlic. Maybe we should just skip the toasting and go straight to adding the wine. All right, now it's moving. Little more broth. Why is it staying on this side? It, like, refuses to go over here. Like, go back over here. Number one, there's already an issue with the fact that it's not getting to the edges. You can see that the edges are completely untouched. The rice that was on the edges ended up getting a little too toasted, whereas the rice in the center kind of got stirred. Look at how this area is stirred, but see how this is all undisturbed? It has not even touched this area after almost five minutes of stirring. Do you think it's the wrong size pot? Here's the problem with the smaller pot. It's just spinning in place. I know this device is also for accessibility, but even then, it just did not yield a good product, and we really tried. We're going to call it NID. Next, this. What could this possibly be? A helicopter? A flying device? A new form of a drone? No, it's for cooking bacon. The Bacon Wizard. They actually advertise that it makes a better product. Ballsy of you to say, buddy. I don't think it's fair to compare this to the baking in the oven, or roasting in the oven, I guess, because that takes much longer, so I think we compare this to a pan. So the reason it makes a better product is they say that you end up dripping off way more of the fat, so you end up with a crispier, less greasy piece of bacon. You can only do eight pieces of bacon at a time. How long does it cook for? Eight minutes is a long time. In the microwave, it's a long time. And now we wait eight minutes. While this is going, I'm also going to be cooking bacon in a pan to compare the two. Should take roughly the same amount of time. We've got eight minutes on the clock. Is that how you lounge? That's how I cook bacon. You look like such a diva right now. This is making a weird noise. My bacon's still cooking eight minutes later. This looks about two minutes out, so we'll call this 10 minutes for pan bacon. Shall we? Ugh! Ugly as f***. We have two different kinds of bacon. This, like, matte pink bacon is not crispy, first of all, which, listen, I'm not against non-crispy bacon, but if you're a crispy bacon-goer, you are not going to get crispy bacon. I think the pan version looks much more appetizing. It tastes like Denny's bacon. Buffet bacon. All right, let's take a step up. Hot! It's way more flavorful. It's saltier, too. More of the liquid has evaporated out. More concentrated flavor. How often do we really eat bacon? Maybe once a week or less? Assuming that you're, like, the average person who probably doesn't eat bacon every single day, you might as well just take the time to roast a bunch of pieces of bacon. It's just as set and forget, in my opinion. You get more product out of it. You can do, like, 16 pieces of bacon instead of 8. It'll take twice as long to cook, though, but you'll end up with this much more flavorful bacon and serve more people. Because this is easy cooking, disgusting. We're going to count that as lazy. On to the next. Some items were created for accessibility, but there are people with all abilities that are trying to automate their cooking processes, make their cooking easier and faster with things like the Slap Chop. The question is, does it make an okay product? You already have the knife out. That's what I find funny about this item, is people will say things about the accessibility of it, but you still have to cut it and prep it. I really don't know who it's helping. You can only fit, like, a quarter of an onion in here. All right, go for it. It's still a f***ing batonet. It's not bad. It's not bad for a chili. If you were going to, like, saute this into a sauce, that would work. What about a carrot? It's brutalizing the vegetable. But you know what? I think it's good for one type of cut, which is medium fine chop, rough chop kind of look. You can still end up with a great product with that. I think someone could Slap Chop that celery faster than I can cut it nicely. For that, I'm going to give it a thumbs up. I agree. On to the next. Now let's check and see how the Pasha's doing. It looks okay, but the true taste test of man versus machine is coming up at the end, but we have more gadgets to try. We're back in the microwave. What's in here? Fasta Pasta. I hate that name. It's literally a microwavable box. You put your pasta in there, cover it with water, and you close the door and cook it. This one's going to be 13 minutes. Let it rip. Now we wait. What the f***? Well, we got something to drain it with. Boom. The lid goes on. You drain it. Oh, God. All right. Here we go. I tried to get some pasta. It's a little overcooked. Only a little overcooked. That's nice. I have a little tooth of them in mine. I guess you could hypothetically pour out and leave in some of the pasta water, put a sauce in there, put some butter and some salt, and shake it in that, and then serve it. And just eat it from there and play your video games. I don't have to boil my water. The only downside though, portion size. This is two portions. You're limited to four. In America, that is one portion. It didn't necessarily make a worse product. I'm sorry, Italians, but not lazy. I certainly will not be using this, but you know what? You want to make it easier, less mess, I suppose. Pasta pasta. Moving on. The rice cooker. So to use it, very simply, wash rice going in, equal parts water, level it out, you close it, and then... Now this is going to take like 30 to 40 minutes. It takes a shocking amount of time in the rice cooker, but I don't have to do anything else. And after you press the button, you open it up and guess what? You have perfectly cooked rice. We already know how I feel about rice cookers. I love them. They cook rice perfectly every time. It takes out all the guesswork. I'm usually against single use tools. This is the one tool that I hyper fixate on. You don't have to buy the expensive one. You can buy a cheap one. This makes a better product with less effort. Consistent. Set and forget it. Everything about this is a pro. Not lazy! Moving on. Sistema egg cooker. It makes omelets and poached eggs. Today, we're going to make an omelet. All right. I'm going to do a little cheese. Onions. And tomatoes. And then, a little more cheese. Lock it. Pop this baddie in here. For 40 seconds. All right. After 40 seconds, give it a quick little stir. And we're going to pop her back in there for another 40. Oh. Ugh. It's not fully cooked. Pop it in another 40. We followed the instructions. They did not work. So we're going to add a little more cook time. Oh. Did it bust open? A little bit. The lock is there still. Oh, buddy. Put that between two buns. The sell on this product is that it's fast and easy. It was supposed to take 80 seconds. It took an extra 40 on top of the 80, but I mean, it's only 40 extra seconds here, right? I don't hate it. I think most people would be okay with this, honestly. It's one less dish. You're washing the dish. Yeah. You still got to wash it. You're still washing a whisk. You're still washing a bowl. So it's not saving you on cleanup time really much. Every omelet you make is going to look this way, it's going to be rubbery, and you can't control the way that it's cooked. So you can't have, like, a softer omelet. You can't have a crispier omelet. 100%, it's lazy. It's hospital eggs. Yeah, it is hospital eggs. Actually, that's pretty accurate. That's lazy. Moving on. We have the Veg-O-Matic 16-in-1. They say it creates unmatched knife cuts. Big statement from Veg-O-Matic. We've got these little cube crosshatch. Oh, s**t. Carrots. You just kind of slam it. You just hit it. Hit it. Oh! That's not bad. I mean, that required effort. So if this was to make things more accessible, I mean, you better have some serious tricep strength. Let's try it. Let's try a piece of celery. That was easy. Didn't really cube it, though. Onion. Oh! Wow. Compare this to the average person's knife skills. That's not a bad dice. What if you're like, I have no time, I'm just going to slam this whole potato? Again. Quickly! Ah! Give me another one. All right. Give me something else. I don't care what it is. Let's try a different function. So now we have the mandolin top wavy cutter. Ooh, crisscross applesauce. It's too thin. It's too thin to get a good crisscross. But a good wavy. Let's just get a bunch of wavies. Yeah, get a bunch of wavies. All right. You're scaring me. One downside is this is a fixed blade, meaning you can't make it any thicker or thinner. But if you just want an all-in-one, I mean, it works. In terms of accessibility, like, anybody could use this. It's efficient. It's an added bonus that it comes with a container that everything goes in. So less mess, less stress. Not lazy. We have... I just cut myself. Did you really? I actually literally just cut myself. Let me see it. Ow. How'd you do that so I don't do it? All I did was the exact function it's supposed to do, and I am bleeding. If you put your thumb at the most important part of leverage, it literally slices your thumb. Okay, so you have a single-use product that cuts a banana. And fingers. I refuse to recommend a product that I just cut myself with trying to use it properly. I look almost like a disqualified. Yeah. Thumbs down. And don't drop that though. It'll drip. Moving on. Next, the air fryer. I used to hate them, but have they gotten better? So you got our salmon. We have it nicely seasoned, a little bit of spray oil. So we'll let that go. It's going to cook for 10 minutes. This is very much of like a set and forget. You don't need to like have a lot of pots and pans. So it all comes down to whether or not the product comes out really nice. Because if you cook salmon in a pan, you can get it super crispy, and it's super moist, and it's not dry. So that's what I'm looking for in this. My thumb hurts. Our salmon is done. It looks crisp. It's sizzling. It's bubbling. Oh! There goes your second thumb. I wasn't even intending to get crispy skin, but I think we did. But I want to talk about the top. The top has a nice color, so I'm happy about that. That side's got color. And even the skin. Okay. It's not crispy enough. Did not break. But look at the cook on that. Look how juicy that is. Ooh. It's tender. Wow. That's delicious. That is a fire air fryer. I used to hate air fryers. I've come around to them. It is a perfect example of what could be considered a lazy cooking item, but it really does make it quick and easy. Sometimes, in some cases like this, it actually makes a better product. Getting salmon cooked this nicely in a pan requires real skill. Throwing it in the air fryer, honestly, requires almost none. Dare I say restaurant quality salmon? Not lazy. This is a weird one. You look at this, and you're like, what kind of weird shovel is this? It is, in fact, a meat baller. Let's see if it's intuitive. So you just pack it in there? Do I got to flatten it out or anything, or? This better make them fast, because it takes a while just to stuff that thing. This is disgustingly lazy. I need to just make balls faster, I feel like. So that did a terrible job, and it's going to get a thumbs down. So we have the three-in-one sandwich cooker. Imagine if none of these borders were here. I'd call it a griddle. Yeah, you also can't control the heat on this, so we better pray to God this thing is dialed in like a Michelin-starred chef. So. OK, OK. She's warm. You put that ham in there, I'll smash it. Can you turn down the heat? Oh, you can't. F*** you. And then I guess you close this? Yeah, I guess so. I'm worried about the egg yolk, right? Bang, bang, dude. Woo! Oh, it does touch the yolk. A little bit of a maillard. A little salty, salty. A little queso. Flip these bad boys. Bang. I'm being really careful. I'm just giving it top heat. All right, we're melted. The egg looks cooked possibly nicely, though. At least it didn't break. I mean, it does look good. Not bad. Oh, that just busted. You went pretty hard on that cut, brother. It's pretty good. That's with the ingredients, really, you know? I know it's like a three-in-one, but it seems single-use. It's like you've got to pull it out for breakfast only. You could do the exact same thing all in one large pan. And it's cleaner. You just wipe out the pan and it's done. This is, you've got all the ridges and everything. So, like, I think this is actually more work. I don't think I know anybody personally that's not a professional that would use this. I'm going to give this a thumbs down, personally. Yeah, thumbs down for me. Finally, the moment of truth. The pasha is finally finished. But how did it do? And is it going to be able to beat me? It looks actually very good. It didn't get any color on the chicken, so that makes me worried about the flavor. But smells fantastic. It's a little thicker than I want it to be. OK, our butter chicken is in. And then they recommend to add a touch of fresh chopped cilantro. And that is a robot's butter chicken. And it looks quite nice. We have several blind taste testers trying both dishes to see which they prefer. We did a reset between each tasting. To keep it fair, I want a real winner here. If this robot can beat me, this is its chance. Now let's see what they think. They're actually way closer than I was expecting them to be. They are super similar. Those actually are really similar. I'm not going to lie. They're very close together, like a lot closer than you'd think. The second one had a lot more spice. The chicken is super tender. I think the texture of the first one was like a little creamier, a little smoother. I think the second one had a little bit more spice. And I like the sauce a little bit more. It was a little bit creamier. The second one, it was more rubbery and chewy, but the flavor was more buttery. Honestly, the only difference I'm notating is that the second one is a little spicier. It's a bit more deep in flavor. The second one had a better spice. Which one do you prefer? Number one. If I had to pick one overall, I think the first one. I think I prefer the second one. First one was a little bit too buttery for me. I think number two. Probably number two. Okay, okay. Get out of my face. Total tally is four to one. And the winner is not the robot. Congratulations, Joshua Weiss. Yes! I beat a robot! But it's okay. I'm friendly. I work hard. When you decide to enslave humanity, just remember that, okay? I want to try this one. I'm like actually pretty pumped about it. I mean, that's good. It's seasoned nicely. It's a little sweet, huh? This is the final moment. A cooking gadget that quite literally does it all. And the question is, is it lazy? Did it make a worse product? And did it make our lives easier? You still have to do all the prepping. You still have to do all the cleaning. You have to do almost all of it, except for the stirring and the watching of the pot. So we're going to go with a sad lazy. At the end of the day, cooking is all about making something delicious. It doesn't always have to be hard or tedious or require a bunch of time and energy. And what we learned is some things do make life easier and still make a delicious product, but some things make them worse. So choose wisely. Love you, subscribe. Bye.