Ah, 2020—the year we all turned into home chefs, bread bakers, and Instagram baristas. In the early pandemic days, kitchen gadgets flew off the shelves as we tried to recreate restaurant experiences and ease the stress of lockdown life. Some tools turned out to be genius investments, but others… well, not so much. Now, those same gadgets are collecting dust and silently judging you every time you open a drawer.
1. Avocado Slicer
This oddly shaped contraption was supposed to be the ultimate multitool: cut the avocado, remove the pit, and slice the flesh. In practice, the pit-removal feature barely works and can even be dangerous if used with too much force. Most people realized a knife and spoon could do the job faster and cleaner. That left the slicer to become a forgotten artifact of your avocado toast phase, says Bon Appetit.
It’s also bulky, which doesn’t help when you’re trying to fit it into an already crammed drawer. Many models aren’t dishwasher safe, making cleanup more trouble than it’s worth. And once the novelty wore off, most home cooks went right back to basics. It was fun for a week—and now it’s just clutter.
2. Mini Waffle Maker
These tiny waffle makers were everywhere on social media, especially during the banana bread-and-brunch boom of 2020. The waffles they make are cute, sure—but making one at a time is a slog if you’re cooking for more than yourself. Cleanup isn’t as easy as you’d hope either, with batter inevitably seeping into the edges. And while it’s technically “mini,” it still takes up a surprising amount of cabinet space.
You probably bought it with dreams of Sunday brunches and Instagram-worthy stacks. But realistically, it’s a once-in-a-blue-moon kind of gadget, notes HuffPost. Now it’s shoved behind the rice cooker you actually use. Cute, but not practical.
3. Electric Salt and Pepper Grinders
They seemed fancy and fun during lockdown, especially when everyone was trying to elevate homemade meals. But these grinders are slower than the manual kind, and they burn through batteries faster than your TV remote. Moisture from steamy kitchens often clogs the mechanism, making grinding uneven or impossible. And if one stops working? Good luck seasoning anything evenly.
Some models even release way too much seasoning in one go, turning dinner into a salt bomb. What was meant to feel high-tech often ends up feeling like more hassle. Most people quietly went back to the twist-top mills, according to The New York Times. The batteries were the final straw for a lot of folks.
4. Rapid Egg Cooker
This plug-in gadget promises to make perfect boiled or poached eggs with the push of a button. But it doesn’t really cook eggs faster than a traditional pot of water—and often makes them rubbery or unevenly done. Some eggs even crack mid-cook, leaving a sticky mess on the heating plate. And because it’s not dishwasher-safe, cleanup is one more thing on your to-do list.
Sure, it looked sleek and efficient when it arrived in the mail. But once you realized it only saved about 30 seconds, the shine wore off, notes BuzzFeed. It’s now one of those gadgets that lives in a cabinet corner and rarely sees daylight. A pot of boiling water never looked so good.
5. Spiralizer
If you bought one in 2020, you probably also bought three zucchini and told yourself you’d become a low-carb pasta pro. The reality? Zoodles are watery, bland, and don’t hold sauce well—plus, spiralizers are a pain to clean. Most people found them too finicky to use more than once or twice.
They’re also awkwardly shaped, making them hard to store. Even the handheld versions require muscle and patience. For many, it became yet another gadget that tried to fix a problem that didn’t really exist. If you want pasta, you’re probably just making pasta again.
6. Herb Scissors
These scissors with five blades were supposed to make chopping herbs a breeze. In reality, they get clogged quickly, and cleaning between those tiny blades is a nightmare without the little comb they come with (which, of course, gets lost immediately). A chef’s knife is just as fast and way easier to rinse. Plus, most recipes don’t call for enough herbs to warrant a dedicated tool.
You might’ve used it once for parsley before shoving it into a kitchen drawer and forgetting about it. The blades also dull quickly, making them less effective over time. For such a specialized tool, they really don’t earn their keep. You probably went right back to chopping by hand.
7. Milk Frother Wand
This handheld tool was trending hard during the whipped coffee craze of spring 2020. But outside of TikTok trends, most people don’t use it daily—and if you let milk dry on it, cleaning becomes a mini disaster. It’s also too weak for thicker liquids, often splattering more than it mixes. And it runs on batteries, which drain faster than your caffeine high.
It’s a fun tool in theory, especially if you’re big on lattes or matcha. But if not, it ends up lost in the back of a drawer next to the melon baller. For many, it was a moment of aesthetic ambition that didn’t last long. It’s easier to just pour the milk in and move on.
8. Banana Holder
The idea is that hanging bananas keeps them from bruising—true in theory, but not really necessary in everyday life. These stands take up counter space and rarely match anything else in your kitchen. Plus, bananas seem to ripen at their own pace no matter what you do. So the stand often becomes little more than decoration.
Worse, the hook can make the bananas tear at the stem and fall prematurely. Most people realized they didn’t need to treat bananas like chandeliers. You probably moved it aside one day to make room for a toaster and never looked back. It’s the ultimate example of a solution in search of a problem.
9. Egg Separator
This gadget is supposed to separate egg yolks from whites without the mess, but it’s more hassle than it’s worth. It doesn’t always catch the yolk, and sometimes the white sticks or drips unpredictably. If you bake often, you probably have your own method using the shell or your hand. And if you don’t bake much, you don’t need this tool in the first place.
It also takes up valuable drawer space for a job that takes five seconds. Plus, it’s rarely dishwasher safe, meaning it joins the growing pile of “wash later” items in your sink. Once the baking craze of 2020 passed, so did this gadget’s moment. Most home cooks never looked back.
10. Garlic Chopper
Those tiny choppers seemed like the perfect fix for garlic prep—until you had to clean one. Garlic gets stuck in the blades and housing, and the smell lingers no matter how much you scrub. It’s also hard to get a consistent chop, and half the time the garlic ends up mashed instead of diced. A chef’s knife does the job better and faster.
They also tend to fall apart or jam over time. The time saved in chopping is lost in cleanup every single time. If you still have yours, it’s likely at the bottom of your gadget bin. It’s the definition of “seemed like a good idea at the time.”
11. Onion Goggles
Designed to protect your eyes while chopping onions, these goggles were a pandemic-era novelty that took off more as a gag gift than a kitchen staple. They fog up, they pinch your nose, and honestly—they don’t work that well. The seal around your face isn’t tight enough to block vapors. And if you wear glasses, forget it.
They’re more likely to make you laugh than help you chop. And since most people cook onions a few times a week at most, it’s hard to justify keeping a space-hogging pair of goggles around. You might’ve worn them once just for fun—and then never again. Straight to the drawer of forgotten things.
12. Silicone Egg Bite Mold
Inspired by Starbucks’ sous-vide egg bites, this mold was a favorite for Instant Pot owners in 2020. But the texture is hard to perfect without trial and error, and many batches turn out rubbery or watery. They also require you to prep and portion in advance, which, let’s face it, most of us stopped doing. And they take up a lot of space for something you’re using maybe once a month.
The mold is also tricky to clean, with oil and egg clinging to the sides. It’s great in theory—protein-packed, low-carb breakfasts!—but for many, the routine didn’t stick. Most people went back to scrambled eggs or breakfast sandwiches. Now the mold lives in the cabinet alongside other unkept resolutions.
