The 37 Best Cooking Gifts in 2026, According to a Food Editor

One of the best parts about the holidays is the abundance of homemade meals. If you come from a family that likes to cook, then you know how many reliable kitchen tools, gadgets and accessories it takes to host a great family dinner. You likely also know that finding the best cooking gifts to surprise your loved ones is a great way to show them how much you appreciate their passion.

I’ve grown up in the kitchen, cooking and baking for decades, and I’ve worked for years as a food editor at multiple well-known food magazines, so I love selecting the perfect cooking gifts for people of all levels and backgrounds. Below, I rounded up some of the best cooking gifts to consider this year, including luxe appliances, indestructible cookware, useful gadgets, quirky accessories and more. I included popular bestselling items from my favorite brands and retailers, like Williams Sonoma, Le Creuset and of course, Amazon.

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All of the cooking gifts below are either based on NBC Selected previous coverage and testing, and/or are from brands that are highly rated and have bestselling items with thousands of reviews on its site or Amazon.

Le Creuset’s Dutch oven is one of the brand’s most popular cookware items — and an NBC Selected favorite, so there was no way to create a gift guide for cooks without including it. It’s available in several colors, sizes, limited editions and is practically indestructible. The pot is made from enamel-coated cast iron and is safe on every cooking appliance. I’ve loved everything I’ve owned from Le Creuset because the pieces remain in great shape and last for years without scratches. It’s the perfect thing to splurge on if the home cook in your life is really special to you.

GreenPan makes some of the best nonstick cookware available, particularly when it comes to PFAS-free options. I first got a complimentary cookware set for testing from the brand more than three years ago and I still use the pans today because they aren’t chipped or scratched. Plus, they’re dishwasher and oven safe, and they’re easy to wash by hand — I don’t have to do a ton of scrubbing to get them clean.

A dishwasher safe food chopper is the ultimate affordable cooking gift because it reduces prep time so much. Your giftee will appreciate this gadget because it takes the trickiness out of chopping carrots, bell peppers, lettuce and onions (meaning no tears). It comes with multiple blade types that will allow them to mince or dice anything in any size. It also includes attachments for shredding (like cheese and zucchini) and slicing into rounds, for homemade potato chips.

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AeroGarden is one of our favorite brands here at NBC Selected because it sells products that make growing herbs easy, and helps us save money on fresh herbs that spoil before we’ve had a chance to use them. This hydroponic gardening system grows herbs five times faster than in soil, according to the brand, and since it grows indoors, you don’t have to worry about it getting the perfect amount of sunlight. The grow light has an adjustable height and helps to produce basil, mint, parsley and more.

Your giftee will love olive oil from Graza, which includes one oil for searing and another for finishing, both of which have distinct flavors since they’re harvested at different times of the year. The brand’s popular olive oil, which is made and bottled in Spain, is some of the best I’ve ever used and tasted. It has a high smoke point and prevents me from accidentally burning food. Plus, I love that it comes in a high-quality squeeze bottle that doesn’t easily get misshapen.

Fancy sea salt is a great way to go if you know the cook in your life loves trying new things in the kitchen. Maldon (pronounced mal-din), is a coarse sea salt that’s been harvested in England since 1882. It’s very different from table salt because it has a crunchy texture and each flake gives things like meat a pop of flavor, so you only need a small amount to give food the right amount of saltiness.

This gift pairs well with Le Creuset’s salt cellar (see below). In her roundup of different types of salt, NBC Selected reporter Zoe Malin says she puts Maldon on a lot of things she bakes and buys it in small buckets.

I first tried this ultra-popular Williams Sonoma Peppermint Bark last December because I wanted to compare it to more affordable options I’ve tried. With that said, this bark is worth all of the hype it gets — it’s made with high-quality white and milk chocolate covered in pieces of crushed peppermint candy. It also has a substantial bite to it, so it’s nothing like a candy bar from the grocery store. The bark comes in a festive tin which makes it even easier to give as a gift to someone.

Williams Sonoma also makes a peppermint bark-flavored coffee syrup for that home cook that’s also a coffee lover and takes jazzing up their cup of joe very seriously.

If you’ve ever heard Ina Garten use the term “good vanilla,” this is exactly what she’s talking about. Vanilla bean paste is one of the most flavorful forms of vanilla you can use in baking, and it’s much more powerful and rich than traditional extract. This paste from Neilsen-Massey, which uses vanilla bean pods from Madagascar, has a thick syrup-like texture and it’s filled with small bits of fresh vanilla throughout. This is a great item to include in a gift set to a baker, particularly if they plan to make a lot of cookies during the holidays.

I don’t always keep my oven mitts for very long because they get pretty dirty and aren’t always easy to clean. These oven mitts from Kitchenaid have stayed in great shape, even after baking tons of brownies in my very unpredictable oven. What I love most about these mitts is that they have silicone ridges all over them which help me grab onto baking dishes, pots, baking sheets and more without dropping them. Plus, they’re very thick and I don’t feel heat radiate through them easily.

Every kitchen can use a fresh set of towels for things like drying hands and wiping up puddles of water around the dish rack. These affordable yet high-quality chef towels from Made In are made from 100% cotton and machine washable. NBC Selected senior editor Shalwah Evans has the set of three and says she uses them for more than she’s happy to admit.

“I use these to dry dishes, wipe my hands, fan smoke and wipe water off the counter,” she says. “I even use them as a base under sheet paper when I’m cooking something that needs to drain off, like fried chicken. Fortunately, they’re sturdy and haven’t stained because I am very well aware that no kitchen towel should have to work this hard — but they do.”

A spoon rest is a thoughtful, affordable and fun stocking stuffer for a home cook in your life, particularly when it’s in the shape of ravioli. Your giftee will appreciate the charm and quirkiness of this silicone spoon rest. It fits cooking utensils of different sizes, including soup spoons, ladles and spatulas. Plus, it’s made of stain-resistant silicone and is dishwasher safe, so they don’t have to worry about red pasta sauce ruining it forever.

This is another memorable accessory to pair with a set of kitchen utensils, since it’s both functional and fun. This silicone crab grips on the sides of pots, Dutch ovens and skillets and uses its claws to hold up your spatula, spoon or ladle., so it goes beyond the stovetop or counter. But you can also use it on a flat surface, not just the side of a pot, and it’s both BPA free and dishwasher safe. It’s available in several other animals and objects, including a frog, a dog and an avocado.

If you decide to give the cook in your life the fancy Maldon salt, consider pairing it with this salt cellar from Le Creuset. It’s a small ceramic container with a wooden lid that’s ideal for storing seasonings and salt, particularly high-quality salt that you’d only use sparingly, like Maldon. It has a silicone gasket around the rim that gives it an air-tight seal and it has a capacity of 7 ounces, though it’s also available in 16-, 26- and 38-ounce options.

I love Sur La Table’s selection of rubber spatulas because they come in all sorts of designs, like ones with animals on them or illustrations of major global cities. This monogrammed rubber spatula is an affordable yet clever gift to give to a friend or family member who loves to cook but also appreciates personalized items with their name or initials. The silicone head is removable and dishwasher safe, and it has a curved shape, making it easier to get everything out of mixing bowls.

I’m very particular about only using food storage containers made from glass, like these Caraway ones. They’re available as sets and as individual pieces, and they’re made from coated glass that is BPA, PFAS and PTFE free. The containers will be extremely useful for your giftee, since they’ll have something durable to keep their leftovers and lunch in without worrying about leaching. I’ve used these and they handle heat very well and I love that they’re both dishwasher and freezer safe (excluding the lids). They’re also very easy to clean and don’t get stained at all.

I’ve owned almost all of Ina Garten’s cookbooks for almost five years now and I still wake up every weekend excited about finding a new recipe in one of them to cook. This is Garten’s newest cookbook and it includes 85 recipes in her traditional, simple-but-elegant style, covering appetizers, dinner and dessert.

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I’m a commerce editor at NBC Selected, where I write about home and kitchen appliances regularly. I’ve written about sales at editor-favorite brands like Le Creuset, stainless steel cookware, air fryer toaster ovens and more. For this list, I relied on my knowledge as a food and kitchen editor for more than five years and rounded up recommendations from my colleagues at NBC Selected. I also include trusted products from brands and retailers we write about frequently.