Features You'll Want In Your New Kitchen Appliances

If you're having a new home built or are doing a total kitchen installation, you'll want to shop carefully for the appliances you'll include in this updated space. Today's appliances can make cooking faster and easier on you and can also offer more control over how they function. Before you have your contractor start designing the kitchen, and before you start tearing out the old appliances, note a few modern features you'll want to ensure are included in your new appliances.

Refrigerator and freezer

Today's refrigerator and freezer combos allow you to adjust the temperature of both units separate from one another. This can mean keeping meats and other items in the freezer in an actual deep freeze, without having items in the refrigerator get icy, wilted, or otherwise ruined because the temperature inside that appliance is too low.

Another feature to look for in a new refrigerator is a sealed crisper drawer. This will lock out humidity while also maintaining a temperature inside the drawer that is just right for fruits and veggies. You'll avoid having wilted lettuce or ruined cucumbers that have absorbed water and become soft while still being able to keep soda and other items in the upper parts of the refrigerator perfectly chilled.

Dishwasher

Look for a spiral-spray dishwasher; this moves the water spray in a spiral pattern, rather than just rotating it, which allows the water to reach more dishes in the machine. A backend scrubber can mean no more pre-rinsing the dishes, as this will offer a strong blast of water that will rinse away caked-on food debris. You might also check on the cleaning capacity of a dishwasher you choose, as many of today's models allow you to reset their cleaning for just a few dishes; you can then avoid wasting the water of a full load if you only need to have a few items washed at one time.

Oven

Choose an oven with a quick preheat feature; this allows the oven to heat up to your desired temperature in a matter of minutes, if not seconds, so you waste less time waiting for the oven to preheat and also avoid having your home get overheated in the process. Many stovetops also come with an instant heating coil, which also heats up within seconds, so you can cook food on the stovetop faster without waiting for the burner to heat up. Timers and remote controls also let you control your oven with a Smartphone app, so you can turn the oven on or off remotely, even when you're not home!