10 best last-minute Prime Day deals to level up your home chef setup

Building up your kitchen tools, much like cooking, is a labor of love. While it's tempting to buy a cart full of products recommended by popular chef and food creators, those costs can add up fast.

For many home cooks, that means Prime Day is an excellent time to add a tool (or two) to their kitchen setup. As an avid home cook myself, I've definitely spent some time browsing the available deals, so I decided to put those hours spent to use and make a list of 10 of the best Prime Day deals for home chefs wanting to upgrade the kitchen.

Whether you never quite kicked your pandemic sourdough habit or have a basic kitchen but are ready to fine-tune your setup some more, this list is for you. You'll want to act quick, though — Prime Day is over at 11:59 p.m. PT on July 11 or 2:59 a.m. ET on July 12. With just a few hours to go, here are the deals I recommend:

We as a society need to get over our fear of cooking chicken. If you don't already have one, a thermometer is a very easy way to do that — and it beats crossing your fingers and hoping your chicken isn't pink when cutting into it. While there are some really excellent options at slightly higher price points (like this ThermoWorks one), this $11.99 option should more than enough to do the trick. Say goodbye to overcooked salmon and dry chicken breasts.

A quarter sheet pan is an unsung hero of the kitchen. It can be great for organizing prepped food before you start cooking, baking smaller servings, baking items with different cook times, or even as a spoon rest. They're small enough to be versatile to do a whole lot, and these ones from Nordic Ware are built to last (with proper care).

If you follow any chef on social media, you've likely seen them using deli containers — and for good reason. These unassuming containers can fill so many needs in the kitchen, from ingredient storage to meal prep to a nice big cup for drinking from. If you really want to cosplay being a chef, you can label your containers with painter's tape and a Sharpie. Trust me, it changes the game for fridge organization. (Note: while you can 100 percent get these at a restaurant supply store, you may have to buy in bulk, whereas this smaller $10 set is more to get you started.)

Is this a particularly out-of-the-box choice? No, but a KitchenAid stand mixer is a classic for a reason. Though expensive, these mixers are built to last, and — you guessed it — do a whole lot of tasks in the kitchen. You can knead bread dough, make dough cakes and cookies, roll out pasta dough, and fold in ingredients. At five quarts and $380, this stand mixer sits right in the middle in both size and price, making it a great option for most people.

Vitamix blender deals get a lot of love around Prime Day, but an immersion blender can be a nice extension of a really solid blender. Whether you're blending out a soup, making the creamiest homemade Caesar dressing, or even making a smoothie in a pinch, an immersion blender can expand your blending possibilities in the kitchen.

To Cafe Hailee fans — IFYKYK. To everyone else, Hailee Catalano is a Culinary Institute of America-trained chef and delightful social media presence who wrote a cookbook that's perfect for the chef or baker looking to elevate their kitchen game. With recipes like Roast Chicken with Red Wine Vinegar and Honey and Malted Milk Butter Cookies, Hailee's cookbook teaches technique without feeling inaccessible, making it a great grab this Prime Day.

If you love stainless steel pans, they will love you back — meaning they'll last long enough to be passed down through generations. On that note, did you know you're supposed to toss nonstick pans after you scratch them? Using stainless steel can be a bit of a learning curve, but once you learn, you'll get evenly heated, well-crusted food that refuses to stick when it shouldn't. And unlike a cast iron or carbon steel pan, you can use stainless steel to cook acidic foods like tomato sauce because there's no seasoning to strip. Made In has a few different sets on sale this Prime Day, but this 10-inch frying pan is sure to be a kitchen workhorse.

Speaking of cast iron — enameled Dutch ovens aren't just for looking cute on your stove top (though they do excel at that). They're perfect for baking bread, searing off meats before you cook them low and slow in the oven, many a one-pot meal, and of course, soup. The cast-iron center means they heat evenly and well, while the lighter enamel interior means you don't have to worry about seasoning the pot yourself (and you can see when food starts to burn on the bottom more easily). If you're looking for an intro Dutch oven, $50 is a solid price.

Once upon a time, I did not understand the appeal of the bench scraper. Why not just use your knife to help you move chopped vegetables or herbs from the cutting board to the pan? Turns out, that's an excellent way to dull your knife faster! And a bench scraper can help you pick up so much more, with a lot more control. And of course, it's a great tool for bakers who need to easily cut and, in the case of this bench scraper, measure dough. Trust me, you won't regret this purchase.

I do not know who I was before I bought a three-cup mini food processor. At first, it 100 percent feels like one of those kitchen tools you'll use once and never again. But after cooking at my parents' one day and watching my mom mince 12 cloves of garlic without batting an eye, I knew I needed one — my hands have not smelled like garlic in months, and it's wonderful. The capacity makes it much less of a heavy lift (literally) than hauling out a regular-size food processor, and it works just as well for making small portions of salsa as it does for dicing veggies.