The Best Small Kitchen Appliances for Apartments and Dorm Rooms (2024)

• Our Picks

• What to Look For

• FAQs

• Why Trust The Spruce Eats?

Capacity: 0.9 cubic feet | Turntable Diameter: 10.5 inches | Cooking Power: 900 watts | Dimensions: 17.09 x 14.25 x 22.2 inches | Warranty: 1 year

We loved how well the food came out every time on all the different functions during tests, from baked cornbread to air-fried chicken drumsticks. It's incredibly user-friendly from start to finish. However, it's not one of the more affordable air fryers on the market, but between taking the place of several other appliances and out-performing the competition every time, we felt strongly that it deserved a spot on this list.

Capacity:7 quarts| Power Rating:1750 watts| Dimensions:15.55 x 15.55 x 15.67 inches| Warranty:1 year

For a busy home cook, a food processor is almost like having your own sous chef in the kitchen. It aids in quick completion of mise-en-place, does the heavy lifting for holiday dinner prep, and makes mezzes in a flash. Whether you're grating cheese, preparing pie dough, slicing vegetables, or making pesto, the Cuisinart 14-Cup Food Processor is a smart choice.

The design could not be more user-friendly. There are just two large, paddle-style buttons: one for "off/pulse" and the other for "on." There's no fussy touchpad and only one bowl to worry about. The base is solid and doesn't slide around during heavy use. It has an extra-wide feed tube, which means you can slice larger vegetables and grate blocks of cheese without having to cut them into small pieces first. It comes with a shredding disc, slicing disc, removable disc stem, and metal blade for chopping, mixing, blending, and pureeing.

We appreciated that the food processor could handle smaller tasks, such as pureeing hummus, and larger ones, including making pastry dough. It also blended both wet and dry ingredients consistently.

Power: 720 watts | Capacity: 14 cups | Size: 11 x 7.9 x 14.8 inches

Trips to the coffee shop can be an expensive habit. An espresso machine at home can add a lot of savings to the monthly budget and offer the convenience of espresso shots, cappuccinos, and lattes whenever the mood strikes. Mr. Coffee is a trusted brand, especially for electric drip brewers. Its espresso and cappuccino maker maintains this reputation with its semi-automatic operation, simple interface, and customizable brewing options.

The Mr. Coffee Café Barista Espresso and Cappuccino Maker is a sleek, modern addition to your kitchen countertop. The intuitive design boasts a one-touch control panel, simple indicator lights, removable water and milk reservoirs, and an automatic sleep mode after 15 minutes. You can also switch from automatic to manual mode if you want more control over drink customization.

One of our favorite things about this machine is that it fit full-sized mugs with ease. It's incredibly intuitive and makes it easy to create a variety of drinks with a single button press. Another highlight is the sleek and modern design which looks great on any countertop.

Power: 1040 watts | Capacity: 1.6-liter water tank | Size: 12.6 x 8.86 x 11.22 inches

Sometimes, waking up to a ready-brewed cup of coffee is exactly what you need to start the day right. The Cuisinart 14-Cup Programmable Coffee Maker affords this option and more. It's programmable up to 24 hours in advance, and you can choose your carafe temperature and coffee strength. The display is easy to use with large, simple buttons, and you can make as little as 1 cup or as many as 14 cups.

There's more to this model, though. You can grab your cup mid-cycle with the "brew pause" function, and there's an alarm to let you know when the pot is finished, which was the favorite feature during our tests. It has a modern, stainless steel exterior and compact footprint, making it an attractive, space-saving addition to your counter top. It also has a reusable, gold tone filter, so you can ditch paper filters and reduce your kitchen waste.

The self-cleaning feature helps keep calcification at bay, ensuring a fresh cup of coffee every time. The automatic shut-off option lets you safely leave the house without worrying whether you left the coffee maker on.

Weight: 9 pounds | Capacity: 14 cups | Size: 7.75 x 9 x 14 inches

A good blender can be used for a lot more than smoothies, and the Vitamix 5200 excels in that department. This multi-use appliance cuts time when preparing smoky barbecue sauce, emulsifying vinaigrette, or smoothing out chunky soups. In our tests, it was the clear winner for making homemade peanut butter compared to all the other blenders we tried. With a spacious 64-ounce, heavy-duty, BPA-free, Tritan plastic jar, you can blend large quantities, too.

The intuitive design of the Vitamix 5200 makes it easy to use. A single dial allows control over 10 speeds, and a mode switch for high/variable options could not be simpler to operate. The rubber lid is spill-proof and features a drop-in hole to add ingredients or utilize the included tamper to break up air pockets or push stubborn ingredients toward the blade mid-session. The powerful stainless steel blade crushes ice in an instant.

You don’t have to worry about overworking the motor because it has an automatic shut-off to keep it from burning out, and the hefty sticker price comes with a seven-year warranty to keep you blending for years.

Power: 1380 watts | Capacity: 64 ounces | Size: 20.5 x 7.25 x 8.75 inches

If you're pressed for time but don’t want to order takeout, the Instant Pot is your answer. Its large 6-quart capacity can feed a family, and the seven functions take you from pressure cooker to steamer to sauté pan and more. It has three temperature settings and two pressure settings as well as 13 cooking programs to accommodate foods like rice, stew, and yogurt. For even quicker prep, the machine will remember your exact time and pressure settings for the next time it's used.

The Instant Pot Duo 7-in-1 Electric Pressure Cooker has a stainless steel insert with a three-layer base for even cooking and a steam rack for veggies or baby back ribs. Schedule meals with the delay start option (this can be set up to 24 hours in advance), 10-hour automatic keep-warm function, and manual keep-warm function that will maintain safe potluck temperatures for up to 100 hours.

We appreciated the built-in safety features, like overheat protection and safety lock, which avert potential hazards. Additionally, this Instant Pot has its temperature and pressure sensors dialed in, resulting in precise results when cooking. The exterior is fingerprint-resistant, and accessories are dishwasher safe.

Weight: 11.8 pounds | Capacity: 6 quarts | Size: 13.39 x 12.21 x 12.48 inches

Craving a steak but it's raining? Yearning for a panini but the sandwich shop is closed? The Cuisinart Griddler is the machine for those moments and more. It's incredibly versatile with options for a contact grill, panini press, full grill, full griddle, and half grill/half griddle. The grill plates are reversible, too, so you can have a flat or ridged surface depending on your needs. The hinge adjusts to accommodate thicker or thinner items and opens fully, so you can avoid steaming foods or pour on heaping helpings of pancake batter.It's the perfect small grill for people with limited space.

The simple controls make it effortless to operate. The selector dial allows you to choose between griddle and grill, and then the temperature is adjusted with the appropriate dial to the left or right. Indicator lights let you know when the griddler has reached the set cook temperature. Cleanup is easy with the nonstick, dishwasher-safe removable grill plates. We loved how easy the griddler was to operate; just note that the hidden drip tray was easy to forget while cleaning.

Power: 110 volts | Material: Aluminum plates with nonstick coating | Size: 13.5 x 11.5 x 7.12 inches

Overall, we felt that this juicer is an incredible value that can help you incorporate lots of fresh produce into your daily life without monopolizing your counter space.

Style: Centrifugal | Dimensions: 7.4 x 10.4 x 12.7 inches | Weight: 9.68 pounds

Fresh, homemade bread is a completely different experience from store-bought bread, but it can be a pain to go through the process of mixing, proofing, kneading, proofing again, and baking. The best bread machines take almost all the work out of the process, but most are both bulky and expensive. This one is surprisingly affordable and takes up much less counter space but still has eight bread settings, three crust settings, and can make loaves up to 2 pounds. If you likehomemade jam with your bread, this machine can make that, as well.

A large LCD screen shows where you are in the process, and like most bread makers, this model has a delay timer that allows you to add ingredients and bake later; it also has a keep-warm setting. If you’re in a hurry, the Expressbake feature can produce a finished loaf in under an hour. In tests, we loved the machine's solid overall performance when we followed the included recipe but noted that the results were less predictable when we used our own.

Cleaning is relatively easy, with the paddle being the trickiest part. Overall, this is highly reliable machine that gives you delicious homemade bread with a fraction of the time, labor and counter space.

Dimensions: 12 x 11 x 11 inches | Weight: 8 pounds | Loaf Size: 2 pounds | Timer: 13-hour delay | Fastest Bake: 1 hour | Electrical Rating: 1,450 watts

Blenders are great but bulky, which is one of the many reasons why handheld immersion blenders have become more popular recently. Cuisinart has a great handheld blender called the Smart Stick, which comes with a variety of helpful accessories. The blender head can be used to make salsa, creamy salad dressing, and even homemade applesauce.

The whisk head is ideal for creating whipped cream or meringue. We had a trickier time with the chopping attachment, having to cut onions or tomatoes prior to putting it in the bowl, and the results were a little inconsistent. That said, we had more success with chopped nuts.

Given the brand's reputation and the included attachments, the Smart Stick bundle is quite affordable. It's a great option for people who don't have excess counter space to store a bigger blender. However, one downside of the Smart Stick is that the blending head is made of stainless steel, so it could scratch nonstick pots or pans.

Power Rating: 300 watts | Speed(s): Variable | Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5 x 13 inches | Warranty: 3 years

Carrie Honaker is a food writer who has owned her share of small kitchen appliances on this list. As a restaurateur and avid home cook, she knows the importance of finding the right tool for the right job. Her work has appeared in many publications, including Bon Appetit, Allrecipes, and Wine Enthusiast.

This article was updated by Katya Weiss-Andersson, a writer and editor for The Spruce Eats who has nearly a decade of experience as a professional chef. Katya is intimately acquainted with the small kitchen life and knows the importance of finding tools that help you do the most with your space and your budget.

The 8 Best Eco-Friendly Cookware Brands of 2024

Updated by

Additional reporting by

The Spruce Eats uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.