2022 Gift Guide: Serious Treats for Healthy Home Cooks

Black Friday is over, so we swung back around the internet to re-check prices and add a few updates to our kitchen and dining gift picks for health-minded home cooks. Some discounts have expired, others are still holding, and we found a few more goodies and deals to add to the list, which includes everything from budget-friendly essentials to splurge-worthy tools to tasty food items. Prices were accurate at the time of the update, but prices change quickly this time of year and products sell out, so shop accordingly.

Cut down on plastic use with these food-safe silicone storage bags in a rainbow of colors and sizes. Stasher estimates that this 7-piece set could replace 1,820 bags every year. Great for travel or home use, Stasher bags are leakproof and safe to use in the dishwasher, freezer, and microwave. Stasher is offering 30% off select styles for Black Friday.

You use a cutting board every day; it should be a good one. Material’s high-style boards come in two sizes and a bunch of great colors, and they’re known for being stain-resistant. Made from 75% recycled kitchen plastic and 25% renewable sugar cane, these boards are dishwasher-safe, and a portion of the proceeds go to charities.

If you’re gifting someone who puts hot sauce on everything, this awesome sauce brings the heat with scotch bonnet chiles sourced directly from Jamaica. Created by the folks at Miami’s popular Jamaican fast-casual (and vegan-friendly) eatery of the same name, this low-sodium flavor bomb is made with just six natural ingredients. For FOK readers, Jrk! is offering a 20% discount for a limited time.

Cramped kitchen? Ninja’s simplest oven-style air fryer is a convection oven, air fryer, and toaster oven all in one. It’s roomy enough to accommodate a 13-inch pizza, 9 slices of toast, or a sheet pan meal. It comes with a 13-inch square sheet pan and air-frying basket, and the price has dropped twice.

With a slimmer base and taller sides than Le Creuset’s classic French Oven, this heirloom-caliber pot would work great with an immersion blender (less spatter) and takes up less space on the stove. Le Creuset enameled cast iron is the gold standard for even cooking, and the pot can go from stove to oven to table with grace. You’ll find the most color options (18 colors!) on the Le Creuset site, but this $199 deal is also on offer at Williams Sonoma, Sur La Table, Macy’s, and other retailers.

This vintage-inspired 20-inch ceramic pie dish comes in three colorways—the royal blue shown below, as well as dark green and a sunny yellow. Microwave-, freezer-, and dishwasher-safe, it has a wavy rim that facilitates perfect crust crimping around the edges of your pie.

My mom always called this “food luggage,” and she gifted me a few Pyrex Portables pieces for Christmas in my 20s. They’ve all lasted decades and still get regular use when I need to bring a dish or three to potlucks, BBQs, or big Thanksgiving get-togethers. You can use the lidded glass casserole and containers for every day and bring out the insulated carrier and hot/cold packs when it’s time to venture out.

One of our favorite purveyors of fresh produce will deliver a 7- to 8-pound box of exotic goodies, including (based on availability) fresh baby pineapple, Asian pear, kumquats, blood orange, specialty bananas, lychees, papaya, passion fruit, and starfruit, to name a few. This is! just one of Melissa’s fantastic fruit- and veggie-forward gift options.

Inspire loved ones to get their meal prep on (or build a salad bar in their fridge) with these sturdy, hassle-free glass containers. The leakproof snap-on lids are made of BPA-free plastic, everything is top-rack dishwasher-safe, and the containers stack nicely in the fridge and let you see what you’ve stored. Macy's has a great discount with the code FRIEND.

J. Crew is doing a limited-edition tabletop collection featuring several cheery cotton prints from the iconic British print house Liberty fabrics. Not just napkins; they have Liberty print placemats and tablecloths on sale, too. Feel-good bonus: reusable napkins are better for the planet. Get 30% off the $40 list price with the code WARMUP.

This is a cool pan, and it comes in seven really nice colors. The ceramic nonstick surface is free of PFOAs, PTFEs, and other toxins, and the aluminum body keeps it lightweight. It comes with a stainless steel steamer basket and a beechwood spatula that nests neatly on a spoon-rest notch built into the pan’s handle.

For those who steam high volumes of food, this modern take on the traditional bamboo steamer makes a sweet add-on to the Always Pan shown above. The generous-sized spruce and bamboo basket fits snugly into the ceramic nonstick Always Pan, the cast-iron Always Pan, and the brand’s Perfect Pot. It comes with a pair of cooking chopsticks and 15 parchment paper liners.

Rancho Gordo is the first name in heirloom beans, and their sampler of founder Steve Sando’s essential six dried bean varieties will be a hit with WFPB home cooks. The box includes 1-pound bags of Colombian cranberry beans, buckeye beans, Domingo Rojos, garbanzos, and midnight black beans. 

A great gift for someone who’s starting out—with their first kitchen or a new foray into WFPB cooking—this small-but mighty blender whips up smoothies, salad dressings, and other small-batch sauces in a flash, and doesn’t take up much space in the kitchen. We know people who travel with it.

Who doesn't need a new sheet pan? This cute set includes one half-sheet and two quarter-sheets that get their nonstick mojo from a Swiss ceramic coating. Made of aluminized steel and reinforced with steel rods to prevent warping in extreme temperatures, they come in four poppin’ colors: Raspberry, Blueberry, Broccoli (emerald green), and Mustard.

Yes, it’s a splurge, but this deluxe gift is sure to make someone's holiday magical. The Vitamix high-speed blender can make cream-style soups in a matter of seconds, blitz nuts into a smooth butter, and transform frozen fruit pieces into a soft-serve “nice cream” treat. We like the Ascent Series A2300 model, which has a shorter, wider pitcher and cutting-edge precision settings that include a digital timer and wireless sensor.

If you want a high-powered blender but aren’t ready to spend those big Vitamix dollars, the Ninja is a worthy option. This is the same blender we featured in the FOK Blender Guide, but this set includes two 24-oz. single-serve go cups for the same price. Target has it for 33% off the list price.

Another model extolled by experts in our FOK blender guide, the Kitchen Aid K400 is a solid high-speed blender with great countertop appeal. This matte dark green shade is exclusive to Target, thanks to a KitchenAid collab with Hearth & Hand by Magnolia. The KitchenAid website is offering K400 blender in seven other nice colors for $230.

For anyone who’d like to dial up their plant-based cooking skills, you can give the gift of culinary know-how with Forks Cooking Course. This immersive 90-day online course is led by world-renowned chefs and educators who will show you how to cook 100+ delicious recipes and master a wide variety of culinary techniques—all from the comfort of home! The next course starts on January 4, and Forks is offering 30% off the $349 price starting Monday, November 21.

Editor’s note: FOK may collect a small share of sales from some of the links on this page, though it doesn’t influence our product picks.