A $200 KitchenAid stand mixer and Cuisinarts on sale at Best Buy
I cannot recommend a meat grinder highly enough, even when it's not on sale (which is currently is).
I can attest that the best way to make a hamburger is to start by grinding the meat yourself. A freshly ground burger patty will have a better flavor and texture than patties you form from grocery-store ground beef or -- gasp! -- preformed patties. And it's generally safer, too, to avoid store-bought ground beef.
One of my favorite kitchen tools is the meat-grinding attachment for my KitchenAid stand mixer . To prep for burger night, I look for a package or two of nicely marbled boneless rib meat. Run the pieces through the grinder. Add a few cracks of black pepper and a few pinches of kosher salt before gently forming roughly one-third-pound patties. The rest -- bun, cheese and toppings choices -- is up to you (although it's hard to beat the late, great Josh Ozersky's North Jersey Onion Burger).
I also use my meat grinder for making meatloaf, tacos, Texas chili, Asian lettuce wraps and more. If you want to get in on the meat-grinding fun, then let me point out that Best Buy has a KitchenAid meat-grinding attachment on sale right now. And if you need to back up a step and get a KitchenAid stand mixer, well, those are on sale, too. There's also a couple of Cuisinart food processors at discount, along with an affordable espresso machine that's even more affordable today. Let's take a spin through some of the small kitchen appliance deals at Best Buy.
Read more: A $60 digital air fryer and a super-powered Blendtec blender on sale
Buying a stand mixer is a bit like buying a car. How much room and power do you need? This model delivers a 4.5-quart bowl and 300 watts of power, which should be enough for most people unless you are the type to double cookie recipes for a large family (or roll half the batter into dough balls and freeze so fresh-baked cookies are always within reach). It's available in two colors: cobalt blue or silver.
This model ups your mixing capacity to five quarts and mixing power to 450 watts, and it comes in your choice of three colors: black, red or silver.
If black is your color, you can get this same 5-quart, 450-watt KitchenAid Professional Stand Mixer from Amazon for only $320.
The food-grinder attachment is just one of many Kitchen Aid mix attachments but the one that gets the most use in my kitchen. I have the cheaper, plastic model with two grinding plates. This model is metal, which not only means it's more durable but can also be chilled more effectively in the fridge or freezer to aid your meat-grinding efforts. (It's much easier and less messy if the meat is kept cold during the grinding process.) And it comes with not two but three grinding plates -- coarse, medium and fine -- along with a sausage-stuffer kit.
Amazon has the same KitchenAid metal food grinder attachment for the same $70 price.
You can certainly spend significantly more on an expresso machine than this affordable DeLonghi unit, which is even more affordable at its current discount. And it would seem to make a find cup of espresso, judging by its 4.3-star rating from 299 reviews.
With one a large, 12-cup bowl and a small, 4-cup bowl, this is really two food processors in one. It also supplies chopping and mixing blades for both bowls, and a reversible shredding blade and an adjustable slicing blade for the large bowl. Alternatively, you can pick up a basic, 8-cup Cuisinart Elemental Food Processor for only $77, down from its list price of $100.