Sales to Skip During Amazon Prime Big Deal Days (and What to Get Instead)

Skip: Cuisinart Air Fryer Toaster Oven

It struggled with just about every task we gave it, from toast (way too pale) to broiled asparagus (limp and pale). Temperature tests showed it missed target temperatures by a whopping 85 degrees. We also thought this model was the most challenging to clean.

Get Instead: Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer Pro

Our top pick had intuitive controls and consistently made the best food in the bunch. We liked its clearly labeled knobs and digital interface that displayed the time, temperature, and cooking setting. It made excellent toast, broiled asparagus, roasted chicken, and french fries and chicken Parmesan. It’s 20 percent off during the sale.

Skip: Metal Cutting Boards

With hard, nonporous surfaces, metal boards are touted as easier to clean and sanitize and also free of microplastics. But they are not more durable or easier to clean than other kinds of cutting boards, and they will destroy your knives. We do not recommend them.

Get Instead: Teakhaus Edge-Grain Cutting Board (XL)

This large, reversible board provides plenty of room to work on. It’s light enough to lift comfortably (especially since it has finger grips on the sides) but heavy enough to be stable for most tasks. It’s beautiful, it’s durable, and it will not damage your knives. If you’d prefer a board that does double duty, consider our top-rated carving board, the Teakhaus Professional Carving Board with Juice Canal, which is on sale now.

Skip: 12" HexClad Hybrid Pan

This pan wasn’t truly nonstick; eggs stuck to it. Even when we used oil to cook a frittata, slices didn’t come out cleanly. This issue was likely due to its unique design. Like the All-Clad Stainless 12" Nonstick Fry Pan, it’s a tri-ply stainless-steel skillet with a nonstick coating. Unfortunately, the nonstick coating is interrupted by uncoated hexagons of that same stainless steel, which is why food stuck to it.

Get Instead: All-Clad Stainless 12" Nonstick Fry Pan

Our favorite nonstick skillet is considerably more reliable. It’s slick, durable, and induction-compatible, and we liked its generous cooking surface and gently sloped walls. The signature All-Clad handle, which is concave and a little sharp, offered a very secure grip but was a touch less comfortable to some testers.

Skip: Our Place Always Pan

The pan was less durable than our favorites, its cooking surface was small, and the walls were taller than we prefer. The included steamer basket and spoon rest were clever but not especially well designed. You can get better bang for your buck and more functionality by buying one excellent pan and adding on only what you need.

Get Instead: Made In Stainless Clad Saute Pan

This is a great, versatile saute pan. With a broad cooking surface and fairly high walls, it can accommodate a lot of food at once. It’s neither flimsy nor overly heavy, and the handle is very comfortable. It can do just about everything a skillet can do and is one of our go-to pans for braising, shallow frying, and cooking large amounts of greens. Even better: It’s on sale now.

Skip: 1.5-cup Paris Hilton Food Chopper

We love mini food processors, but there’s such a thing as being too mini. Machines with a dinky 1.5-cup capacity are simply too small to do much, and they’re not worth it at any price.

Get Instead: KitchenAid 3.5 Cup Food Chopper

This small but mighty food processor does a stellar job of mincing, dicing, grating, chopping, and blending quickly, and most ingredients turned out uniform. It’s well-made; it still looked and worked well even after numerous rounds of testing and washing. It’s a simple little appliance you’ll find yourself reaching for again and again. It’s on sale now.