The Silicone Egg Tool That Professional Chefs Will Never Buy

If we're being honest, many of us are guilty of owning at least a few dumb kitchen gadgets. And sure, a good number of these gadgets actually do what they're advertised to do, but they also take up space in our kitchens. Some of them even perform similar tasks. For instance, if you have a knife, you don't also need a banana slicer, a grape cutter, and an electric potato peeler. A knife can do all those things.

Other kitchen gadgets perform tasks that we never needed help with in the first place. Does anyone actually need a pancake batter dispenser? Or a rotating pizza cooker? Or a countertop yogurt maker? Between us, it's more likely these are simply kitchen appliances you've been brainwashed into thinking you need. And that being said, we'd be remiss if we failed to mention another kitchen tool that we've all gotten along without just fine: the silicone egg cup.

In a 2018 interview with Everyday Money, Food Network star Alton Brown said, "Ninety-nine percent of things that people buy in the kitchen they don't need." One of those things is the internet-famous silicone egg cup, used for poaching eggs.

Look, we get it. Those little egg cups are super cute. They come in fun colors, and we want a dozen of them. But the truth is that we don't need them, and you don't either. People have been poaching eggs for centuries, and it wasn't until very recently that silicone egg cups entered the picture.

Other methods of poaching eggs include using plastic bags, strainers, and even ramen pots. However, at the end of the day, the point is that you don't need to go out and buy a gadget specifically for poaching eggs. You can use whatever you already have at home. It will work, we promise.