Apple Prep Tools and Sipping Bone Broths: Six Kitchen Picks Worth Knowing

Introduction

Some kitchen wins are about saving time, and some are about flavor. This roundup covers both: three apple prep tools that turn a pile of baking apples into peeled, cored, and sliced fruit in minutes, and a side-by-side tasting of sipping bone broths and chicken base that separated the genuinely rich from the watery.

Apple Prep Tools: Three Ways to Speed Up the Work

Apple prep tools fall into two broad styles. Crank-style peelers peel, core, and slice fruit with a turn of a handle, while push-style tools, shaped like a wagon wheel, core and slice fruit while leaving the peel on. Both styles earn a place in the kitchen, but they suit different jobs.

The crank style has one requirement worth knowing before you buy: it needs crisp, firm apples that stay anchored on the prongs. Softer fruit will not hold and the machine will not work properly.

The Fastest Crank Peeler: VKP Brands Johnny Apple Peeler Suction Base

This is the favorite crank-style model, and it earns the spot on build quality and speed. It is made of cast iron, feels sturdy in use, and processes fruit in seconds. If your goal is piles of fruit that are peeled, cored, and evenly sliced and ready for baking, this is the fastest route there.

It is best suited to anyone who processes apples in volume, whether that is pie season, applesauce, or dried apple rings.

Push-Style Slicers: Wedges and Dividers

Two push-style models come recommended, and they share the same core strengths: sturdy construction, sharp blades, and easy, predictable results.

The Norpro Grip-Easy Fruit Wedger with base cores and slices apples into 16 narrow slices. Its advantage is the included base: you line up the arrows, push down, and all the pieces release cleanly.

The OXO Good Grips Apple Divider takes a different approach, coring and slicing apples into eight chunky wedges. It is the better pick when you want fewer, meatier pieces for snacking, roasting, or a rustic tart.

Bone Broth Tasting: What Set the Winners Apart

Bone broth has moved from wellness cafes to the supermarket shelf, and a blind tasting of warmed samples, meant for sipping, showed why it deserves a second look. The idea behind bone broth is using more chicken parts and cooking longer to extract more protein and collagen, which also gives it a slightly viscous mouthfeel you can genuinely taste.

The label reading told the story before the tasting did: the top-rated bone broths carry as much as two and a half times more protein than ordinary chicken stock. Simpler ingredient lists also tended to win. And if you cook with bone broth rather than sip it, expect a more intense flavor in the finished dish.

The Winner: College Inn Bone Broth

College Inn was the top-rated bone broth, and it was the sample tasters kept returning to. It had the most protein of the group, and both tasters agreed it needed nothing added. Notes of roasted and mushroomy flavor came through, with a richness closer to a blend of chicken and beef broth.

This is the pick if you want a broth good enough to drink straight from a mug on its own.

The Runner-Up: Swanson Bone Broth

Swanson’s bone broth was the other favorite in the tasting, with slightly less protein than the winner but still well ahead of standard stock. Tasters noted it tasted a little on the weaker side for straight sipping, and suggested it would be great in soup, where its flavor gets a chance to concentrate and blend.

If your main use is cooking rather than sipping, this is a sensible choice that performed well in the tasting.

The Convenient Option: Better Than Bouillon Chicken Base

Rounding out the tasting was the favorite chicken base, Better Than Bouillon, which you reconstitute at home to make your own stock. Tasters noted more herby notes and, in their view, a little less pure chicken flavor than the broths. Its practical advantage is convenience: the jar keeps in the refrigerator essentially indefinitely, so stock is always one spoonful away.

Not every broth in the tasting impressed, for what it is worth. Some samples were quite watery and underwhelming, which makes the standouts above all the more worth seeking out.

Overall Buying Advice

Match the tool to the task. If you process apples by the bagful, the cast iron crank peeler is the fastest option, provided your apples are firm. If you just need a few apples cut for snacking or baking, the push-style wedger and divider are simpler, cheaper, and take up less drawer space.

For broths, buy based on how you will use it: College Inn for sipping, Swanson for soups and cooking, and Better Than Bouillon when refrigerator-stable convenience matters most.

Conclusion

The right prep tool can turn a tedious hour of apple work into minutes, and the right broth can be a satisfying warm drink or the backbone of a better soup. Pick the style that fits your kitchen habits, and you will use it far more often than you expect.