Making Pesach Master Thread

[BCL]

First time making Pesach, what should be on my list?

Primarily for kitchen/food items, but you can add anything you find helpful
We would like to use disposables where we can.

I didn't see this discussed anywhere, so I think this could be a valuable topic, especially if we can add a wiki.

Any general advice or suggestions are welcome.

[shaulyaakov]

First time making Pesach, what should be on my list?

Primarily for kitchen/food items, but you can add anything you find helpful
We would like to use disposables where we can.

I didn't see this discussed anywhere, so I think this could be a valuable topic, especially if we can add a wiki.

Any general advice or suggestions are welcome.

If you eat non shmura matzah outside of sedarim, most stores in the NYC area give 5lbs free or highly discounted with a minimum purchase, so it behooves one to spread shopping trips over different days/stores in order to get the deal as many times as needed.

Even if you don't eat the matzah, perhaps a family member or neighbor can use it, or you just save it for Shalosh Seduos during the year. Often Tomchei Shabbos will take any surplus boxes.

[Alexsei]

First time making Pesach, what should be on my list?

Primarily for kitchen/food items, but you can add anything you find helpful
We would like to use disposables where we can.

I didn't see this discussed anywhere, so I think this could be a valuable topic, especially if we can add a wiki.

Any general advice or suggestions are welcome.

Do not buy all non disposable stuff for year 1, split it for several years to come

[sguitarist18]

Figure out where you're going to store all your pesach stuff.

We bought a plastic Keter shelve unit for our kitchen and put lots of stuff in there.

[Naftuli19]

First time making Pesach, what should be on my list?

Primarily for kitchen/food items, but you can add anything you find helpful
We would like to use disposables where we can.

I didn't see this discussed anywhere, so I think this could be a valuable topic, especially if we can add a wiki.

Any general advice or suggestions are welcome.

A lot of meat!

[yitzgar]

Make general menu and base shopping list off of that. You will inevitably have to make smaller trips after getting more specific, but this is a good start for starting off with a big shopping trip or two

[SSLPhD]

I think some of it depends on your minhagim.  Do you use any processed/canned goods? Do you eat milchig? Etc.  Also, the number of people and ages will impact what you need.

You'll likely need disposable plastic containers: 3 oz, 8 oz, 1 lb, 2 lb.  Convenient for *everything*.

More disposables: foil pans of all sizes, foil, plastic wrap, vinyl tablecloth, 5 oz. cups (for sedarim), larger cups, bowls, plates, knives, spoons, forks, Ziploc bags in quart and gallon sizes, plastic baggies, twist ties, paper towels, stove foil, soup bags, counter covers, etc.

Like someone said, every year you can buy some non-disposables to replace the disposables. This is our 20th year making Pesach, and we still add to our kitchen equipment one or two things each year.

At the very minimum, start out with a good chef's knife and cutting board. The knife, almost singlehandedly, makes Pesach food prep less burdensome.  Peeler, paring knife, two fleishig pots, frying pan, utensil to use with frying pan. That's the bare minimum.

[ExGingi]

I think some of it depends on your minhagim.  Do you use any processed/canned goods? Do you eat milchig? Etc.  Also, the number of people and ages will impact what you need.

You'll likely need disposable plastic containers: 3 oz, 8 oz, 1 lb, 2 lb.  Convenient for *everything*.

More disposables: foil pans of all sizes, foil, plastic wrap, vinyl tablecloth, 5 oz. cups (for sedarim), larger cups, bowls, plates, knives, spoons, forks, Ziploc bags in quart and gallon sizes, plastic baggies, twist ties, paper towels, stove foil, soup bags, counter covers, etc.

Like someone said, every year you can buy some non-disposables to replace the disposables. This is our 20th year making Pesach, and we still add to our kitchen equipment one or two things each year.

At the very minimum, start out with a good chef's knife and cutting board. The knife, almost singlehandedly, makes Pesach food prep less burdensome.  Peeler, paring knife, two fleishig pots, frying pan, utensil to use with frying pan. That's the bare minimum.

Get a good heavy duty food processor.

[aygart]

if you will be doing any of your own pesach cakes then get a stand mixer

[SSLPhD]

Blech.

[ExGingi]

I highly recommend using this tape, and this tape for use in taping/covering up in your kitchen (and elsewhere).

[aygart]

I highly recommend using this tape, and this tape for use in taping/covering up in your kitchen (and elsewhere).

They don't leave a residue?

[ExGingi]

They don't leave a residue?

The first one I linked to never does (and in case you want to tape something inside a refrigerator, it's probably the only thing that will hold). The second one can be removed many times without residue, and when there is residue it's not too bad/difficult to remove IME. It is highly waterproof, I use it at seams.

[Yehudaa]

First time making Pesach, what should be on my list?

Primarily for kitchen/food items, but you can add anything you find helpful
We would like to use disposables where we can.

I didn't see this discussed anywhere, so I think this could be a valuable topic, especially if we can add a wiki.

Any general advice or suggestions are welcome.

Email this woman. She puts this as in the Sanhedria Murchevet Nshei every year. Alot of it is probably Israel-specific, but I assume there's alot that can be useful in chutz la'aretz as well.

[ckmk47]

if you will be doing any of your own pesach cakes then get a stand mixer

I use my food processor to whip the eggs and a hand mixer for the rest of the batter and then combine.  I don't have a Pesach stand mixer.  Although a simple one is not too expenseive.

[SSLPhD]

I use my food processor to whip the eggs and a hand mixer for the rest of the batter and then combine.  I don't have a Pesach stand mixer.  Although a simple one is not too expenseive.

My daughter makes a chocolate mousse cake that is absolutely divine with just a hand mixer, separated eggs and all.  We don't even own a food processor for year round.  (We *had* one, but gave it away after it sat mostly unused for the better part of a decade.)

General advice:  at the end of Pesach, when you are putting everything away, make a list of THINGS YOU NEED and THINGS YOU DON'T NEED for the following Pesach, and hang it up just inside your Pesach cabinet/bin.  We usually put away some consumables, so those we would include on the DON'T NEED list, but if we ran out of something, or there is something we see we can't live without, it goes on the NEED list.  The next Pesach, we can do our shopping before we are ready to unpack everything.

[skyguy918]

Just think through everything in order (the idea of making menus would be included in that). First step is going to be kashering, so figure out what you'll need to accomplish that. Depending on what you want to kasher, and what your minhagim/shitos are in this realm, that can mean getting materials to cover countertops, refrigerator shelves, cabinet shelves, etc; sink inserts; steam machine (if you hold of kashering with steam) or even m'luban (if you hold that's required), etc,; and more. Then you can move on to things you'll need to prepare food - that's obviously dependent on whether you're home for everything (sedarim, other yom tov/shabbos meals, chol hamoed, etc), minhagim and/or personal taste of what you like to eat on pesach, etc. Same goes for buying the food itself. If you're making sedarim, add on all the foods and special items you'll need for that (kosos, something for a seder plate, enough matza and wine/grape juice, hagadas, etc.).

[skyguy918]

My daughter makes a chocolate mousse cake that is absolutely divine with just a hand mixer, separated eggs and all.  We don't even own a food processor for year round.  (We *had* one, but gave it away after it sat mostly unused for the better part of a decade.)

General advice:  at the end of Pesach, when you are putting everything away, make a list of THINGS YOU NEED and THINGS YOU DON'T NEED for the following Pesach, and hang it up just inside your Pesach cabinet/bin.  We usually put away some consumables, so those we would include on the DON'T NEED list, but if we ran out of something, or there is something we see we can't live without, it goes on the NEED list.  The next Pesach, we can do our shopping before we are ready to unpack everything.

+1 to the hand mixer. Same for the lists after Pesach. I made a list of everything I put away, and started to add what I think we might need to buy before next pesach.

[yitzgar]

My daughter makes a chocolate mousse cake that is absolutely divine with just a hand mixer, separated eggs and all.  We don't even own a food processor for year round.  (We *had* one, but gave it away after it sat mostly unused for the better part of a decade.)

Most people don't like grating hundreds of potatoes by hand

[ExGingi]

Most people don't like grating hundreds of potatoes by hand

+1

Also griding the Chrein is much easier with a good food processor.

I guess when it comes to equipment, it makes a huge difference as to what your Pesach menu looks like. For example, I can't imagine any use for a mixer in our Pesach kitchen. But definitely have use for a good food processor, a good manual citrus juice squeezer, and can make good use of a blender (for fruit smoothies).