The $1.25 Dollar Tree Find I Use Every Day

A while ago, my husband offered to help his parents with some stuff around the house and brought a few tools from our house to make things easier. Somewhere between trimming chicken thighs and trimming their rose bushes, my favorite (and admittedly pricey) Henckel kitchen shears vanished. Gone. Not in a drawer, their garage, or his car. They're just gone.

I keep hoping they'll turn up at my in-laws' place and don't (yet) want to replace them with another expensive pair. So, as a stop-gap, I picked up a pair of heavyweight stainless steel kitchen shears from Dollar Tree for $1.25. 

They looked sturdy enough, and I figured, even if they're not great, they'll get me through until I'm ready to splurge again. Friends, that was almost a year ago, and I'm still using them today. I've had them sharpened a couple of times at a local kitchen store, and the owner thinks it's hilarious that they're from the Dollar Tree—especially because she has the comparison point of my Henckel shears. But these shears are holding up pretty darn well!

Why I Love Dollar Tree's Heavyweight Stainless Steel Kitchen Shears

These shears are the real deal. The stainless steel blades are sharp and strong. They've powered through everything from spatchcocking a chicken to opening double-sealed snack bags. I use them nearly every day, and they've held up way better than I expected for something that costs so little. 

The handles are surprisingly comfortable, even when I'm cutting through thicker stuff like bacon or bunches of woody flowers. They're dishwasher-safe, but I always hand-wash all my blades to keep them in tip-top shape. They're also light enough that my daughter can safely use them to cut up construction paper and string for school projects. 

Whether I ever replace my pricier kitchen shears, these have earned a permanent spot in my utensil drawer. I regularly use them to cut pizza, pancakes, and toast into strips for my littlest, trim green beans straight into the pot, and snip parsley right over a salad bowl. 

They also do a little more than just snip. There's a built-in bottle opener and a nutcracker between the handles, which means they've become the unexpected star of our snacky Saturday nights. 

Because they're inexpensive, I won't stress if they go missing again. They're certainly not fancy. But they're tough, dependable, and far more useful than I ever expected for the price. Somewhere along the way, they stopped being my backup pair and became the pair. 

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