As a home cook, I'm always looking for ways to make my cooking more efficient. Thankfully, the Internet is a great place to find tips to cut down your prep time in the kitchen. Seriously, some of these kitchen hacks will literally change your life.
Whether you're struggling to cut your cherry tomatoes or need to quickly defrost your meat for tonight's dinner, we have you covered. Keep reading through to learn more.
Make The Most Out Of Your Popcorn
Homemade popcorn is an absolute treat, but don't you notice that so many kernels just don't get popped? All you have to do is soak your popcorn kernels in water for about 10 minutes before popping them.
The moisture from the water creates more steam inside each kernel during cooking, which results in fewer unpopped kernels!
How To Roast Without Flipping
When roasting foods in the oven, a lot of the time, you need to flip them once or twice during the cooking process.
Instead of having to flip your food, just preheat your baking sheet before putting your food on it. Although this works great for cooking, it doesn't work for baking.
Getting Maximum Juice
I kind of hate squeezing the juice out of citrus fruits like lemons, because sometimes they are very thick-skinned and tough. Microwave a lemon or lime for 8 to 10 seconds to soften it up a little.
Then roll the lemon back and forth on the counter. When you squeeze, you’ll get more juice from the lemon with WAY less effort.
How To Keep Your Stainless Steel Shiny
When we use something made of stainless steel for an extended period of time, the item may become really dull looking.
A simple solution to this is to put some water and vinegar together in a spray bottle and spray it on the surfaces you want to wipe.
Make Use Of Your Soy Sauce
Soy Sauce gives a unique, complex, full-bodied flavor to meat, fish, sauces, and vegetables due to the high levels of natural umami!
Use soy sauce in place of table salt in a recipe or two and you will soon appreciate how it brings out the flavor of your food.
Cleaning Wooden Cutting Boards
Cleaning wooden cutting boards can be tricky, but it is pretty necessary. If you avoid cleaning altogether, germs and bacteria can grow on them. You may use dish soap, white vinegar, or a dilution of bleach and water to clean your board.
Combine your chosen cleaning product with hot water and thoroughly scrub the surface of your board. Make sure you always wipe it down to dry it right after you clean it.
Use Lemon Juice To Prevent Your Fruit From Browning
I feel like this is a pretty well-known hack. It works really well if you are storing cut apples in the fridge or bringing them to work as a snack and want to prevent them from browning.
Simply squeeze a bit of lemon juice on top of the cut fruit, or mix some honey and water and pour that mixture overtop of your cut apples.
A Hack For Easy Steak Fries
Finally, a purpose for that apple slicer beyond just apples! You can use an apple slicer to prep restaurant-worthy potato wedges in minutes.
Cut one end of the potato or sweet potato so it's flat, then push your apple slicer through. You should get perfectly pointy wedges every time. Sprinkle on seasonings and bake away.
Thicken Runny Sauces
If you ever feel like your sauce is too runny, throw a dry lasagna noodle into the sauce. The noodle will absorb the excess liquid without changing the taste or texture of your sauce.
Just pull the noodle out and discard once you feel like your sauce is thick enough. Voila!
Limp Celery Fix
Make your tired celery fresher by trimming the top and bottom of the celery stalk, then dropping the stalks into a jar of cold water in the fridge to re-crisp.
Storing celery like this straight from the grocery store will help it last longer, too. This trick also works with limp lettuce or spinach.
Sayonara, Salty Soup
To rescue a salty soup, drop a peeled potato into the pot. The potato will help absorb some of the excess salt and save your soup!
Another method is to add a dairy product or something acidic like lemon juice.
Make Cupcakes Easily With Parchment Paper
Already made your cupcake or muffin batter just to see that you're all out of cupcake holders?
Save some time, and some money by simply using parchment paper as cupcake cups and your problem will be solved in a second!
Homemade Vegetable Stock
Getting sick of always throwing out SO much food waste? Use your raw vegetable waste such as vegetable ends or different types of skins to make a vegetable broth.
Simply boil all of the food skins in some water and salt on the stove, and let it simmer. Drain, and voila! Homemade vegetable broth.
Faster Defrosting
Did you know that you can defrost meat quickly by pouring white vinegar over the surface of the meat?
The vinegar will lower the freezing temperature of the meat. Plus, the vinegar will also help tenderize the meat as well.
Wine Cube Hack
If you ever fail to finish a bottle of wine but still want to use it up after a few days, salvage it by putting the leftovers into an ice cube tray!
Next time you want chilled wine, use them as ice cubes, or if a recipe needs white wine, you're covered!
​Make Your Own Powdered Sugar
I find that when I'm cooking or baking, often I'll realize that I forgot to buy something at the store. If you need powdered sugar but have regular sugar, don't worry!
If you find yourself needing powdered sugar without having it in the house, you can actually make your own! Just grab your handy dandy granulated sugar and pulverize it in a spice grinder.
This Is How You Should Cut Cherry Tomatoes
There is actually a much better way to cut your cherry tomatoes effectively. You can do this by placing the cherry tomatoes that you want to cut in between two plates (bottom one face down, top one face up).
Slice in between the two plates to cut a bunch of tomatoes at once!
Grow Your Own Spices
Fresh spices really make a dish. It's arguably why the food from high-end restaurants tastes so good! Yet, so many home cooks settle for jarred spices.
Try growing your own. The quality is so much better and it will give a fresh, cheap, professional flavor to your dishes. It's quite hard to kill these types of plants, so don't worry if you're not a natural gardener.
White Bread To Always Keep Cookies Soft
To keep cookies and other baked goods soft after baking, just add a slice of store-bought white bread to an airtight container.
This way, your yummy baked goods will keep their day-one softness while they are being stored.
Bake With Ease By Softening Your Brown Sugar
Everyone knows that after being opened for a while, brown sugar starts to clump together or dry out.
If you place an apple slice or an orange peel inside your bag of sugar and then place the bag in an airtight container, your sugar should stay soft for a very long time.
Tear-less Onion Chopping
Sick of sobbing your eyes out when you cut onions? Try freezing your onion before you start chopping it.
Alternatively, you can also hold a slice of bread in your mouth while you chop it to prevent the tear-inducing gases from reaching your eyes.
Hang A Kitchen Towel From Your Apron
The number of times that I go try to wipe or dry my hands when I am cooking is ridiculous. Whether you tuck it into your apron pocket or hang it from the apron strings, having a towel always at the ready is super convenient.
This may seem like a dumb hack, but it's nice to be able to quickly dry your hands or wipe them off.
Freeze Single-Serving Sauces
Egg cartons are ideal for freezing small portions of homemade sauce, but you can also just use an ice cube tray.
This is a great way to portion out your sauce and a nice way to store it. To use, thaw cubes in your fridge for 2 hours.
Remove Pieces Of Eggshell Super Easily
Instead of sticking your fingers in your cracked eggs to get rid of eggshells, just use another piece of eggshell and start getting rid of the rough pieces.
From personal experience, this hack works really well, and it'll help you grab your eggshells super easily compared to other methods.