6 Easy Kitchen Hacks
I’m no professional, but I’ve listened to a lot of episodes of America’s Test Kitchen and ruined enough recipes that I’ve learned a thing or two around the kitchen. I thought I’d share a few super simple kitchen hacks with you to make your life in the kitchen just a tiny bit simpler. I hope they help you as much as they’ve helped me!
1. This is the proper way to cut an onion.
I truthfully did NOT know this until a few years ago. Why did no one tell me that slicing in half and then keeping the bulb in tact while slicing the rest is the super easy way to get a diced onion?
2. Preheating your pizza stone gives you a crisper crust.
I learned this one from the lovely folks at ATK. If you preheat your pizza stone (you can just do it while your oven preheats!) you can get a crisper pizza crust! It’s about as close as I can get to a real pizza oven… unless I can convince Alex to make a pizza oven in our backyard.
3. Putting bananas, peaches, and/or avocados in a paper bag can make them ripen faster.
This trick also sort of works in reverse. If your avocado is already ripe, don’t let it sit in the fruit bowl any longer!
4. Soften brown sugar by microwaving with a wet paper towel.
I don’t use brown sugar very often and sometimes it gets hard before I can use it up. Just scoop it into a microwave safe bowl, cover with a wet paper towel, and microwave for 20-30 seconds until the water has been absorbed.
5. Freeze leftover tomato paste.
How often do you actually use the whole can of tomato paste? Rather than letting the rest go to waste, scoop it into a freezer bag and pop it in the freezer. You can simply thaw it in the microwave! (Just make sure you put it in a glass dish before microwaving!) They also sell tubes of tomato paste, so that can be a nice option, too!
6. Spray a measuring cup with cooking spray before measuring sticky ingredients like honey or peanut butter.
If you’ve ever wrestled with getting peanut butter out of a measuring cup then you’ll love this. It basically slides right out! Another option is to use a food scale when measuring, so you can scoop it directly into the bowl.
These are great tips – totally sharing! 🙂
Great tips – I had no idea you would freeze tomato paste and that one about spraying the measuring cup before is going to be a lifesaver! Thank you!
Spraying before measuring is one of the best tips, it helps with peanut butter or maple syrup SO much. I’d say another is doing dry ingredients first, then wet (to pick up any missed crumbs) and then also when making a small batch of pancakes or a waffle or something, make it all in a large Pyrex measuring cup – less to wash, easy to measure as you pour it out!
Fellow Test Kitchen addict here. Need to remember #6!
#1 is such a game changer- it saves me SO much time!
#6 is my favorite. why can i never remember to do #5!?
Thank you! These are great tips. The only one I was aware of was heating a pizza stone. These will certainly come in handy!
Thanks for the great tips! I have some leftover tomato paste right now that I was ready to throw out…I love this idea. Thanks for sharing!
We’ve been doing the pizza stone one for a long time and it make a huge difference! We’ll put it in for at least 30 minutes and the pizza is always nice and crispy.
Great tips! I slice onions that way, learned from my dad, but it still doesnt go well always. I have learned if you have a nice sharp knife it works better. Also with the avocados, after I let them ripen on the counter, if I am not using them right away I stick them in the fridge and they last a few more days in there if you want to wait to use it and then you know it is already ripe and ready