The term food hacks has become kind of a buzz phrase. They're really just shortcuts to make your life easier, and there are a countless number of them that you can use in your own kitchen. Food hacks are useful even for those who love to be in the kitchen cooking because let's face it, while there, sometimes you just have better things to do than juice a lemon making sure you don't get any of the seeds into the dish.
And while many have become tired with the endless food hacks out there, we promise you, the ones you'll find below are actually tried and true hacks that will get your dinner on the table faster and easier. So go ahead, give them a try, and then let us know what you think. Or, tell us the one or two food hacks that you just can't live without in your own kitchen.
1. Removing corks
Don't have a corkscrew when you desperately need one? Whether you need some wine for your dish or you just want to enjoy a glass while making dinner, there's an easy way to get it out.
Using a lighter, warm the outside of the wine bottle that surrounds the cork. Keep doing so until the cork starts to move up towards the opening. And then keep going until it's all the way out. It's so easy!
2. Juice a little lemon
I'm not sure why, but squeezing a lemon over my hand is one of my biggest pet peeves in the kitchen. My hand gets too cold, I'm never really sure I'm going to catch all the seeds, and it's just all around irritating. But with this hack, I don't need to do it any longer. But be warned, this will only save you time and effort if you only need a tablespoon or so of juice.
Rub the lemon over the counter first. That will get the juices flowing. Poke a hole into the lemon with a bamboo or metal skewer, making sure to go deep into the lemon with it. Remove the skewer and then, holding your lemon over the dish that needs the juice, give it a good squeeze. The juice will come out through the hole you made, and no mucking around with seeds required.
3. Juice a lot of lemon
If you need more than a tablespoon of juice, there's still an easy way to juice those lemons. Cut the lemon in half and then place one of the halves in between a set of tongs. Squeeze the tongs, not the lemon, and you'll get all of that juice out quickly and easily. Just remember, if you still don't want to get cold lemon juice all over your hands, you'll need to squeeze it over a mesh colander.
4. Cut kiwi
Everyone has heard the food hack by now that involves cutting a kiwi in half and using a spoon to scoop the flesh away from the skin. That's a great hack, but there's an even better one that will actually cut your kiwi for you while you're removing it.
The trick is to use metal beaters, the kind that you use with your hand mixers. Cut a kiwi in half and then, using one metal beaters, place it into the flesh of the kiwi and give it a little twist. The flesh will separate from the skin, and that twist will cut it into three or four pieces for you too.
5. Cut eggs easily
Hard-boiled eggs are great on salads, but they can make a real mess of your cutting board and knife. To make it easier when you have many eggs to cut, place them on a cutting board. Take a wire cooling rack and then gently press down on the eggs. The cooling rack will cut the eggs and as it does, the small pieces will come up through the small squares. Then just carry the cooling rack over to your salad or whatever you're using the chopped egg for and get it done in seconds! You can also push the egg through the rack, as shown above, but it's even easier of you just lay the rack on the eggs and gently push it down through the eggs.
6. An easy pastry bag
Again, many people know the hack of filling a resealable bag with frosting or icing you want to pipe and using that as your piping bag. This hack involves that same plastic bag with a tiny piece of corner clipped off, but there's one more thing that makes it even easier - the cap of a clean and sealed bottle of glue. This little cap is perfect for dispensing small lines of glue cleanly and easily, and it can do the same with icing and frosting too. Just place the cap into the small hole you've made in the corner and say good-bye to decorating messes!
7. Cookie cutter eggs
Fried eggs can be delicious whether you like them sunny side up or over easy. But they can also be messy, running all over the pan and even into other eggs, which can make them a pain to separate.
To prevent this from happening, place metal cookie cutters in the pan first and break the eggs into them. You'll be able to create eggs in all kinds of creative shapes, and you can rest assured that they'll never run together.
8. Use a waffle iron to make hash browns
Hash browns are delicious, but it can be difficult to get those small pieces of potato evenly browned and crispy. But there's an easier way. Grate your potatoes as you normally would and give them a good soak to get rid of the starch in them. After they've soaked, remove them onto paper towels and give them a quick dry. Lightly oil a waffle iron, heat it to high heat, and then pile your hash browns in. Close it and wait just a few minutes. When you open the waffle iron up, you'll be left with crispy beautiful hash browns that you can't wait to dig into!
