I love them, these simple and useful life hacks that make our lives easier! Of course, I am particularly interested in all the tips and tricks for the kitchen.
As a new cook at my own place, I don’t have all the tricks that expert cooks practice. I don’t know the right hamburger temperature, I don’t know how to tell if salmon is cooked, but I can tell which kitchen gifts you’ll love and today i’ll share some kitchen hacks that you’ll appreciate. So Let’s start.
Trick 1: Is the egg still good?
Okay, to be honest, I sometimes buy more than I actually planned for the week. For example, eggs, and then it also happens to me from time to time that I ask myself, “Can I still eat the egg?”.
Fill a container, such as a glass or measuring cup, with water. Then put the egg in the water. If it stays on the ground, it’s still fresh. If it is a bit older but still edible, it can already stand up. If it floats to the surface of the water, it is no longer edible.
Check out this video by BBC Good Food to see how it’s done:
Trick 2: Creamy sauces with pasta water
Are you cooking pasta with a really delicious sauce? Then this kitchen hack is just perfect for you! To make your sauce really creamy, simply add some pasta water to the sauce. Your sauce will automatically thicken due to the starch that has passed from the noodles into the water.
Bonus Kitchen Hack:
You can keep pasta water in the fridge for 2 to 3 days. Because of the starchy water, you can not only thicken sauces but also soups and stews. Alternatively, you can use it to soak legumes or boil eggs. That also saves a bit of water.
Trick 3: Make rolls fresh again
Don’t want to go to the bakery every day? Make your rolls fresh again. Of course, that doesn’t work with very hard bread rolls. But rolls from the day before that are no longer really chewy can be enjoyed again with this kitchen hack:
Moisten your rolls with a little water on all sides and then place them in the oven for a few minutes (at approx. 180 °C top/bottom heat). Nothing stands in the way of a cozy breakfast with bread rolls.
Watch this video by Food & Wine to see how it’s done:
If this doesn’t work as well as you thought – try one of these keto bakeries in NYC for a nice change.
Trick 4: Make bananas ripen faster
Bananas usually manage to achieve the perfect tan for banana bread all by themselves. But sometimes it’s the case that you want to bake the banana bread right now and don’t want to wait another 2 days until the bananas are brown enough. The only thing that helps is to give nature a little help.
That’s how it works:
Place the peeled bananas on a baking tray and bake them in the oven at 200°C for about 20 minutes. Check in between, maybe the ideal browning for your banana bread recipe has already been reached.
Trick 5: Peel potatoes in no time at all
Peeling potatoes with a vegetable peeler is quite a tedious task. Peeling will be easier if you first boil the potatoes with their skins on, then immediately place them in cold water after cooking, and only then remove the skins. It also has the advantage that you no longer actually need a paring knife, as the peel almost comes off by itself.
Trick 6: The blender mixes itself clean
For a long time, I found cleaning my blender really annoying. But with this kitchen hack, it’s much easier: Immediately after use, simply fill the blender with soapy water, put the lid on, and switch it on. Blend gently for half a minute, a little longer after blending spinach and other fibrous ingredients. Then rinse and bam – the mixer is clean again that quickly.
Bonus kitchen hack:
This also works with hand blenders, by the way: fill the container you used to blend halfway with water and washing-up liquid. Then “puree” the rinse water through. After a few moments, your immersion blender will be clean again.
Watch this video by Clean My Space to learn more:
Trick 7: Save oversalted food
From time to time it happens: when you taste it, you realize that the food is oversalted. What can you do? With many dishes, it works well to add a little more water but also milk and milk products such as cream cheese, cream or crème fraîche to the dish. Cooking prunes also help reduce the salt content. The prunes must then be removed from the pot before consumption.
Trick 8: Make the butter spreadable
Butter straight from the fridge is my personal nightmare when trying to make bread. When it’s cold and hard, it can’t be spread, and when I try to spread it, I tear the bread apart rather than butter it.
But there is another way: Simply fill a coffee mug with hot water, let it stand briefly until the coffee mug itself has heated up nicely, pour out the water, dry the mug thoroughly and then place it upside down over the butter. The heat radiating from the mug will melt even the coldest butter.
Trick 9: Grating cheese made easy
Grated cheese goes with just about anything. But if you want to grate it fresh, it tends to stick to the grater. This no longer happens if you put the cheese in the freezer for about 30 minutes before grating. This makes it much easier to grate the cheese and it is also easier to clean the grater.
Watch this video by Mashedto avoid the biggest mistake done when grating cheese:
Trick 10: No more splashes of fat when frying meat and fish
Searing meat and fish is always a bit of a thrill: when it hisses while roasting and the oil just splashes all over the place, you like to stand like a knight with a shield in front of the enemy with a pot lid in front of the stove to look around you protect against grease splashes.
But: Small drops of water that sit on the food are responsible for the sparkling frying effect. If you pat meat and fish dry before frying, you can save yourself the defense with the lid shield.
I hope these kitchen hacks feed you some new insights that you’ll use in your everyday kitchen routine.
Business woman. Traveler. Self-Declared Host. If you’re here, you know the amazing, hits-the-spot feeling of good coffee. The key to my heart (and to keeping the engine running) is coffee, and I’ve sipped and savored A LOT of coffee over the years and around the world. I’m on a mission to bring great coffee and the warm fuzzy feeling of coffee culture into your home and life, every cup, every day, every time.
