One thing the majority of people do every day is cook! For some it is a task we’d like to spend the least amount of time doing, while still whipping up a nice meal. We’ve put together 8 cooking hacks to help make your more efficient and produce better meals in the kitchen!
8 Cooking Hacks:
1. Remove fats from soups/stews/casseroles with ice cubes.
Want an easy way to remove those liquid fats that sit on the top of soups, stews and casseroles? Just drop a couple of ice cubes into the pot and watch the fats come together and congeal near the ice cubes due to the temperature change. Now you can easily scoop it all out!
2. Prevent over-boiling with a wooden spoon.
Do your pots and pans tend to boil over when you’re cooking? Don’t worry it happens to the best of us! One way to stop it from happening is to rest a wooden spoon across the middle of the pot or pan. It might sound too good to be true but it works!
3. Put onions in the freezer before chopping to minimise tears.
Don’t have a pair of swimming goggles lying around? Now worries. To minimise tears from cutting onions, place them in the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes before dicing them up. Make sure you don’t forget them in the freezer!
4. Microwave garlic to make it easy to peel.
Peeling garlic isn’t a hard task, but it can take longer than actually want to spend doing it. If the husks are a bit hard to peel off then throw them in the microwave for 15 to 20 seconds. This will make some of the moisture within the garlic come to the surface making the husk slide right off with a little squeeze from one end. It’s a great cooking hack that won’t change the flavour of the garlic in the process.
5. Use an ice cream scoop to deseed vegetables like squash & pumpkin.
Got a stack of pumpkin and squash to cook, or just want a more efficient way of easily taking out their innards? Why not try an ice cream scoop! It is the perfect size to get into the small area, while the flat edge of the scoop easily cuts away the innards from the flesh.
6. Use a bowl to cook crisp bacon in the microwave.
Love bacon but don’t want to clean up the mess created by cooking it in a pan? Why not try the microwave! This unconventional method will produce nice crispy bacon every time. Just place a bowl upside down on a place, drape your bacon over the bowl and heat for 1 minute or more. It’ll produce great tasting bacon with the fats dripping off the edge of the bowl onto the plate. YUM.
7. Use an onion to clean your barbecue.
Not a fan of using chemicals to clean your barbecue? Why not use an onion? Scrubbing half an onion over a heated barbecue plate or grill will remove the necessary grit and grime for clean cooking. It’s also a great green alternative that won’t cause any of those unwanted chemical smells.
8. Use a muffin tin to dispense condiments.
Barbecues are great, lots of food, lots of friends and family but that also means lots of dirty dishes. To try and minimise the amount of washing, why not use a muffin tin to dispense condiments. A six muffin tin will reduce 5 bowls that would need to be washed if you didn’t use it. That’s a win in my book!
Do you have any other cooking hacks? Let us know in the comments below and if they’re deemed worthy we’ll add them to the list!
