Kitchen Hacks

13 Organizing Hacks for Your Tidiest Fridge Yet

I don’t have the prettiest of refrigerators. It is old, white (more like cream at this point), noisy, and inconvenient—standard New York City rental fridge. I spend hours dreaming of having a kitchen with a spanking new, stainless steel, French-door version. Ice-maker, wine chiller, giant freezer and all…(Hey, at least I’m not asking for a built-in camera!) Until such a time manifests though, the one thing that I do have is a pretty organized refrigerator. I mean, you could surprise me with a visit, walk straight up the fridge, open it—and not recoil in horror. In fact, you might even remark on how clean it is, how easily you can find the labeled leftovers, the condiments, and how tidily the herbs are stored. Read More >> …

0
Like
Save
The Absolute Easiest Trick for Cleaning Your Grill

Why is it important to clean a grill? And how come leaving charred bits and leftover cooking oil doesn’t season the grates similar to a cast iron skillet? Well, first and foremost, grilling meats at high temperatures can actually produce carcinogens, which are then left behind on the grill, so it’s important to keep the grates maintained. Beyond that, regularly cleaning your grill will lengthen its life, prevent dangerous flare-ups, and simply make your food taste better. We know that summer is officially in full swing, but here’s a tip that will carry you well beyond the Fourth of July: how to clean your grill, using things you already have lying around. All you’ll need for this quick hack is a piece of aluminum foil and a pair of tongs. Oh, plus your dirty grill grate and a little bit of elbow grease. Read More >> …

0
Like
Save
Does Pancake Batter Belong in Your Ice Cube Tray?

My childhood smelled of maple syrup. After discovering the TikTok-induced reemergence of freezing pancake batter in ice cube trays, my days may once again become maple-scented. Back in a time when there was a clear distinction between good (eating pancakes) and evil (learning math), the classrooms, school buses, and friends I knew almost always smelled like an iHop. Also, everything—and everyone—was always sticky. For whatever reason, as I got older, the pancakes, maple syrup, and stickiness in my life vanished. I’m hoping this TikTok pancake hack will change that. Read More >> …

0
Like
Save
How to Keep Your Cats Off the Kitchen Counter, Once & For All

After several years of model behavior, one of my cats recently discovered that very tasty food like shredded chicken is often left on the kitchen counter at dinnertime. Now, it seems like I can’t turn my back without Henry sneakily jumping on the counter to grab a bite.  Henry isn’t the first feline who prefers the kitchen counter over the best cat trees. Over time, I’ve found several tactics to keep my kitties with four paws on the floor. If you’re looking for ways to keep cats off the counter, here are the strategies that have worked for me (and thus, my dearest Henry). Read More >> …

0
Like
Save
How to Prevent Freezer Burn Once and For All

Freezers are magical appliances: They allow us to save homemade soups and sauces for months on end, keep ice cream frozen for our daily after-dinner sundaes, and store ice for cocktail parties (a must). As essential as it is to freeze leftovers and frozen pizzas for zippy suppers, freezers aren’t always our friends. In fact, they can sometimes be the foe—namely, when so-called “freezer burn” infiltrates our supply of frozen foods. Let’s get one thing clear: Freezer-burned food is completely safe to eat. According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), “freezer burn is a food-quality issue, not a food safety issue.” The FDA notes that freezer burn often presents itself as “as grayish-brown leathery spots” on the food in question. So even though freezer burn doesn’t always look or taste quite right, it doesn’t mean your food is spoiled or otherwise harmful if consumed. Read More >> …

0
Like
Save
How to Open a Coconut Safely

I wish I could tell you that I learned how to open a coconut while I was vacationing in Tahiti, or that I first cracked one open out of thirst-quenching necessity after a day spent surfing Oahu’s North Shore. But I’ve never been to Tahiti, and I immediately run toward shore at the first sign of a 5-foot wave. No, I actually learned how to crack open a coconut in my kitchen, through trial and error, after being lured by a full stack of whole coconuts at the grocery store. I had grabbed one and placed it in my cart nonchalantly, hoping my fellow shoppers would catch a glimpse (you’re lying if you say you don’t glance sneakily at other people’s carts) and think I was the kind of cool person who consumed fresh coconut as often as a piece of toast. This is real, this is me. Narrator: It was not real. Let’s learn how…

0
Like
Save
The Hands-Free Cleaning Hack for Those Stubborn Burnt Bits

I clean to procrastinate. So it was bittersweet when, a few years ago, by way of dinner party chaos, I accidentally discovered a trick that both dissolves all of the burnt build-up on my dirtiest dishes with ease, and is nearly completely hands-free. Read More >> …

0
Like
Save
How to Clean Your Garbage Disposal & Stave Off the Gunk for Good

Speaking as someone who didn’t have a garbage disposal until she was 25, these kitchen appliances are honestly the best. Gone are the days when you have to fish little chunks of food out of a drain filter or worry about gunk getting clogged up in your pipes. Instead, all you have to do is flip a little switch, and woosh! There it all goes, shredded into tiny pieces. Like any kitchen appliance, though, garbage disposals require regular cleaning, and if you skip out on maintenance, you can often end up with a stinky, slimy mess on your hands. After all, the food particles that don’t get washed down the drain can quickly rot. The good news, however, is that it’s actually very easy to clean a garbage disposal—and that’s coming from someone who absolutely hates cleaning. Here’s what you should do to keep your disposal pristine and odor-free. Read More >> …

0
Like
Save
Throw Out Your Kitchen Sponge ASAP—Yes, Really

If you’ve been mulling over whether or not it’s time to buy or replace a dishwasher, here’s the information that could put you over the edge: There are 54 billion bacterial cells on a single cubic centimeter of the average kitchen sponge. They are breeding grounds for all types of germs and bacteria. Dishwashers are naturally a much more sanitary way to wash and disinfect dishes, utensils, glasses, and some cookware (but don’t you dare put your cast iron in there). You might already know that it’s your kitchen, not your bathroom, that has the most microbial activity, and that’s indeed because of your sponge—”the biggest reservoirs of active bacteria in the whole house.” But did you know that cleaning your sponge only makes things worse? Sticking your sponge in the dishwasher or boiling water to disinfect is a no-go, and leaving it to sit in soapy water at the bottom of your sink is also…

0
Like
Save
Put Down the Soap—Here’s the Right Way to Clean a Pizza Stone

A pizza stone is a circular (or rectangular!) stone that emulates the heat distribution of a brick oven, giving you the ability to bake Napoli-level pizzas at home in your oven. The porous stone also draws moisture out of the dough as it bakes, giving your pizza a much crispier crust than a baking sheet would allow for. Cleaning a pizza stone, though, is not the same as cleaning any other piece of cookware in your arsenal. Since the stone is porous, it tends to hold onto water and any kind of cleaning agent, and similar to glass, it requires cool-down periods after use to avoid temperature shock and cracking. Read More >> …

0
Like
Save
Can Wax Paper Actually Go in the Oven?

We’ve all done it, just admit it. You’ve put wax paper in the oven when you should have used parchment paper. Maybe you made a genuine mistake, or maybe you ran out of parchment paper in the kitchen and needed to find a swap fast. You thought to yourself, “Can wax paper go in the oven?” and then probably shrugged your shoulders and said, “Eh, it’ll be fine.” Except the you in this case is actually me. This is my memoir. From Our Shop Silicone Nonstick Baking Mat $26.25–$37.75 More Sizes

Nordic Ware Gold Nonstick Baking Sheet Sets $38–$52 More Sizes

our line! Five Two Silicone Baking Mat $15 …

0
Like
Save
We Tested the Internet’s Favorite Ground Beef Trick

Mid-December, a Tik Tok circulated that left me, to put it plainly, mouth agape. In the clip, made by Tik Tok user Emily Harper, we’re promised a trick our narrator learned in “nutrition a couple years ago.” Nutrition, I can only surmise, is some sort of health or wellness class, perhaps with a dietary premise. Well, Emily, let’s see it. She starts by adding ground beef to a non-stick pan, pretty standard issue stuff to start. What happened next left me, and a huge portion of the internet, in shambles. She shows us, the viewer, the digital amorphous mob, all the grease and water that seeps out of the ground beef once it’s cooked. “All this grease is disgusting,” she writes in a text overlay across the now-cooked beef. Emily then moves the pan to the sink, pours out the excess moisture, empties the beef into a metal sieve, and runs it under the tap. The…

0
Like
Save
8 Common Kitchen Ingredients That Actually Belong in the Fridge (or Freezer!)

We teamed up with LG Studio to share a handful of everyday ingredients you may have been storing wrong all along. Extend the life of your nuts, dried fruit, and—most importantly—those almost-too-ripe avocados with these smart refrigeration tips. It may feel like only yesterday that you bought a fresh stack of flour tortillas at the grocery store. But before you know it, they’ve already started to grow green patches of mold—all while sitting innocently on the kitchen counter. Read More >> …

0
Like
Save
9 Very-Clever Hacks to Get the Most Out of Your Oven

We teamed up with LG Studio to share useful hacks for making your oven work smarter, not harder. Using these simple tips and tricks, your baking, roasting, and more is sure to be a success every time. We already know that our beloved ovens are the best for roasting a whole chicken to juicy-crisp perfection, baking gooey chocolate chip cookies, and making the best-ever cheesy lasagna—but what else can they do? Aside from the more obvious uses, a few simple, time-saving tricks will help you get through the busy holiday season—and beyond—without breaking a sweat (or burning something). Read More >> …

0
Like
Save
The Handy Trick I Learned While Working in a Bakery

How many recipes have told you to cut squash into ½-inch chunks, or slice potatoes into ¼-inch rounds, or roll sheets of cookie dough to ⅛-inch thick? Even though I cook and bake for a living, I still have trouble estimating these measurements by sight. (It’s hard!) And while our test kitchen and my own kitchen have rulers on deck, the more I cook elsewhere, the more I realize this isn’t a given. Before I joined the team here at Food52, I worked as a nighttime baker. Which meant a lot of pie dough–rolling, cookie dough–rolling, biscuit dough–rolling…really, just a lot of rolling. After a while, instead of trying to find a ruler every time—as I’m covered in dough, no less—I figured out something about my hands: 1-inch is the distance from the first to second knuckle on my middle finger. And ¼-inch is the thickness of my pinky. Read More >> …

0
Like
Save
This Is the Only Way I Cook Bacon Now, Thanks to … a Power Outage

It has been decades since my husband and I decamped from Metropolis and moved to the country, which means one thing: We’ve had our fair share of power outages. In 1996, just three months into owning our first home, the power went out in a freak snowstorm that kept us in the dark for 11 days. We were younger then is about all I can say about how we got through it. Fortunately, that one snowstorm is still the record holder; most of our power outages since then have been no more than a few days (which is still plenty). With the exception of the freaky August 2003 power outage that knocked out electricity for 55 million people in the Northeast, all of our blackouts have been in the winter. Recently, on a beautiful, calm Saturday morning, just as we started to make breakfast and tucked the bacon into the oven, we heard a huge crash…

0
Like
Save
A Pretty ‘Cool’ Shortcut for Firmer, More Flavorful Tofu

There exists a basic tofu principle that is: In order for your tofu to absorb flavorful liquid marinades, stir-fry sauces, and soup stocks, the no-flavor liquid—i.e. the water—must first come out. Several methods will expel the water from your tofu: Read More >> …

0
Like
Save
The 10-Second Trick to Clean Your Gunky Cheese Grater

Like a mandoline slicer or a vegetable peeler, a cheese grater is one of those kitchen tools that comes with an extra touch of danger. Sometimes, a little extra danger is a fun thing, like how one out of every 10 shishito peppers turns out to be spicy, and you don’t know which one. But in the kitchen, where I’m already contending with fire and knives, I don’t need the extra stress. I’m talking about how annoying it is to be able to clean a cheese grater without a) the shredded cheese getting stuck everywhere, making the process take way too long and b) putting my knuckles in danger. And spare a thought for your poor sponge! Read More >> …

0
Like
Save
How to Peel Your Eggs Perfectly, Every Single Time

The best kitchen tips are usually passed along from friends, or parents, or—if you work in an office with an always-bustling test kitchen—from colleagues. And such is the case with eggs. We all learned to cook them from someone, somewhere; they’re personal, they’re nostalgic, and also pretty genius. But make no mistakes—they can be finicky, and, when hard-boiled, a real pain to peel. Read More >> …

0
Like
Save
How to Peel Your Eggs Perfectly, Every Single Time

The best kitchen tips are usually passed along from friends, or parents, or—if you work in an office with an always-bustling test kitchen—from colleagues. And such is the case with eggs. We all learned to cook them from someone, somewhere; they’re personal, they’re nostalgic, and also pretty genius. But make no mistakes—they can be finicky, and, when hard-boiled, a real pain to peel. Read More >> …

0
Like
Save
14 Dining Chairs to Fit Any Budget & Any Home

When I moved into my new apartment, I didn’t know what kind of couch I wanted or which rug to order. I had no lights or shades or layout in mind. But I knew, oddly enough, which dining chairs I had to have. I’d spotted them through a restaurant window on a cold night in Stockholm: petite spindle-back designs, simple but jet-black and bold. I found them online and ordered them the day I signed the lease. (They were, of course, from Ikea.) Seven months later, I still love them: They’re the only black items in a room of pale and white tones, and the contrast alone makes the whole space more interesting. (Especially since I still haven’t hung anything on the walls.) Dining chairs tend to be an afterthought: It’s tempting to choose one you can sit on and call it a day. But with a slew of designs, materials, colors, and silhouettes on the…

0
Like
Save
14 Dining Chairs to Fit Any Budget & Any Home

When I moved into my new apartment, I didn’t know what kind of couch I wanted or which rug to order. I had no lights or shades or layout in mind. But I knew, oddly enough, which dining chairs I had to have. I’d spotted them through a restaurant window on a cold night in Stockholm: petite spindle-back designs, simple but jet-black and bold. I found them online and ordered them the day I signed the lease. (They were, of course, from Ikea.) Seven months later, I still love them: They’re the only black items in a room of pale and white tones, and the contrast alone makes the whole space more interesting. (Especially since I still haven’t hung anything on the walls.) Dining chairs tend to be an afterthought: It’s tempting to choose one you can sit on and call it a day. But with a slew of designs, materials, colors, and silhouettes on the…

0
Like
Save
A 15-Minute Avocado Ripening Hack—& 3 Other Tricks

In New York City, the perfectly ripe supermarket avocado is a veritable myth, complete with an unlikely origin story (California droughts),
many a villain with which to contend (Australian real estate moguls, the threat of tariffs), and a personalized iPhone emoji. But unlike any sort of storybook character or chimerical creature, the perfectly ripe avocado can actually be conjured at home, with enough foresight. Read More >> …

0
Like
Save
A 15-Minute Avocado Ripening Hack—& 3 Other Tricks

In New York City, the perfectly ripe supermarket avocado is a veritable myth, complete with an unlikely origin story (California droughts),
many a villain with which to contend (Australian real estate moguls, the threat of tariffs), and a personalized iPhone emoji. But unlike any sort of storybook character or chimerical creature, the perfectly ripe avocado can actually be conjured at home, with enough foresight. Read More >> …

0
Like
Save
How to Cream Butter and Sugar Without a Mixer

Inspired by conversations on the Food52 Hotline, we’re sharing tips and tricks that make navigating all of our kitchens easier and more fun.
Today: How to cream butter and sugar the old fashioned way. Read More >> …

0
Like
Save