Food Hacks

1. Put your bacon in the oven, not in a pan.

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Any bacon lovers out there know the struggle of getting their strips cooked perfectly. Although many people want to put their bacon in a pan, the better option is to heat your oven up to 350 and put your bacon in there on a sheet of aluminum foil. It’ll come out perfectly flat and crispy, every time.

1. Cut your cakes more delicately using dental floss.

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Making a cake is one thing but keeping it presentable is another problem altogether. To get around those problems, use a piece of dental floss pulled taut to make cleaner cuts through your cakes. Make sure it’s not mint flavored!

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1. Peel oranges easier by cutting off the tops and bottoms first.

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Rather than dig around blindly in the peel trying to get it off, slice the tops and the bottoms off first. Next, make a cut from the middle to the outer edge and simply unroll the orange. Easy!

1. Keep your old Sriracha bottles for oil dispensers.

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If you’ve ever been to a restaurant and seen the fry cooks in the back, you may have noticed that a lot of them have handy squeeze bottles. If you keep your Sriracha bottles after they’re empty, you’ll notice their squeeze tops work perfectly as oil dispensers too!

1. Use a waffle iron to reheat old pizza.

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Rather than microwaving your old pizza (which makes it get rubbery), put some oil on your waffle iron and throw it in there. More to the point, use your waffle iron for all kinds of carb-heavy foods and see what happens—they are truly miracle machines.

1. To get the most out of your carrots, be sure to cook them.

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Although raw vegetables provide a lot of nutritional benefits, carrots are actually better for you if you cook them gently first. One of the benefits include higher levels of carotenoids, helpful antioxidants which prevent diseases.

1. Don’t brew all your teas at the same temperature!

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As those who are tea fanatics may know, different teas require different boiling points and times. An oolong or black tea needs two to three minutes. Lighter teas including white, yellow and green tea only need one or two minutes. On the far end, herbal teas can brew for three to six minutes. Boil it just right and your tea won’t be bitter.

1. Protect your fingers by dipping your Oreos in milk with a fork.

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Everyone knows the struggle when eating Oreos. You want them to absorb all the milk they can, but you don’t want to completely dunk your fingers in the water. For the best of both worlds, use a fork to stab into the white creme and dunk it that way.

1. Boil water before freezing it to make perfectly clear ice cubes.

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We’ll admit, this one may be a little more work than it’s worth to the average person. Still, boiling your tap water takes out its impurities—and makes the cubes look really amazing to dinner guests.

1. Ripen bananas quickly by gently baking them.

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If you’re ever trying to bake banana bread and quickly need some very ripe bananas, not to worry. You can take any unripe bananas you may have and throw them in the oven at 300 degrees for about 40 minutes.

1. Peel bananas from the bottom.

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They say you should imitate how professionals do things to do them the best. For bananas, that means imitating monkeys—who peel their bananas from the bottom. This way, you won’t accidentally mush the top and you’ll keep many of those little banana strings intact.

1. Use onion rings to help make perfect eggs.

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We may be good at making eggs already but sometimes you want them to look a little prettier. In those cases, cut up an onion and leave the rings pretty thick. Press the onions into a pan and crack your eggs directly into the middle for perfectly round eggs.

1. Keep your tomatoes in your sandwich by folding them into your bread.

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Sandwich fans know that how they are put together is actually very important. When the tomatoes are layered incorrectly, they can often slide completely out. To fix that, fold your tomatoes into the middle of your lunch meat to keep them tucked safely in!

1. Crunch up old mints to make mint hot chocolate.

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IF you have any of those peppermint candies lying around, try crushing them up with a mortal and pestle. After they’re crunched into a dust, throw some into your hot chocolate for a special holiday cup of cocoa!

1. Ripen stubborn avocados in the oven.

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Just like the banana trick, a totally unripe avocado can be ripened by wrapping it in foil and putting it in the oven at 200 degrees for about an hour. Although this is a handy trick for making guacamole fast, it does affect the taste somewhat!