I always love to find ways to do something better. Over the years, I have discovered my share of favorite kitchen tips that are extraordinary for improving the cooking process. Some of these favorite kitchen tips that I want to share may surprise you in how much they can help to make your life easier.
Onions are essential in many recipes. Though as much as they contribute to dishes, they also may cause your eyes to tear. One of my favorite kitchen tips is placing them briefly in the freezer before cutting. This will stop those irritating enzymes the onion produces from being released.
Another onion tip involves speeding up the cutting process. Cut the onion lengthwise in half helps for more uniform chopping. This will prevent the onion scattering as you cut it.
The odor can linger in your hands after working with onions. A favorite kitchen tip for this problem is rubbing your hands with a little fresh lemon juice.
Speaking of fresh lemon juice, you also should try adding just a little after draining cooked potatoes when making mashed potatoes. This is a good trick to remember especially when company or your in-laws are coming for dinner. If you do, you will have whiter mashed potatoes.
Frying with hot oil can be tricky from how it splatters. One of my favorite tips is sprinkling a little salt in the pan before frying can make a difference.
A great thickener that also brings with it nutritional value is adding some instant potatoes to cream soups, stews to some casseroles. In fact, I always found instant potatoes can come in handy when over salting when making gravies.
If you’re trying to watch your cholesterol levels or are dieting then you probably don’t eat that much meat. Therefore, you may want to try slicing the meat as thinly as possible. Another favorite kitchen tip is freezing the piece of meat partially first and then slicing helps.
Marinating meats and chicken flavors the cuts as it tenderizes. Rest assured that you can save yourself some work by marinating the meat or chicken in a zip-lock plastic bag. This way you can easily turn and rearrange the pieces in the marinade liquid. You’ll later have no spoons or bowls to clean up. All you have left to do is to toss that plastic bag away afterwards.
If you’re planning to grill out and want juicer hamburgers, here is another of my favorite cooking tips for juicer burgers. Try adding one-half cups of cold water to one pound of meat before shaping them.
Shaping hamburgers evenly can be challenging sometimes. To avoid those rounded fat burgers, what I like to do is pressing the middle of each with a tablespoon for an initial indentation followed by grabbing my spatula to further flatten the burger.
Though mushrooms are really a fungi and not actually a vegetable or fruit, I use them frequently for taste and their amazing nutritional value and extra protein. Here’s another of my favorite tips regarding mushrooms that you’ll want to remember. The best way to know the freshest mushrooms are inspecting the package to see if the stems are still attached to the mushroom caps. If they are loose, then those have been sitting around.
You also might want to read my earlier post with more great kitchen shortcuts. Trust me, but if you do cooking will be less complicated.
