Working in the kitchen is not just a necessity, but a journey where a person keeps learning over time. The 20 genius hacks included in this list did not come from a book; rather, behind them are my life’s two biggest teachers—my grandmother’s tried-and-tested wisdom and my own kitchen experiments! Some of these hacks are the result of my own fears, hurry, and cravings! One day when I had a severe craving for Manchurian and very little time, I saw a packet of Hot & Sour soup in the cupboard. I thought, why not make a shortcut out of this? When that experiment turned out so amazing and restaurant-style, I realized that necessity is truly the mother of every new hack! These hacks are not just for saving time and effort, but they are a beautiful mix of sweet memories of my grandmother and my new experiences!
Top 20 Kitchen and Cooking Hacks
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Quick Manchurian Hack
Making Manchurian typically involves several difficult steps. To save time, buy an instant hot-and-sour chicken soup sachet. In a pan, boil water and add carrots, bell peppers, diced onions, and fried boneless chicken chunks according to your taste. Boil briefly so the vegetables stay crisp yet tender. Mix the hot-and-sour corn soup sachet into the boiling water (you can also add a pinch of orange food coloring) and cook until it turns into a thick paste. Enjoy your delicious Manchurian with vegetable rice.
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Preventing Brown Sugar Lumps
If brown sugar forms lumps, place fresh pieces of white bread or apple slices inside the jar to prevent them. Alternatively, keeping a jar of brown sugar in the freezer will stop lumps from forming altogether.
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Cleaning Faucet Water Stains and Soap Scum
To clean a kitchen faucet constantly stained with water droplets and soap scum, squeeze a lemon into a bowl and mix in baking soda. Apply the mixture with a scrubber and leave it for five minutes. Afterward, clean it off using white vinegar and a scrubber.
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Fixing Over-Salted Soup
If you accidentally put too much salt in your soup, add raw potatoes and cook on low heat for 10 minutes. The saltiness will decrease significantly, after which you can discard the potatoes.
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Enhancing Meat Marination
Before cooking beef or mutton, marinate it in vinegar, pineapple juice, or tomato for at least 2 hours. Rich marination enhances the flavor, making the meat much more delicious.
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Removing Excess Fat from Meat Stock
Before drinking or using meat stock, drop a few ice cubes into the pan. This hack causes the fat to solidify and float to the top of the room-temperature stock, making it easy to scoop out with a spoon.
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Ripening Raw Fruit Overnight
If you have raw fruit and want to ripen it quickly, place it in a bag with an apple overnight. Because apples emit ethylene gas, the raw fruit will ripen within a single night.
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Separating Stuck Glasses
When two glasses get stuck together because one was stacked inside the other, pour ice water into the inner glass and dip the bottom of the outer glass into hot water. You can then pull the glasses apart easily with no risk of breakage.
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Tear-Free Onion Chopping
To prevent your eyes from watering while chopping onions, peel them first, place them in a bowl, cover it, and store it in the fridge. Whenever you need to use an onion, take it straight from the fridge and cut it without any tears.
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Preventing Cut Potatoes from Browning
Cut potatoes will turn brown after sitting out for some time. To prevent this, submerge them in water immediately after cutting.
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Removing Stuck Chewing Gum from Hair
If chewing gum gets stuck in your hair, rub an ice cube directly on the gum. It will harden and slide right out.
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Quick-Soaking Wheat and Lentils for Haleem
Traditional Haleem requires soaking whole wheat for a long time, which takes hours. Instead, add cooking soda powder (baking soda) and hot boiling water to the wheat, cover it, and let it soak. When cooking, use that same water in the pan, and the wheat will cook very quickly. For every two cups of wheat, use a quarter teaspoon of baking soda. You can apply the same method to lentils: wash and filter them thoroughly, then add a quarter teaspoon of baking soda so they soak and soften much faster.
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Testing if Wheat or Lentils are Soaked
To check if wheat, beans, or hard lentils are fully soaked, take one piece, place it between your finger and thumb, and press down. If it does not feel hard, it is fully soaked.
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Quick Garlic Peeling Methods
If peeling small garlic cloves by hand is difficult, place the garlic in the microwave for a few seconds; the skins will peel off easily by hand. Alternatively, wash the garlic well, place it in a metal pot, beat it with a metal stick, and pour in some water. All the garlic pulp will settle to the bottom while the peels float to the top. Skim off and discard the peels, then use the clean garlic pulp in your cooking.
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Smoothing Curry Gravy Instantly
Normally, onions are browned in oil and cooked down for a long time to dissolve into a paste that thickens curry gravy. Instead of this time-consuming process, blend all your spices and ingredients together using a stick blender right in the cooking pan to achieve a smooth gravy instantly.
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Easily Removing Bitter Gourd Bitterness
Traditionally, removing the bitterness of bitter gourds requires salting them, washing them with water, and squeezing them hard by hand—much like wringing out wet clothes. (You can still use this method efficiently by bending over to press out the water).
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Effortless Citrus Juicing
If lemons or limes are hard to squeeze and yield very little juice, give them a firm roll on the countertop with the palm of your hand for 10 to 15 seconds, or microwave them for 10 to 15 seconds before cutting. This breaks down the internal membranes and lets you extract maximum juice with minimal effort.
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Preventing Boiled-Over Pasta Water
To stop pots of pasta or soup from boiling over and making a mess of your stovetop, lay a wooden spoon directly across the top rim of the pot. When the bubbles rise and hit the dry wood, the bubbles pop and the liquid recedes back down.
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Quickly Softening Hard Butter
If you forgot to take butter out of the fridge for baking and need it softened right away, fill a tall glass with hot water, let it sit for a minute to warm the glass, and then empty out the water. Turn the warm glass upside down directly over the stick of butter on a plate. The trapped heat will soften the butter evenly in just a few minutes without melting it.
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Reviving Stale Bread
If your loaf of bread or bag of rolls has gone a bit stale and dry, run the whole loaf quickly under cold tap water so the crust gets damp (do not soak the inside). Place it in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 5 to 10 minutes. The moisture will turn into steam inside, making the inside soft and fluffy while restoring a crisp, fresh crust.
