Cutting & Peeling Food

This makes prepping salads so much easier.

The tip will change the way you mince your celery from here on out.

Before watching Brendan McDermott’s series of knife skills lessons, I thought I knew my way around a chef’s knife. You guys, I was wrong. In under two hours, this mini class taught me more about slicing and dicing than decades of trial-and-error experience in my home kitchen. Watch it right now and you’ll see exactly what I mean. Oh and best of all? It’s completely free. Brendan McDermott has cred to spare when it comes to culinary instruction.

You know, if you're into that kind of thing.

You likely already everything you need.

We also discovered a few fun party tricks.

It uses an unexpected household kitchen item.

Just one bowl and one spatula dirty? Yes, please!

You'll wonder why you didn't know this sooner.

The winner was easy and efficient.

This trick for making soup toppers is so unbelievably easy!

It's something you probably already have.

All you need are your hands!

For guacamole, smoothies, salads, avocado toast, and so much more!

It's a great way to get your anger out while you're cooking.

No messy bowls. No bruised, sticky cloves.

I’ve been cooking for a long time, and nothing has delighted or surprised me as much as this technique.

All you need is a wooden skewer.

All you need is a wet paper towel.

Could this really be the answer to my (hard-boiled egg) dreams?

This tip has almost 50,000 likes on TikTok.

Here are 3 times you can skip mincing garlic, even when a recipe calls for it.

The winner uses a little heat to save time.

Learn to wield an eight-inch blade (safely!) as well as any sous-chef in the business.

“Your reaction is one of the worst that I’ve heard, Dr. Avnish Deobhakta, an ophthalmologist at New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai, tells me over the phone.

This shape makes eating watermelon even more fun (and less messy).

Make those grocery store bouquets last as long as possible!

Don't discount this super basic technique; it can save a lot of your hand-picked beauties!

It's simple, but it works.

No more sloppy slices!

Peeling is actually easier afterward: We'll show you how.

Stop treating the squash like a tuber and start thinking of it like a melon.

Genius.

Pin bones are pesky little buggers. Here you have a pristine fillet of fish and lurking just below the surface are these slippery needle-like bones that refuse to be easily removed. You can ask the fishmonger to remove them for you, but with a little practice, tenacity, and a handy pair of needle-nose pliers, you can do it yourself. And remove them you must because biting into one of these bones — or worse, choking on one — is a highly unpleasant experience.

You’ve probably already seen the video demonstrating how easy it is to peel a head of garlic using two bowls, but here’s another method to try. All it takes about 20 seconds and a microwave. Heat a head of garlic in a microwave for about 20 seconds and the cloves will slide right out of their skins with no mess and no sticky garlic juices.

Dicing onions: one of the most elemental tasks in the kitchen. Have you ever wondered whether you’re doing it right? Watch our super-short video tutorial on dicing onions; it will give you a couple of pro secrets for chopping onions quickly, safely, and neatly! The method demonstrated here is very basic (spoiler: yes, you’ve probably been dicing an onion right all along!).

Looking up from prep work to find your peeled and cut potatoes have all taken on a disconcerting pinkish hue is a bit startling and downright unappetizing! Why does this happen? Is it safe? And is there any truth in your mother’s advice to hold cut potatoes in cold water? Take a look…Believe it or not, that lumpy, brown potato you’re holding is actually a complicated package of chemicals and enzymes.

Until recently, I never fully connected the dots that macarons, made with almond flour, still contain nuts. (I know…duh.) And going one dot further, this means that our fellow foodies with nut allergies have never had the pleasure of eating a macaron (*gasp!*). Here to fix this problem with a surprise ingredient is Stella from BraveTart.Pumpkin seeds. That is Stella’s secret to a nut-free macaron.

Q: I recently got an immersion blender as I need to be on a mostly liquid diet due to a medical condition. I’m loving making pureed soups, but have run into a slight problem. Many of the recipes call for carrots, sweet potatoes and other harder vegetables to be shredded. What is the best method or product for the job?I have very limited space, and am looking for tools that can withstand use almost every day. What do you recommend?

From the sweet coconut water hidden inside to the soft pulp scooped straight from the shell, fresh coconut is a treat like no other. But if you’ve ever succumbed to the allure of one of these coconuts at the store, you know that cracking it open and getting your treat can present some challenges. Here’s how to do it in a few easy steps. One thing that will make your life much simpler is to buy a coconut with the husk already removed.

You’ve probably seen the trick for peeling a whole head of garlic in 10 seconds, but what if you only need a couple cloves? We found a quick way to peel a few cloves of garlic — and have a lot of fun doing it! This is of course an homage to the now famous garlic-shaking trick as performed by Todd Coleman in this video from Saveur. Have you seen it?

Some people like the ritual of shelling and peeling fava beans, but the two-step process is still labor-intensive. After getting the beans out of their pods, they still have to be blanched in boiling water, then dunked in ice water, before the pesky skins come off easily. Here’s a tip for peeling them that doesn’t require the stove or a single drop of water: use your freezer! Shuck the fava beans out of their pods, then place them in a single layer on a baking sheet or plate.

Are you holding your knife the right way as you’re chopping, dicing, and slicing your way around the kitchen? Good technique will not only keep you safe, but will help you speed up your cooking. If you want to improve your knife skills, this is the place to start. In this short video, we show you how it’s done. Which technique are you practicing in your kitchen? Do you find yourself falling for the floppy goose technique, the dainty rider technique, or are you doing it the right way?

Grating vegetables is nothing new — we grate carrots and cabbage for slaws, zucchini for muffins — yet you’re wondering, why would I ever grate a tomato? The simple answer is that grating a tomato is the fastest and easiest way to peel and purée a tomato in one fell swoop, but there are a few more reasons too. Grating whole tomatoes on a box grater simultaneously removes the tomato skin and grates the tomatoes into a chunky purée.

Cutout brownies are one of my favorite party tricks — they take way less time to bake and decorate than cutout cookies and they might be tastier, too. You can easily find ghost cookie cutters in most grocery stores, at big-box retailers, and online this time of year. For these cute cutouts you’ll just need a batch of brownies and a bit of vanilla frosting. Before you can cut brownies into these cute Halloween treats, you’ll need to bake up a pan.

Come fall, there is nothing I look forward to more than working winter squash — butternut, spaghetti, kabocha, acorn — into my meal plan. What I don’t look forward to, however, is cutting into these hard, roly-poly veggies. I used to dread it every single time, until I learned a few helpful tips that make it easier (and not so scary!). Leave your small knives where they are.

One of the most hotly debated techniques in all of cooking is the easiest, best way to peel a hard-boiled egg. There are a lot of tips I’ve encountered over the years, including adding baking soda to the boiling water, blowing the egg out of its shell, and making sure the eggs are cold before peeling. But then I came across a new method in a recent video on Epicurious and I had to try it out.

So far this year, I’ve been cooking with more winter squash than I ever have before. (Honestly, I blame two small kids who love orange vegetables and will happily gobble up squashes of every kind roasted, puréed, or folded into soup.) Frozen butternut squash has always been a staple in our house, but whole squashes are cheaper per pound right now and have the added benefit of giving us their seeds for snacking.

“How do you get the kernels off your corn cob without getting them all over your kitchen?” … is a question you’ve likely pondered once or twice in your lifetime. It’s a messy, thankless task — but if you have any intention of enjoying corn salad, sauteéd corn, or corn chowder this summer, then someone’s got to do it.

It’s that time of year when we’re swimming in zucchini, and no matter what we make, it feels like we just can’t use it up fast enough. When it comes to prepping this summer veggie, I tend to default to coins, half-moons, and perhaps zucchini spears. But there is a better way to cut zucchini, and it’s a total game-changer. Forget slicing zucchini into round coins and half-moons, and skip the spears and batons — roll cutting is the better way to prep zucchini!

The shelves at Sam’s Club started looking a little different around this time last year. See, that’s when execs decided to rethink their private-label products. “At one point, we had 21 private labels,” says Chandra Holt, vice president of private brands at Sam’s Club, in a press release. “So the first thing I set out to do was to simplify for our members. We now have one private brand: Member’s Mark.

A while ago Maria Ribas said, “Cookbooks exist to help us cook,” and that statement really got me thinking. Of course there are the recipes, but there’s so much more to take away from our cookbook collections. The best tidbits to be found in cookbooks (both new and old) that truly make us better home cooks are the tips and sometimes-unexpected cooking methods that take us out of our comfort zone and usual habits in the kitchen.

For those who don’t know: Lunar New Year, also known as Spring Festival or Chinese New Year, is a 15-day celebration that kicks off this year on the night of Friday, February 16. On the eve of Spring Festival, friends and family gather to enjoy a sumptuous reunion dinner and stay up late to watch the fireworks (an ancient practice designed to scare away the legendary beasts of the previous year).

No matter how crafty you are, the dead of winter is the best time to hunker down with some hot chocolate or wine and make something. And with Valentine’s Day right around the corner, we rounded up some of the easiest and cutest projects on Pinterest. Whether you’re celebrating many years with a significant other, turning the celebration into Galentine’s Day with your girlfriends, or hanging with the kids, there are tons of fun ways to spread the love.

Wanna give some holiday presents that will delight and impress your friends and family? Want to make sure those presents look like they cost you a small fortune, but in reality actually helped you come in under budget? Of course you do! We all do! That’s why we got so excited when we stumbled upon this little California-based shop on Etsy.

Yes, yes I know. We’ve talked at length about garlic hacks. We all love the taste and despise the prep work. We’ve talked before about how to peel garlic with the help of the microwave, a cocktail shaker (bonus cardio workout), or a few bowls. In addition, we’ve also chatted about peeling individual cloves with your bare hands (hulk smash) and with the side of your knife (old school — no hacks involved).

Here's everything you need to know about preparing sweet potatoes.

When it comes to getting peaches off the pit, there are a few different methods that get the job done. Proceed with caution, though, because not all methods are created equal. There’s truly an easier way to get the job done, and this is it. Pitting peaches is easy. There are no fancy tools or unitaskers required — just a sharp paring knife. The easiest way to free the pit is by cutting into the fruit until you hit the pit.

Instead of spending my Friday night meal planning, cocktail in hand, I made a Trader Joe’s run. To be honest, I went for peonies and to get out of the house by myself, as my husband has been out of town for the last few weeks. I walked out $100 poorer and peony-less (they were out). What I did gain was a freezer full of shortcuts to get me through another 10 days of solo parenting while my husband is gone again.

Do you know where your favorite cut falls?

Ready to become a pro at cooking pork?

A few years ago I learned a disturbing fact about bagels: In 2008, 1,979 people went to the emergency room due to a BRI (bagel-related injury), according to the Wall Street Journal. Apparently chicken-related injuries were more common (with 3,463 visits), but this stat still really messed with my head. All those people had their mornings ruined because they lost the battle against their everything bagel. Maybe make everything bagel bread instead?

Every Sunday I make a batch of hard-boiled eggs and stash them in the fridge to turn into quick breakfasts, lunches, and snacks throughout the week. Cooking the eggs is no problem, but peeling them can be a tedious chore. Over the years, I found that three factors make an egg easier to peel: the age of the eggs, the cooking method, and the cooling method. Here are my steps for easier-to-peel hard-boiled eggs. “What do my egg choices have to do with easy-to-peel hard-boiled eggs?

Having a visual image of various cuts and ingredients will help you to become a more agile and intuitive cook.

I love the pop of sweet, tart juice you get from biting into a handful of pomegranate seeds, but I rarely get the pleasure since de-seeding the red orbs can be a bit of a chore. Luckily, there are a handful of tips and tricks to accomplish it with ease. I’ve tried almost all of them, but I’ve found this one to be the best. First, you’ll want to cut a 1/4-inch off the top stem so the fruit stands flat.

You're going to want to hold on to that mountain of apple peels!

Peeling firm winter squash (I’m looking at you, butternut) can go one of two ways: It can be so seamless and easy that you never give it a second thought, or you regard it as one of the most frustrating tasks of the season. As for which camp you’re in, I’d argue it all depends on the tool you use for peeling. As you welcome winter squash season to your kitchen, this is the tool you’ll want to keep by your side.

Watch the video to learn how to cut jalapeños the right way.

Whether you’re an experienced chef or just learning your way around the kitchen, all cooks know good knives are essential for success in the kitchen. And while knife choice is an extremely personal decision, a carbon steel knife is a great choice. Although stainless steel is the most common material for kitchen knives, carbon steel is often the preferred choice of culinary professionals.

In addition to the rich broth, the most satisfying element of beef pho is the meat layered in the bowl before serving. Added raw, the thin strips of beef are cooked when the boiling broth is ladled into the bowl. Choose wisely, though, because not just any cuts of beef will do. These inexpensive cuts of beef celebrate pho’s humble roots, bring just the right blend of fat and flavor, and are, most importantly, quick to cook in the broth.

Cutting boards are arguably one of the most important tools in your kitchen — it’s near impossible to cook without one, which means it’s equally important to be well-informed about them. From how many to own, to what material to buy, to how to care for one, here are five useful things to know about cutting boards. Buy the largest cutting board your kitchen counter can fit — yes, really.

While there’s definitely an argument to be made for taking your knives to a pro to get sharpened, there’s also a case to be made for doing it yourself. “I highly recommend knife sharpening,” says Eivin Kilcher, homesteader, cookbook author, and one of our “Cutting Board” knife experts. “It really is a great skill to bring into your life and an important thing to be able to do at home.