12 cooking hacks you wish you had known about sooner

5. Needle in a banana

Do you also feel a bit awkward when you eat a banana in public? With this cooking hack, you take you banana with you pre-cut in its skin. You start at the top by sticking a needle in the banana at the longest curved side. Next, move the needle from the left to the right through the flesh of the banana. Repeat this process a few times with a few centimetres in between until you reach the bottom. Then when you peel your banana, it will be sliced and ready to eat! This way you can eat the slices straight from the peel. Try it once without other people knowing what you’re doing. When you open your banana, nobody knows how it is possible that it is already cut!

6. Cutting a bell pepper

Do you think that cutting a bell pepper is a difficult job with all those seeds inside? This is the best way to go about it. Cut with a sharp knife the top and the bottom off the bell pepper. The middle of the bell pepper now still has the core with the seeds in it. Then cut the bell pepper sideways and sever the threads that connect the flesh to the core. Now you can cut your bell pepper easily into pieces. Push the stalk out of the top with your fingers to cut that up the top as well.

7. Peeling potatoes

Peeling potatoes can be a time-consuming and irritating job. Is it not your favourite job by far? Try this cooking hack! Before you boil the potatoes, score the skin with a knife round the potatoes in a kind of spiral. After you boil and drain them, you can peel away the skin easily. This trick works best with waxy potatoes. Keep in mind that you don’t boil the potatoes too long, but they do need to be cooked of course.

8. Strawberry caps

Do you always cut off the tops of strawberries to get rid of the cap? Then you know that there is always a part of the fruit that gets thrown out. None of that with this hack! Take a straw and push it against the bottom of the strawberry. When you push the straw through the strawberry, the core and the cap go up and out. When you use this trick, you’ll never eat the bitter core.

9. Cutting an onion

Can you never manage to cut an onion well or do you just hate doing it? Cut the onion in half and take the skin off. Then just get a grater and grate the onion on the largest setting. This way you get a finely sliced onion that you can use in soups or pasta sauces. This is one of the many cooking hacks that are so simple that you’re kicking yourself for not thinking of it before.

Are you curious to find out why you should put a needle in a lemon or how to make a stale baguette fresh again? Go to the next page to find more cooking hacks. Do you want to see the cooking hacks in action, then watch the video!

Page 2/3