Most of us would love to spend less time cooking and more time eating and doing other things. These cooking hacks will save you time and energy when you’re prepping your produce!
Is there anyone else out there that automatically doubles the “estimated prep time” when planning how much time to expect to prepare a meal? I must take twice as long as the average person to prep produce – all that washing, chopping, and dicing!
I started chopping onions the way the cooking hack below shows, though, and it takes me half as long as it did before! It’s amazing how much faster food prep can be, just by learning new ways to do it!
Here is my list of the best 13 cooking hacks for preparing fruits and vegetables quickly.
How to Chop an Onion
From Simply Recipes
This is my favorite of all the cooking hacks because it legitimately saves so much time (and tears) – you’ll just wish you knew about it sooner!
How to Squeeze Juice from Lemons and Other Citrus Fruits
From Wonder How To
Rolling the lemon or lime on a countertop first makes it easier to juice. Using tongs and a sieve you can easily squeeze every last bit of juice out without having to pick out the seeds after.
How to Pit and Peel an Avocado
From Lick My Spoon
The key to this hack is having a perfectly ripe avocado. When it’s ripe, the pit and peel come off easily!
The Best Way to De-Seed a Pomegranate
From Greatist
If you don’t already, you should incorporate pomegranate seeds into your diet because they are loaded with antioxidants, vitamins C and K, and potassium with many other health benefits!
How to Cut a Mango
From Our Thrifty Ideas
Great in smoothies, on yogurt, salads, in salsa, or by themselves, mangoes are easy to prepare and incorporate into your diet!
The Easiest Way to Microwave Corn on the Cob
From Simply Recipes
Growing up on a farm, eating corn on the cob was genuinely one of the best things about summer. If you’re preparing one corn cob at a time, this is the quickest and easiest way to get it ready to eat!
How to Peel and Prep a Butternut Squash
From POPSUGAR
Butternut squash can be intimidating at first, but don’t let that stop you! This instructional shows you how easy it can be: slice off top and bottom, split lengthwise in half, peel with Y-peeler, scoop out seeds and pulp, and slice into cubes.
The Easiest Way to Cut a Watermelon
From Real Food Family
As pictured: cut melon in half, slice rind in large pieces at angle, cut top off, horizontally slice in half, cut in a grid for cubed pieces.
Remove Strawberry Stem with Straw
From Just Imagine
This is the easiest one-step hack, yet extremely clever and helpful – using just a straw!
How to Flawlessly Peel a Kiwi with a Spoon
From TIDBITS
The key to using this hack is waiting until the kiwi is soft and ripe. As pictured: slice top and bottom, push spoon through kiwi just inside peel, rotate spoon all the way around, then slice kiwi as desired.
How to Cut Up a Fresh Pineapple
From Gimme Some Oven
Fresh pineapple can be a beast to prepare unless you know how to do it – so worth it for the perfect tangy-yet-sweet taste!
Easy Way to Peel Oranges
From New Malaysian Kitchen
This should work for most oranges, and possibly even tangerines and clementines, too!
Cutting a Bell Pepper, the Easy Way
From Katie Normal Girl
I don’t know about you, but when I slice bell peppers I tend to get seeds everywhere! This how-to should solve that problem.
