Kitchen Hacks

The 10 Kitchen Hacks That Defined Our Year

by: Valerio Farris

December 19, 2017

In many ways, 2017 was the year of the hack. Who can blame us? We’re busy and looking for ways to make things just a bit easier—shortcuts, if you will. What makes a hack a hack and not, say, advice, a suggestion, or a tried and true cooking tip? There’s no definitive answer. However, when scouring the web for ideas, I keep a few criteria in mind: A hack should reduce time; a hack should make something difficult, easier; a hack should force you to think outside the box, to approach a task in a way you never thought to before.

As this year draws to a close, I peeked back at some of the most popular hacks we featured on our site. Some are useful gamechangers; others, not so much. Check them out below:

The Cake-Cutting Technique Taking Instagram By Storm

I may or may not be guilty of attempting this hack at a recent birthday party. The good news: It worked! Cutting a cake can be stressful and overly emotional. This hack is here to make that process just a bit easier.

How To Preserve Your Sourdough Starter for Months—Sans Freezer

This one is less of a time-saver and more of an extremely useful tidbit of knowledge. I’d call it a hack nonetheless. Sourdough starters are tricky business, so any help we can get is worth sharing—and knowing.

The Ingredient That's About to Change the Way You Bake

Here’s a hack for fuller, richer, sweeter sweets from dessert genius, Stella Parks. Apparently, popping your sugar in the oven to achieve a light caramel color transforms the way you bake. The easiest part? Her recipe only calls for a single ingredient: sugar.

The Food Network "Hack" Confusing the Internet

This is my personal favorite. Sometimes, it’s not so much about the hack, but the conversation it begets. This particular suggestion features peanut butter frozen into Kraft single-like slices, a hack that more than doubles your time in the kitchen, and a Twitter conversation that raged harder than Merill Stubb’s holiday stovetop fire. Enjoy!

How to Peel Hard Boiled Eggs Perfectly, Every Single Time

Peeling hard boiled eggs is both tedious and annoying, so this hack is one I reference often. It’s all about the ice bath. Throwing those puppies into a cold pool will make them all the much easier to shell. Cheers to that.

A 'Why Didn't I Think of That?' Way to Peel Potatoes

This one appeared right in the thick of potato season, and we're definitely glad it did. It's simple, refined, and fool proof. Put down that peeler and say goodbye to those pesky skins!

Is This How We’re Really Supposed to Be Draining Pasta?

This one had me confounded. I thought we had pasta draining down pat. Apparently not.

Next-Level Banana Bread, Courtesy of One Basic Ingredient

Sometimes a hack can be as simple as adding an unexpected ingredient to a well known recipe. This one does just that. Cream cheese in banana bread? This recipe (and our community) says it works!

The Best Way to Soften Butter, Fast

When you’re baking in a crunch, a stick of butter forgotten in the freezer can be a serious impediment. But what’s a hack if not something to make cooking, or baking, a cinch? This video advises putting a frozen stick of butter beneath a warm cup. It seems to work.

This Japanese Way of Making Iced Coffee Is a Game Changer

This Japanese method for brewing iced coffee turned cold brew on its head. Brewing directly onto ice chills coffee without any bitter taste. I’ll be using this come summer, no doubt.

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So there you have it, the hacks that changed the way we cook in 2017. Some of these are definitely worth carrying into 2018. Others... not so much.

What kitchen tricks did you learn this year? Let us know about them in the comments.

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creamtea
AntoniaJames

Valerio is a freelance food writer, editor, researcher and cook. He grew up in his parent's Italian restaurants covered in pizza flour and drinking a Shirley Temple a day. Since, he's worked as a cheesemonger in New York City and a paella instructor in Barcelona. He now lives in Berlin, Germany where he's most likely to be found eating shawarma.

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3 Comments

creamtea December 19, 2017

The potato-skin hack didn't work for me at all. :(
The butter hack? Yessss

AntoniaJames December 19, 2017

The potato skin hack works for certain potato salads and similar dishes where a cooked potato whose cell structure has been changed by boiling water is appropriate. (My mother's "German potato salad" was so good, I believe, because that starchy goo on the just peeled boiled potatoes worked really well with the vinegar she splashed on the potatoes when they were still warm.) The idea that it is a universal hack, as suggested in the article, is simply nonsense. Someone on the editorial staff with more experience in the kitchen, or more knowledge of potato science (of which there is plenty out there, from reliable sources), should have caught that. ;o)