Kitchen Hacks & Solutions

If you prefer to hang your dishwashing gloves so that they’re always at hand, but your pair lacks tabs to do so, you can create your own by folding a piece of duct tape over the top edge of each one and then piercing the tape with a hole puncher.

If you run out of steel wool but need to get tough, baked-on food off glass baking dishes or an oven rack, try dishwashing liquid and a crumpled-up ball of aluminum foil. The craggy foil is more abrasive than a sponge. This is a great way to recycle used—but still clean—sheets of foil.

Narrow-mouthed bottleneck containers require a long, slim brush to reach the bottom and clean the interior. In lieu of purchasing a specialized tool, try adding a handful of uncooked rice, water, and dish soap to the bottle, covering the top, and shaking vigorously. The grains’ friction against the sides loosens any grime and offers a nearly scrub-free solution.

Try using a fruit bag as a replacement scrub pad for cleaning dirty pots and pans or vegetables.
1. Wrap an empty perforated plastic fruit bag around a sponge, or simply fold it around itself to form a compact shape. Secure with a rubber band.
2. Use the wrapped scrubber to scour cookware in hot, soapy water or to clean vegetables under cool running water. In both cases, discard the bag when finished.

Every cook knows the frustration of having to stop in the middle of dinner preparation to wash a utensil, such as a paring knife, which you’ve dirtied but need to use again. To eliminate this frustration, start your cooking preparations by filling a glass or jar with hot, sudsy water. Slip dirty utensils into the water (sharp ends down) to soak as soon as you’re done with them, and, if you need them again, just a quick rinse under the faucet makes them ready to go.

Washing fragile glassware by hand is the best way to stave off breakage—unless it slips out of your grasp and crashes down into the sink. As a precautionary measure, place rubber shelf liners in the sink for a breakage-free cleaning session.

For sparkling stemware free of water spots, wash glasses by hand and rinse them with distilled water, which has none of the spot-producing impurities of regular tap water.
1. Fill a squirt bottle with distilled water. Rinse the glasses inside and out with the water.
2. Air-dry the glasses, first upside down, then right side up.