7 Awesome Cooking Tips & Tricks

If you find that you often use only a teaspoon or so of the zest from a lemon or orange, try freezing the rest to avoid waste. Remove the zest from the rest of the fruit and deposit it in ½-teaspoon increments on a plate. Transfer the plate to the freezer. Once the piles are frozen, place them in a zipper-lock bag. Frozen zest keeps for up to three weeks.

Fresh ginger is often sold in large pieces that may not be used up in one recipe. To keep it from going to waste and save it for long-term storage, use this easy tip: cut leftover unpeeled ginger into 1-inch pieces and place them in a zipper-lock bag. Store the bag in the freezer for one month or longer. Whenever fresh ginger is needed, simply pull a piece from the freezer, allow it to thaw, peel it, and then grate or chop as required for your recipe.

Often, home cooks buy a bunch of parsley only to end up using just a small fraction, leaving the rest to go bad. Luckily, there’s a good way to keep leftover parsley usable indefinitely. This method also works with sage, rosemary, and thyme.
1. Chop leftover fresh herbs by hand or in the food processor, transfer by the spoonful into ice cube trays, and top with water to cover. For a standard ice cube tray, place 2 tablespoons chopped herbs and approximately 1 tablespoon water in each cube.
2. Once the cubes are frozen, transfer them to a zipper-lock bag and seal. Store until you want to add them to sauces, soups, or stews.

The next time you make rice, prepare a double batch and freeze the leftovers. They can be reheated in the microwave, used to make fried rice, or added to soups and stews. To freeze, spread the hot rice out on a baking sheet to cool. Break up any large clumps. Place the cooled rice in a zipper-lock bag and freeze until needed.

Toasted nuts are often used in recipes such as pesto or cookies, but it can be annoying to have to toast small amounts for each dish. Here’s a solution: toast several cups of nuts on a baking sheet in a 350-degree oven for 3 to 5 minutes. When the nuts are cool, transfer them to a zipper-lock bag and freeze them. Do not use pretoasted frozen nuts for recipes in which a crisp texture is desired, such as salads.

Recipes often call for only a tablespoon or two of tomato paste. Unfortunately, the rest of the can usually ends up turning brown in the refrigerator and then being discarded. Eliminate this waste by using the following tip.
1. Open both ends of the tomato paste can. Remove the lid from one end and use the lid at the other end to push the paste out onto a sheet of plastic wrap. (this method also works as a neat way of getting other solid ingredients, such as frozen juice and almond paste, out of cans.)
2. Wrap the tomato paste in plastic wrap and place it in the freezer.
3. When the paste has frozen, you can cut off just as much as you need for a particular recipe and then return the frozen log to the freezer.

Instead of tossing out that last bit of wine from an unfinished bottle, freeze it. Then when you need a little wine to finish a sauce, there is no need to open a fresh bottle. Measure 1 tablespoon of wine into each well of an ice cube tray and freeze. Use a paring knife to remove each wine cube, and store them in a zipper-lock bag. Add the frozen cubes to sauces as desired.