My Favourite Kitchen Hacks

Time and Money-Saving Kitchen Hacks

I love kitchen hacks. Easy-to-follow advice that will save me time and energy? Sign me up! Here are my top five favourite kitchen hacks that have been total game changers for me.

1. Store your nut butter containers upside down.

Sick of a sloppy, oily mess on the counter? Tired of dry, crusty nut butter at the bottom of the jar? Store your natural nut butter jars upside down in the fridge or pantry. This will encourage the oil to rise towards the top so it disperses more evenly throughout the product. The result? Smooth and creamy nut butter every time with no mess!

2. Laminate a grocery list.

Who doesn’t love saving wasted time? Save yourself the hassle of writing out a weekly grocery list by typing out a list of the staple items that you need in your kitchen to always have a healthy meal or snack on hand and get it laminated (it’s very inexpensive at Staples). I keep my list on the fridge, so if I use the last of something or notice that we are running low I can easily use a whiteboard marker to mark off what we need. We also leave a large empty space on the back to list items that we don’t get often.

PS – The best news is that it’s really, really hard to lose a laminated list. It also transports well to-and-from the grocery store!

3. Ripen your fruit faster.

Do you ever get stuck with the greenest bananas or the hardest avocados? This can be a little problematic, especially if you need them soon for a recipe! Quickly ripen bananas by placing them in a closed brown paper bag on top of the fridge. Ripen those rock-hard avocados by placing them in a brown paper bag along with a ripe banana on top of the fridge – they’ll soften up in about 12-24 hours. This trick has saved me more times than I can count!

4. Keep your greens crisp.

There truly is nothing more disappointing that soft, flimsy salad greens. Keep your greens crisp and fresh by running water over the whole leaves after you bring them home from the grocery store. Then, put them in a plastic shopping bag and seal the bag. The water coating the leaves will keep them hydrated, and the plastic bag will prevent the water from evaporating. 

5. Clean smart, not hard.

Can we all please agree that cleaning caked-on microwave mess is a torturous task? I do not have the time, nor the patience, to sit down and scrub down my microwave every time someone leaves a mess. To seriously cut down on cleaning time, heat up a bowl of water with a splash of vinegar or lemon juice, microwaving it on high for 5-8 minutes. The steam will help loosen up the mess and make it much easier to wipe down.

Am I the only one who didn’t know about this?! Amazing. Just be careful that you don’t let the water boil over, and be sure to use oven mitts when removing the bowl from the microwave, as it will be very hot!

These are some of my favourite kitchen hacks, but I’d love to hear yours! If you have any great, time-saving kitchen hacks that you can’t live without, let us all know about them in the comments below!