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I Tested Out Cooking Hacks That People Actually Swear By — But Not All Of Them Worked

I cannot stop thinking about the egg one.

I still remember the first time a chef taught me how to really cut an onion. (It's a game changer, FYI.)

CBC / Via giphy.com

A chef in a restaurant I worked at showed me the light, and now I can never go back.

But these days, you don't need a chef friend to get clued in, you just need TikTok. So I dedicated a day to trying TikTok food hacks to see what works and what doesn't.

Woman in kitchen with apron on
Evie Carrick

I like to cook, but I'm by no means a cook, so I kept my food hack search pretty basic and tended to lean toward tricks that I could use regularly.

HACK #1: Slice a bunch of cherry tomatoes in half at the same time — using just a food storage container lid and a sharp knife.

Slicing tomatoes on a cutting board
@pierrelechef / Via tiktok.com

Click here to watch the full TikTok from @pierre.le.chef.

THE IDEA: The vision here is to make chopping a ton of cherry tomatoes just a little easier. Why? Because cherry tomatoes are delish and go in almost everything, and it is super annoying, IMO, to have a whole cherry tomato in a salad (impossible to stab) or in a hot dish (mouth explosion).

THE METHOD: All you need is a serrated knife and the top to a food storage container. Press firmly on the top, slide the knife under it, and use a sawing motion to move the serrated blade through all the tomatoes as you press firmly down on the lid.

I cut all the tomatoes for my salad in just a few seconds — but had to cut one particularly small tomato separately.

Cutting board with cherry tomatoes, a Tupperware top, and a knife
Evie Carrick

DID IT WORK: Yes!

THE RESULTS: As long as the tomatoes are relatively the same size, this hack works perfectly. But if you have a cherry tomato that's smaller than the rest, it won't stay in place under the pressure of the lid and will fly out from under the lid when you try to cut it. I would imagine the same would apply with an overly large tomato — it would throw off the pressure for the rest of the "normal-sized" tomatoes.

FINAL RATING: 🍅🍅🍅🍅/🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅

HACK #2: Cut a mango across the middle, twist to detach each side from the pit — and you're left with two scoopable mango "cups."

@nalaura.mv / Via tiktok.com

Click here to watch the full TikTok from @nalaura.mv.

THE IDEA: Mangoes are delicious but a disaster to eat. It's almost impossible to enjoy a mango without getting sticky fingers and a puddle of mango juice in your lap. That being said, I love mangoes, so I'm always looking for (less messy) ways to eat them. I was interested in this method because you end up with two little mango cups perfect for spooning out mouthfuls of the good stuff.

THE METHOD: Take a knife and cut all the way around the width of the mango to the core. Grip either side of the cut line and twist until one side (or one cup) releases from the pit. Then grip onto the seed and twist until the other side releases.

This was...really messy and wasted a ton of the fruit.

Three phases of a mango being cut
Evie Carrick

DID IT WORK: Not really.

THE RESULTS: To be fair, I know there are several mango varieties, so it's possible the type of mango I bought just wasn't conducive to this method. (I thought the mango meat was a little extra stringy.) BUT either way, most of the mango remained stuck to the pit and didn't come off in the little "cups." I ended up scooping it out of the cups and then trying to slice more meat off the mango pit. A total mess.

FINAL RATING: 🥭/🥭🥭🥭🥭🥭

HACK #3: Quickly make cold butter spreadable by grating it onto your (warm) toast.

Butter being scraped from a cheese grater onto toast
@krisslovesfood / Via tiktok.com

Click here to watch the full TikTok from @krisslovesfood.

THE IDEA: This happens to me all the time. I want toast, but the butter is rock hard, so I end up either a) trying to spread it anyway, which always tears up the toast, or b) microwaving the butter, which almost always results in a pool of butter on the microwave tray. So when I saw this hack, I was intrigued. An easy way to make butter straight from the fridge actually melt? Yes, please.

THE METHOD: Use a flat cheese grater to grate the cold butter directly onto the toast. Then use a knife to scrape the remaining butter from the grater and spread it on your toast.

It worked! Really, really well.

Toast with grated butter on top
Evie Carrick

DID IT WORK: Yep.

THE RESULTS: The cold butter is transformed into a perfectly smearable topping once it's transformed into little butter worms. It melted into the bread perfectly, and it was easy to scrape any remaining butter off the grater.

FINAL RATING: 🍞🍞🍞🍞🍞/🍞🍞🍞🍞🍞

HACK #4: Use olive oil to keep a cut avocado from turning brown.

Rubbing a bit of olive oil onto an avocado
@mamainthekitchen / Via tiktok.com

Click here to watch the full TikTok from @mamainthekitchen.

THE IDEA: I eat A LOT of avocado, so I'm all about any hack to keep the other half from going brown. The hack was to smear olive oil on the remaining avocado half to prevent oxidation.

THE METHOD: Put a small amount (like a teaspoon) of olive oil in the center of the avocado and smear it all over the exposed fruit.

It worked okay, but you definitely have to refrigerate the avocado. I tried both ways, and leaving one half out overnight was a baaaaad idea.

Avocados getting doused in olive oil
Evie Carrick

DID IT WORK: Yes, but the hack forgets to mention that you'll need to put the avocado in the fridge.

THE RESULTS: The avocado was a little brown to start with, but using the olive oil hack (and refrigerating it overnight) resulted in only a slightly more brown avocado the next day. Plus, thanks to the oil, the skin of the avocado remained soft, so I didn't have to cut off the exterior layer as I usually do.

FINAL RATING: 🥑🥑🥑/🥑🥑🥑🥑🥑

HACK #5: Cut an upside-down bell pepper along its seams to avoid having to scrape out the seeds later.

@drbcook / Via tiktok.com

Click here to watch the full TikTok from @drbcook.

THE IDEA: Dicing up a bell pepper usually involves scraping off the seeds, but this hack makes it so you can cut up the pepper in a way that most of the waste stays together and you don't have to deal with it. It's also handy if you only want to use a small part of the pepper.

THE METHOD: Cut the stem off the pepper and then place the whole pepper stem-side down on the cutting board. Use a knife to cut along the natural seams of the pepper — but be careful not to cut all the way through! Then pull out a section in one piece and use the knife to remove it from the rest of the pepper.

It works like a dream — but you have to do it right.

A green bell pepper in various stages of being cut
Evie Carrick

DID IT WORK: Yes, but the hack doesn't mention that you don't want to cut all the way through the pepper. Also, while the seeds stay in the middle, you'll have to pull off the pith (white tissue).

THE RESULTS: The first time I tried this hack, it didn't work because I cut all the way through the pepper. When I tried to separate the chunk I'd cut from the rest of the pepper, the innards came with it. But on my second try, I got it. The secret is to cut along the seam most of the way (like 90%), but not all the way to the bottom.

FINAL RATING: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️/🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

HACK #6: Peel a hard-boiled egg in seconds — and with only one hand — by shaking the egg in a cup, submerging it again in water, then slipping the peel off.

@rujinakhaled / Via tiktok.com

Click here to watch the full TikTok from @rujinakhaled.

THE IDEA: I eat a lot of eggs, but I'll literally avoid hard-boiling them simply because I dread the process of peeling off the shell. I use the spoon method, but honestly, half the time, the egg comes off with the shell or little bits of shell remain stuck to the egg. In short, it's annoying. That's why I was so excited to try this hack. In the video, she peels the egg in seconds with one hand. A miracle in the world of hard-boiled eggs.

THE METHOD: After the eggs are fully hard-boiled, pour cold water into the pan until the water is cool. Then drop an egg into a cup and shake vigorously. Once the shell is fully cracked, drop the egg back into the pan of cool water and slide the shell off the egg.

Even though it sounds more complicated than it is, I LOVED this hack.

Egg being boiled and peeled in water
Evie Carrick

DID IT WORK: Yes!

THE RESULTS: I had low expectations because I know what a pain eggshells can be, but I was pleasantly surprised. The shell literally slid off into the pot of water. I also tried the hack on a hard-boiled egg from a couple of days prior and it worked, but not as perfectly as when the egg was freshly boiled and still a little warm.

FINAL RATING: 🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚/🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚

What's an underrated food hack you wish you'd known sooner? Share in the comments below!

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