 | | February 19, 2025 |  |
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| Fresh herbs are wonderful to cook with (and sometimes to bake with), but they have a couple of shortcomings. One is that they're sold in large bunches, so you have to find ways of keeping them fresh and storing the leftovers. A more immediate issue is that stripping the flavorful leaves from the tough stems is a pain. Sure, you can buy purpose-made herb strippers, but the best kitchen gadgets are the kind you already have. That's why an herb-stemming hack using a plain ol' box grater has repeatedly gone viral. Here's how it works. |
 | | Credit: DimaBerlin/ Shutterstock |
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| The Box Grater Hack for Fresh Herbs |
| Commercial herb strippers are simple metal or plastic plates with different-sized holes in them. You insert the herb's stem into a suitable-sized hole, pull it through, and the leaves remain. Conveniently, your box grater's sides are also filled with holes, each with a sharp cutting edge to strip away the leaves. |
| So, how does it work? It's pretty simple. |
| 1. Choose the side of your grater with holes that match the size of the herb you're stripping (large or medium for rosemary, small for thyme, etc.). |
| 2. Insert the stem end of the herb through a hole, starting from the outside. |
| 3. Using your fingers, locate the stem inside the box grater and gently pull it through the hole. |
| If you've chosen the right-sized hole, the leaves will drop onto your work surface and you'll be left with a mostly bare stem. This hack works best when the herb has a reasonably sturdy stem (oregano, parsley, basil) or a woody one (rosemary, thyme, sage). For herbs with large leaves or tender, easily broken stems (cilantro, dill, mint), you may find it easier to strip them by hand. |
| Of course, you'll still need to chop or mince the herbs in many cases, which brings us to another gadget you probably already have. A pizza cutter wheel makes short work of chopping leafy herbs; most are dishwasher-safe and easy on your wrist. |
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 | | PGYARD Meat Chopper | | I typically use a wooden spoon to break up ground meat, albeit to varying degrees of success. When I saw this meat chopper on TikTok, I decided to make an exception to my "no single-use kitchen tools" rule. But as it turns out, this thing can mash other foods too, including boiled potatoes, stewed tomatoes, fresh fruit, and hard-boiled eggs. The meat chopper is made of nonstick nylon and is dishwasher-safe for easy cleaning. — Kelsey Morrison, House Outlook Editor |
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| Fred Decker is a trained chef and former restaurateur. Since closing his restaurants over a decade ago he has been a prolific freelance writer, publishing several thousand articles on dozens of high-volume websites including Taste Of Home, Hunker, Tasting Table, Week&, eHow, and GOBankingRates. He lives on a rural acreage shared with a big garden, chickens, rabbits, and grandkids. |
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