Use These 3 Lemon Juice Hacks to Make the Remainder of Your Weeknight Meals Simpler

This web site isn’t precisely recognized for shortcuts, however now and again, somebody on this group gives up a tip in passing that not solely makes life (and cooking!) a lot, a lot simpler, but it surely additionally simply…is smart. And whereas we’re within the enterprise of creating nice meals, we’re actually not within the enterprise of gatekeeping. So when our culinary editor shared what she does each week to make getting meals collectively in the course of the week a breeze, we had been wanting to move on the data. 

For Genevieve, juicing about 5 or 6 lemons at the start of any given week saves her a great deal of time afterward. She juices sufficient to maintain a jar of it available—normally repurposing a 12-ounce Bonne Maman jar. Nonetheless, the quantity of juice you get will rely on the dimensions of your lemons. And whereas the flavour of the ensuing lemon juice is nice for about 5 days, she finds that it by no means lasts longer than that as a result of she makes use of it so usually. 

So many recipes name for one teaspoon or tablespoon of lemon juice at a time, and utilizing this technique is a lot extra environment friendly than juicing an entire lemon each time you want just a bit little bit of juice. “If I’ve a jar of lemon juice, I could make salad dressing, hen piccata, spaghetti al limone, Reem’s garlic lemon sauce,” she says; the sauce is a mix of garlic, lemon juice, chile, salt, and cumin. You’ll be able to even toss it in your greens as a of completion for some brightness—the checklist actually does go on. 

Pasta Mains
Pasta al Limone
Brilliant and aromatic citrus finds its manner into this comforting bowl of spaghetti.

prepare dinner time:


25 minutes

serves:


4

Our commerce editor Grace additionally chimed in saying she makes use of the identical hack however prefers freezing the lemon juice in ice dice trays. Freezing the liquid makes it last more, whereas turning it into ice cubes makes it simple to take out small quantities as wanted. The variety of lemons you have to to refill an ice dice tray will rely on each the dimensions of your citrus and the amount of your ice dice tray. When prepared to make use of, come out nevertheless many cubes you need and place them in a bowl or a jar to thaw within the fridge till liquid. Due to the thawing time, this technique requires just a bit extra planning forward, however will nonetheless prevent time nonetheless. 

Genevieve usually turns to the freezing technique to make use of up lemons earlier than she goes out of city. Nonetheless, she prefers to freeze the liquid in jars after which thaw in a single day when she’s prepared to make use of it. She notes that no matter technique you want to make use of for freezing, the juice will maintain its taste for about three months. 

For Genevieve, this trick is a no brainer that she now can’t stay with out. “I began doing it after I seen some lemons had been beginning to look unhappy, and I used to be like, ‘truly this can be a good thought,’” she says. It’s additionally an effective way to unlock area in your fridge. So possibly you don’t at all times come to this web site anticipating a fast tip, however at the moment is a brand new day!

Could 2024