Healthy Kitchen Hacks #2

Healthy Kitchen Hacks is a weekly series on Teaspoon of Spice. We share fellow bloggers’ and our own favorite cooking shortcuts, kitchen tricks and “aha” ideas for making healthy meals a snap.

Last week, we launched this new Healthy Kitchen Hacks weekly series (posted each Wednesday) with lots of positive feedback from you all – so, apparently we aren’t the only ones who look for kitchen shortcuts and healthy culinary tricks!

If you missed it, here’s last week’s Healthy Kitchen Hacks #1.

So, let’s get right down to it….here’s this week’s Healthy Kitchen Hacks that I’ve (Deanna) tried out:

1) How To Seed a Pomegranate Without the Mess
via Tieghan @Half Baked Harvest

Old way for me: Cut pomegranate into wedges. Tap seeds loose with wooden spoon. Curse at the stains all over my cabinets, countertop, and me.

New way: Remove seeds underwater. Tieghan shows you how (I also cut my pomegranate underwater, so no stained cutting boards.)

Bonus: My 7 year old now loves doing this task and this hack even got her to eat pomegranate seeds.

2) How to Clean and Restore Wood Cutting Boards
via Courtney @Sweet C’s Designs

Talk about one of those kitchen chores I never do. I’m anal about only using plastic boards for cutting raw meat/chicken/fish but my wooden boards take a beating from all that veggie and fruit prep.

I followed Courtney’s post step by step (I used coconut oil for final step) and what a difference in the before and after.

3) No Bake, No Added Sugar Chocolate Pudding
via Brianne @ Cupcakes & Kale Chips

Brianne calls this her Chocolate Pudding “Snack Hack” and I was skeptical as it’s only 3 ingredients with ripe banana as the sole sweetener.

But it worked! Next time, I’d add another half of very ripe banana to sweeten it up just a bit more – but the consistency was spot on. (I added a splash of milk as my batch was too thick to pour at first.)

4) How to Measure Sticky Ingredients

This is a hack I picked up years ago and it saves my sanity any time I’m measuring honey, syrup, molasses, peanut butter or anything super sticky:

1. Coat measuring cup with cooking spray or a touch of canola oil.
2. Measure sticky ingredient.
3. Pour/dump easily into mixing bowl as the ingredient slides right out.

5) Formula Meals For Easy Weeknight Dinners
via Danielle @ Food Confidence

Photo credit: Foodconfidence.com

While I don’t mind following a recipe, I can’t live without my “throw it together” meals – no instruction needed.

Enter Formula Meals from dietitian Danielle Omar. She shares a basic template – like this Simple Stir Fry – and you adjust it for the ingredients you have on hand. A GENIUS idea for easy, healthy weeknight meals.

Would you try any of these hacks? Any healthy kitchen or healthy living shortcuts to share? Shoot us an email ([email protected] or [email protected] ) or share below and we’ll try them out.