25 Useful Kitchen and Food Hacks to Level Up Your Cooking Game!

At Mum Central, we LOVE discovering and sharing clever kitchen and food hacks. We especially love discovering ways to cook easier, get more out of your groceries, create a gorgeous pantry and limit waste too!

We all want to feel like Nigella Lawson in the kitchen from time to time, right? A domestic goddess is exactly what you will feel like after discovering these epic food hacks. You’ll be ripping herbs with ease and saving space in the freezer in no time.

In fact, we’ve demonstrated quite a few kitchen and food hacks for you to see, so be sure to follow Mum Central on TikTok to watch them in action.

Ready to cook smarter and not harder? Check out all the food hacks, tips and tricks below!

25 kitchen tips and food hacks to level up your kitchen game

1. Don’t throw away broccoli stems! Chop them up and add them to stir-fries or eat them as is, yum, yum!

2. You don’t need to throw away ANY part of a green spring onion. The green tops can be added to soups, thinly sliced and added to salads or dropped in ice water to curl for garnishes. The onion bottom can resprout!

3. Making dough and now having the sticky dough hands? Clean-up is made easier with more flour – just rub your hands with extra flour until the wet dough balls up and falls off.

4. If your vegetables have been left out in the fridge for too long and are lifeless and limp, it’s likely because they’re dehydrated. Dunk them in a bowl of ice water for half an hour to crisp them up once more.

5. Herbs last longer if they’re stored properly out of supermarket plastic. Dunk them in cold water, drain, wrap them in a paper towel and place them in a sealed plastic bag before storing them in the fridge crisper.

@mumcentral 🌱🌱‘LEAVES ONLY’ HACK 🌱🌱 It sure beats picking them off individually! #cookinghack #kitchenhack #parsleyhack #cooking ♬ Ultimate life hacks – Kelly – The Life Bath

6. Do your peaches feel like cricket balls? Help ripen them up a little more by placing them in a paper bag with an over-ripe banana for a day or two.

7. To squeeze more juice from lemons and limes, microwave them for 10 seconds before squeezing.

8. Always soak bamboo skewers before putting them on the BBQ or you risk them catching on fire and burning off!

9. To stop kebabs from sticking to a solid BBQ plate, place a piece of baking paper on the plate and cook on top of that. Easy clean up and no sticking.

10. Ready for small child food hacks? When it comes to cutting food for young children to eat, use kitchen scissors for speedy slicing (it means you can eat while your dinner is still hot too!).

@mumcentral Does anyone else cut up their kids food with scissors? If not, you must try it! So quick and easy 😅 #raisingkids #cooking #mumlife #food #toddlers #motherhood ♬ Baby Work It – Your Favourite Garçon

11. Accidentally bought salmon with skin on instead of skinless? Use a sharp knife to get between the fish flesh and the skin at one end and then pull the fish skin away as you gently slice between the skin and flesh (a bit like covering schoolbooks!).

12. For a crispy salmon (or any fish) skin, always pat it dry with a paper towel before frying it in a hot pan.

13. To get the best pork crackling ever, dry out the rind overnight by leaving the pork uncovered in the fridge. Rub with plenty of salt and cook at a very high temperature until it starts to pop.

14. Water has the same weight as volume. If you can’t find a measuring jug for that 100ml, use the scales and weigh 100g instead.

15. Need to soften butter to room temperature in a hurry? Skip the microwave which melts butter – grate the butter and wait 10 minutes instead!

@mumcentral 🧈 BUTTER SOFTENING HACK 🧈 Room temperature butter in just a fraction of the time! #butter #bakinghack #cookinghack #recipesoftiktok #hacksoflife ♬ Golden – Harry Styles

16. If your brown sugar has gone hard, try putting a damp paper towel over the top and microwaving it for 20 seconds before breaking it up with a fork.

17. Using a turmeric-based marinade? Use gloves to stop your hands from staining. And for turmeric-stained plastic containers, leave them in direct sunlight for the day to bleach them.

18. Dampen your hands to stop mince meat from sticking to your hands when making rissoles or sausage rolls. So much easier – and a whole lot less messy!

19. Adding salt to your pasta water before boiling not only makes the water boil quicker but also seasons the pasta so that it doesn’t taste bland. Add around a tablespoon of salt for every 500g of pasta being cooked.

20. Prolong avocado shelf life by keeping them in water in the fridge. We won’t encourage submerging them for weeks on end, but if you want to make sure your avos for the week stay pristine – this could be an option!

@mumcentral 🥑 AVOCADO HACK: Tried and tested! 🥑Never throw a ripe avocado out again with this fab kitchen hack! ~ Lexi #kitchenhack #budgettip #nofoodwaste #avocado #fridgeorganisation ♬ Drop It Like It’s Hot – Snoop Dogg

21. Keep your bread crusts for fresh breadcrumbs. Give them a whizz around a food processor and store them in an airtight container in the freezer to keep them fresh until they’re required.

22. Measuring honey or golden syrup for a recipe? Spray the spoon or cup with oil first so it slips out easily for more accurate measuring.

23. A piece of dental floss is perfect to cut neat slices of cheese and raw dough. The bonus is there are no dishes.

24. One of our favourite flavour-filled food hacks is that Maggi Original Seasoning is the perfect umami flavour for Asian home cooking. It delivers the perfect something, so it pays to keep a bottle handy in the pantry!

25. Before freezing mince meat, weigh it and bag it in a zip-lock bag, pushing the air out and flattening it before sealing it. This saves room in the freezer and the meat defrosts quicker and more evenly. Winning!

@mumcentral 🥩 HOW TO FREEZE MINCE MEAT AND SAVE FREEZER SPACE! ❄️ Forget freezing mince meat in its packaging, this method saves you space AND its quicker to defrost! 🙌 #kitchenhacks #kitchenstorage #freezerorganization #mumlife #mealplanning ♬ You Should Be Dancing – Bee Gees

Do you have any epic kitchen hacks or food hacks of your own? Please share them in the comments below so that we can add them to this list!

Are you as crazy about hacks as we are? Check out the posts below for a good read, guaranteed.