12 Egg Slicer Hacks You Shouldn't Go Another Day Without
If you own an egg slicer, chances are it spends most of its time languishing at the back of a cupboard until you call upon it to do its job and cut a hard-boiled egg into perfect slices. While it does this job admirably, you may be surprised to learn that your egg slicer is not a one-trick pony and can be put to use much more often in your kitchen.
By using this nifty gadget more creatively, you can save yourself a lot of prep time and dramatically improve your presentation. Whether you are slicing strawberries for your signature dessert or attempting to keep your fingers stain-free while chopping beetroot, your egg slicer can come to the rescue.
Slicing ingredients with an egg slicer doesn't just enhance the presentation of your dishes — it helps to make sure your food cooks evenly. It also keeps your dishes in balance, as uniformly sliced produce ensures each bite is the perfect mix of each flavor and texture. Let's have a look at the best egg slicer hacks that can make your everyday kitchen preparation a breeze. By thinking outside the box, this humble tool can have a big impact on your cooking.
Slicing soft cheese
If you love cheese — and, let's be honest, who doesn't — then you are likely partial to the occasional artistically arranged cheeseboard. Arranging an assortment of cheeses is a lot of fun, but slicing the softer cheeses can be a challenge — and a sticky one at that.
The softest cheeses, such as chevre, camembert, and cream cheese, seem impossible to present beautifully as they often give way at the slightest pressure from a knife. Your egg slicer can come to the rescue here by creating perfect slices of soft cheese within a few seconds. Depending on the shape and size of your original piece, you may have to cut your cheese to fit into the egg slicer. Then, simply press down firmly, and an Insta-worthy cheeseboard will be within your grasp.
Of course, you don't have to wait until your next dinner party to put this hack to use. Slicing everyday cheeses becomes a breeze with your egg slicer in hand. Whether you are creating gorgeous cheese rounds for a goat's cheese salad or simply making a cheddar sandwich, you can save yourself plenty of time and hassle with this nifty trick. Instead of wrestling with your cheese, put the knife down and try the egg slicer instead.
Preparing strawberries
Strawberries are a delicious fruit no matter how you eat them — devoured whole while holding the green hull, whizzed up into a smoothie, or cut up roughly into chunks — but for some dishes, you may want to slice them elegantly for the best presentation. It is, of course, possible to slice strawberries with a sharp knife. But, sometimes this can be tricky, and you risk the blade sliding off the slippery fruit and onto your waiting fingers.
For safer and faster slicing, an egg slicer can do a great job. It will give you perfect, uniform slices that will look fabulous on your latest baking triumph or simply on top of your oatmeal. Slightly firm strawberries work best, as overly ripe ones may become mushy under the weight of the slicer. Simply remove the hull and place it inside the egg slicer before gently pressing down to create your evenly sized pieces.
Whether you're creating a stunning dessert for guests or simply improving the presentation of your usual fruit salad, using your egg slicer on your strawberries will improve the eating experience and make the dish visually appealing. Each strawberry-filled bite will have the exact amount of sweetness to complement the rest of the dish, and your perfect strawberry slices will add a beautiful splash of color to your dinner table.
Creating uniform butter portions
Cutting butter is probably not something you spend much of your time worrying about, but if you have ever tried allocating individual portions at a dinner party, you will realize that it's not as easy as you may think. You decide in advance that communal butter dishes will create a lot of mess and be unhygienic, so providing each guest with a perfectly sliced portion will look fabulous and impress your dinner companions. However, what actually transpires is a fight with the stick of butter in the kitchen that ends with you conceding defeat and serving the whole block on the table, still in its pack since you didn't bother to wash the butter dish!
Avoid this drama the next time you have the family round by using your egg slicer to do the hard work for you. As long as the butter is not too soft or rock solid, the egg slicer will cut through it with ease. This will create perfect, uniform slices to impress everyone at the table by adding a touch of sophistication to their settings.
Slicing olives and pickles for a garnish
Your egg slicer can also help with appetizers by slicing olives and pickles. While these briny bites make a delicious snack with drinks or before a meal, chopping them up can border on dangerous thanks to their firm and slippery nature. By letting your egg slicer do the hard work for you, you can save your fingertips from the risks of a sharp blade.
The other issue when cutting olives and pickles by hand is the difficulty in getting uniform pieces. Olives often collapse under the weight of a knife, and pickles have been known to slip across the chopping board as you hack into them, creating uneven marks in the finished product. Whether you are serving up a Greek salad or presenting an artistic charcuterie board, you want your olives and pickles to look as beautiful as they taste.
With one press of the egg slicer, you can create equal-sized portions of olives, gherkins, and pickles, meaning your dish can have an even distribution of flavor — these ingredients are strong and can overpower other parts of the dish if you end up with a bigger-than-expected chunk on your fork. You can even apply this to cocktails, making sure your next iconic martini is graced with perfectly sliced olives. It may break the traditional rules, but it will add a quirky twist to your next cocktail party.
Making a caprese salad
When scrolling through your feed looking for inspiration for a light, midweek meal, you may land on a stunning photo of a Caprese salad. The image whets your appetite with its vibrant colors from the mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil, so you set off to the store for your ingredients. Fast forward to later that evening, and your attempt to recreate that Instagram recipe hasn't quite gone to plan. Thick chunks of tomato are interspersed with tiny slivers, the juice and seeds have spilled all over the plate, and the mozzarella looks a lot more rustic than you had planned.
Unevenly sliced Caprese does more than just spoil the presentation. Such a simple dish relies on the perfect balance of ingredients, and too much or too little of one ingredient can throw off each mouthful. The good news is that perfect discs of mozzarella and tomato can be achieved in seconds with the help of your egg slicer.
Even soft mozzarella will fare better in your egg slicer than it will with a knife; simply place the ball inside and push it down gently. Using a beef tomato will make sure your two main ingredients will match in terms of size, but smaller ones can be used successfully, too. Once you have your perfect slices, you can either arrange them symmetrically on the plate with the basil leaves scattered on top or create an elegant stack by alternating red, white, and green.
Slicing beetroot without staining
Beetroot is a wonderful vegetable to add to your weekly shopping trip, and its earthy flavor goes well with so many dishes. Often described as superfoods, beets are packed with antioxidants and minerals and can provide a boost to your immune system. There's just one small problem when it comes to preparing beets — the color. While the deep, purple hue is evidence of some of the healthy compounds contained in the vegetable, anyone who has ever prepared beetroot knows that the color soon makes its way onto your fingers and clothes and ends up deeply engrained in your chopping board.
To prevent this color catastrophe from ruining your healthy intentions, bring in the egg slicer to tackle the job instead. Stick your cooked or pickled beetroot under the blades, press firmly to create beautiful discs, and then chuck your slicer straight into the sink to remove the purple color quickly.
Your fingers and clothes should escape stain-free, though your chopping board may not be so lucky. If that's the case, make up a quick paste using baking soda, salt, and water, then rub it into the board. After a few minutes, wipe the paste off and the stain should go with it. This quick prep means you can create your beetroot dishes quickly and efficiently. Why not try making a beet and boiled egg salad and give your egg slicer the chance to contribute twice?
Quickly slicing fruit for cereal
If you are a super-enthusiastic morning person, it is entirely possible that you're capable of bounding into your kitchen and slicing a variety of fruits perfectly with a paring knife before adding them in a symmetrical arrangement to your bowl of cereal. For the rest of us mere mortals, chopping up bananas and berries with a butter knife while half asleep is more on our level, and the resulting haphazard chunks of fruit won't make it near our Insta-worthy food list.
If slicing fruit first thing in the morning is more than you can handle, try using your egg slicer. It makes light work of slicing bananas, strawberries, kiwis, and most other fruits, leaving you with beautiful circles to add to your morning bowl. Not only will this balance the flavor of your breakfast, but admiring your early morning culinary masterpiece may put a smile on your face that will last beyond breakfast and set your day up on a positive note.
Slicing mushrooms for frying
Slicing mushrooms to add to a stir-fry or sauce can be a tricky business. Cutting the mushroom in half first to create a steady base is, of course, crucial, but even so, chopping it into even slices is not particularly easy. A lot of patience and care is needed to avoid the common situation of large chunks of mushroom alongside tiny slivers that practically melt away after hitting the pan. If you want your mushrooms to cook evenly, it's important that they're all a similar size.
With an egg slicer on hand, the task becomes an easy one. Place your mushroom into the slicer and give it a firm press, and your mushroom will be cut into equal-sized slices that are ready to throw straight into the pan. This technique is also a great time saver if you are cooking a large number of mushrooms to make a soup. Each mushroom will be ready in a couple of seconds, saving you the time and frustration of chopping a huge mushroom pile by hand.
Making hasselback potatoes
Hasselback potatoes are an unusual way to transform the humble spud into something more elegant. Made from small- to medium-sized potatoes that are cut most of the way through in an accordion shape, the interior becomes soft and tender while the exterior crisps up and creates a delightful contrast of texture.
The trick to making good Hasselback potatoes is to cut evenly into the potato without cutting all the way to the other side. Though this can be done with a knife, spacing the cuts evenly is not an easy task. An egg slicer can be used instead to create equal slices, but a trick is needed to achieve this effect.
Rest the potato on a wooden spoon, and stop pressing once the blade gets close to the spoon. This will give you beautiful slices through the majority of the potato while leaving it intact. You can then brush the potato with a homemade compound butter containing garlic and fresh herbs before baking it in the oven for a comforting and beautifully crispy potato.
Slicing avocados without mess
Unless you have been hiding under a rock for the last decade, you will be fully aware of the health benefits of a delicious avocado dish. Packed with heart-healthy fats and plenty of vitamins, avocado's creamy texture makes it a brilliant ingredient to add to salads, green smoothies, and, of course, toast.
The issue with avocado is that it can be a pain to prepare. Even once you have successfully scooped it out of the skin and removed the stone, cutting it into pretty slices can be difficult. A perfectly ripe avocado is fairly soft, and the slippery flesh can lead to uneven knifework and part of the fruit often getting left behind on the blade.
Though your egg slicer can't peel your avocado or remove the stone, it can take the hassle out of slicing it neatly. Once you have safely removed the stone and the skin, place half the avocado in the egg slicer and push gently. The blades will glide effortlessly through the flesh, creating beautiful, even slices that will make your dish look fabulous.
Perfect slices of kiwi
When it comes to creating perfect, fruit-based dishes, there are few ingredients as visually impressive as sliced kiwi. Its vibrant green color dotted with black seeds will make your fruit salad or pavlova pop, but cutting a kiwi perfectly can be tricky. The slippery nature of the inside of the fruit means that as you cut further into it, creating flawless circles becomes more difficult. If you use an egg slicer, you will get beautiful rounds every time.
First, you need to decide if you are keeping the skin on your kiwi or peeling it. The egg slicer can be used either way, so it really comes down to personal preference. The skin is perfectly safe to eat and is loaded with vitamins, including folate and vitamin E. In fact, eating the skin increases the nutritional content of the kiwi by as much as 50%. However, the skin has a fuzzy feel to it, which doesn't sit well with some people, so you may prefer to remove it.
To remove your kiwi skin without losing a finger, first cut off each end of the kiwi. Then, simply slide a spoon between the flesh and the skin and slide it around the skin to release the inside. Take your peeled kiwi, grab your trusty egg peeler, and gently press to create evenly sized rounds. You can add these visually pleasing discs to a fruit tart, fruit salad, or your lunchbox for a healthy snack later on.
Making smaller pieces of hot dog
Hot dogs are a brilliant, quick option when you need to add flavor to a dish with little effort. Often added to kids' pasta dishes along with a marinara sauce, they are not particularly time-consuming to cut into thick chunks. However, if you're serving them to young children, a thinner slice would be more sensible to reduce the risk of choking — this is where your egg slicer can come in handy.
You can either sit the hot dog across the egg slicer and cut it into thin discs or place it along the length to produce ribbons of meat. If you then shorten these strands and fry them, you can create meat swirls that resemble crispy onion rings, which can then be used to top a variety of dishes as a savory garnish. These thin strands are the safest option, recommended over circular pieces, especially for children under the age of three (via Mamas and Papas.) Add the strips to pasta dishes or on top of pizzas to keep even the youngest family members happy and safe.