The Root Vegetable Hack That Kicks Countertop Garlic Smells To The Curb

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Garlic is a prized kitchen staple for adding flavor to all kinds of savory dishes, from pastas and soups to main dishes to sides and salads. The aroma of crusty and buttery garlic bread in the oven or a classic aglio e olio pasta is temptingly appealing. But the sharper, pungent smell of the raw flavor-boosting allium can be overpowering. It's also hard to get the smell out of your countertop or cutting board, no matter which of the different ways you choose to cut garlic to affect taste. Fortunately, an everyday potato is all you need to make your kitchen surface odor-free.

To try the hack from America's Test Kitchen, grate a raw potato (no need to peel it) and spread the stringy clumps over the cutting board, countertop, or other surface where the aroma is emanating. Leave it for about 10 minutes, then wash the area with soap and water. It works because an enzyme in the potato oxidizes the garlic's sulfuric compounds, neutralizing the smell it produces.

The potato enzyme, called polyphenol oxidase, is the same substance that turns the root vegetable brown when it's cut and exposed to oxygen. Apples also have the enzyme, which is why they turn brown when they're cut or bruised too. The fruit can also be used for this hack. Just grate and spread the grated apple the same way. Another bonus: Eating apples or potatoes can knock out garlic breath. Alternately, drink a specific tea with garlic-heavy dishes to keep bad breath at bay.

A quick online search will show that there are a range of other tips out there to remove the garlic smell from kitchen surfaces. One of the most common is to make a paste with baking soda and water and scrub the cutting board or other affected area with it before washing and rinsing. Another says to rub kosher salt on the cutting board with a cut lemon half. Still another directs washing with vinegar and hot water and then covering the surface with baking soda and rinsing with vinegar and water.

These hacks will work best on wooden and plastic cutting boards, which absorb odors the most. Just washing with soap and water might be enough for a glass cutting board. Any of them should also work to remove the smell of onions since they have similar sulfurous compounds to garlic.

Raw garlic leaves its scent on your hands too, and it doesn't easily wash off of them either. One piece of Martha Stewart-approved advice is rubbing your fingers on something made of stainless steel under running water, which could be a spoon, the back of a knife, or your sink if it's made from the metal. You can even buy small stainless-steel bars specifically made to get rid of garlic, onion, and other odors. The trick works because sulfur compounds leave your fingers to bind to the stainless steel. The same hacks to eliminate the odor from countertops works for your skin, like rubbing your fingers with cut lemon or lime or with baking soda paste.