The Simple Hack That Turns Your Chinese Food Box Into A Dinner Plate

It's somehow always surprising when you open your Chinese takeout container and see how much food can be packed into those tiny white boxes. You may be fine with jamming your fork or chopsticks into one if you plan to graze on your General Tso's chicken or chow mein. Although, you may prefer to dump the whole box onto a plate if you're hungry enough. If the latter sounds familiar to you, we have good news: You can save yourself some clean-up after your meal by simply unfolding your takeout box and using it as a dinner plate instead.

You've likely heard of this Chinese restaurant secret before, but many haven't. At least, not according to the comment section of one TikTok video where many commenters voiced confusion about why the takeout unboxing wasn't already common knowledge. Others lamented about the "wasted dishes" they've gone through because they never thought to reverse engineer the boxes into plates. These iconic, virtually leak-free to-go pails were invented by Americans in the late 1800's and were based on the Japanese art of paper folding, origami. So if it can be folded, it can certainly be unfolded.

Besides minimizing the number of dishes in the sink after your meal, there are a few other benefits to letting your food splay out on the conveniently provided plate before you eat instead of keeping it inside its folded-up container.