This Genius Trick Will Help You Stop Wasting Lemons

Beautiful, yellow lemons are the great harbinger of spring. We love the wonderful tart citrus flavor they can add to so many foods. Whether you're making a yummy lemon gelato, enjoying a cup of tea with a few drops of this fruit's sour flavor, adding the tang of lemon juice to Ina Garten's Lemon Capellini with Caviar, or making a delicious lemon margarita for Cinco de Mayo, lemon juice is the perfect acidic component to make a dish or drink really pop. But unless a recipe calls for you to juice an entire lemon, chances are you've probably found yourself wasting a lemon or two. You know, you slice it in half, squeeze a little out, and put it back in the fridge — and when you go back to use it, it's hard and rotten. 

Food is expensive and food waste is a real problem that we don't want to add to. Luckily, we aren't the only ones who feel this way. Those who are wiser, more innovative, and more inventive have shared a cool hack that will allow you to get the amount of juice you need from a lemon without wasting what remains. And another plus with this trick is when you go back to use the lemon later in the week, it will still be good.

According to this Youtube video (around minute marker 1:50) there's an easier way to juice your lemon and you don't even need a knife. That's right, no cutting required. However, you will need a metal skewer or some other long pointy object to penetrate the skin of the lemon and go past the fruit's fleshy membrane. That said, if you don't have a metal skewer, Southern Living suggests trying a bamboo skewer or even a chopstick. 

The first step to this trick is rolling your lemon back and forth which will make the lemon easier to squeeze. Then you can insert your skewer in the pointy end of the lemon and juice squeezes right out — it's really that simple. You can store the lemon in a ziplock back in your fridge and squeeze out more lemon juice when you need it. Ah-mazing right?

Insider points out that the other benefit to this hack is the lack of mess you end up with. Yep, when you squeeze the lemon to get the juice out, no seeds come along with it. Not to mention less of the citric juice gets on your hands and countertops, which lowers the probability of cleaning up sticky juice later on. But Insider also cautions not to try this on limes or oranges. Apparently one Tik Toker did the research for us, and it doesn't work well.