It’s lunch time ! You want to prepare a delicious lemon vinaigrette to enhance your salad. But, when you open the fridge, you’re horrified: there are two unfortunate lemon halves, blackened and dry after several days in the fridge. Result ? You immediately throw them away! In order not to waste your citrus, there is a very simple trick to try urgently!
When we squeeze a lemon, we get juice everywhere except on our plate and that’s not normal, don’t you think? To avoid having sticky fingers, dirtying your work surface and avoiding so much mess, we show you how to proceed to extract the juice from your yellow citrus. Explanation !
Lemon, a very popular fruit in the kitchen…
Season the salmon with lemon. source: spm
We use lemon juice in cooking for its spicy and refreshing flavor, as well as its preservative properties. However, we draw your attention that the freshness of the citrus fruit plays a key role in the quality of its juice. Long story short, when you cut a lemon in half and expose it to room air, its vitamin C content and flavor can deteriorate very quickly. That is why it is often recommended to keep it whole in the refrigerator while waiting for use. However, it is important to keep in mind that even by putting it in the fridge, its quality ends up deteriorating over time. Therefore, it is much better to squeeze a fresh lemon for the best possible flavor and quality. Unfortunately, this is not always possible! What if we only need a small teaspoon for our dressing? In fact, there is a way to squeeze the same lemon multiple times and still store it in the best possible way!
Also read: Here’s Why Vegetarians Shouldn’t Eat Lemons In Restaurants Anymore
Pierce a lemon with a toothpick. source: spm
As mentioned above, the condition of the lemon plays an important role in the quality and flavor of its juice, but when only a small amount of its juice is needed, it is unacceptable to indulge in the thought of our citrus ending up in the trash! Solution ?
- Get a toothpick.
- Then take your lemon and pierce the peel with a toothpick. (Be careful not to drill in the wrong place! The trick is actually to plant the end of the lemon where the stem is and not in the middle.)
- Then, once pierced, remove the toothpick and squeeze the amount of lemon juice you need.
- After use, all you have to do is plug the hole in the fruit with the toothpick, put it in a zipper bag and put it in the fridge.
From now on, you will no longer have to cut your lemons to get a few drops of juice and you will also avoid forgetting them in a corner of your fridge until they wrinkle and lose their juice! By following our advice, you will be able to harvest maximum juice while keeping your fruit longer than usual!
If you want to get the juice out of a lemon (or an orange) when you don’t have a lemon squeezer, that’s fine! We share with you some very useful tips and tricks!
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Why roll a lemon before squeezing it?
Roll up a lemon. source: spm
This is the first technique you should try if you don’t have a lemon squeezer. This softens the pulp and concentrates the juice in the heart of the fruit. It’s simple, we show you how to do it:
- To prepare your fruit, gently roll it on a hard surface before slicing. It is enough to exert a slight pressure with the hand making movements back and forth.
- All you have to do is cut it in half and squeeze it with your hands and voila!
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Squeeze a lemon with a fork
We’re giving you a real grandma secret! If you want to extract as much lemon juice as possible without wasting a drop, here’s what to do:
- Cut your lemon in half.
- Take one half, stick a fork in the center and press down in an up and down motion.
- Then, turn it a quarter and repeat the operation until there is no flavor left!
Here is an explanatory video:
Also read: 7 Health Benefits Of Frozen Lemon (And Why You Should Eat It Every Day)
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Squeeze a lemon with salad tongs
It is a very practical technique that allows you to recover the juice of a lemon effortlessly. This is what you should do:
- Just cut a lemon in half.
- Next, take your salad tongs and place half of the fruit between the tongs.
- And that’s it, you just have to press it to get the juice out.
There you have it, you know all the tricks to get lemon juice without using a citrus juicer!
Also read: 7 Surprising Reasons to Stop Throwing Lemon Zest in the Trash
