In the realm of the life hack, there are several distinct groups: the genuinely useful tricks that are easy to achieve and solve a problem that actually exists; the marginal hacks that look clever but solve problems that nobody actually has (such as ‘leftover wine’); and the downright absurd oh-my-god-why-would-you-ever-do-that kind of hack. As proof of the latter, while conducting research for this article, we came across a tale of a woman who skewers her lamb roast not with garlic cloves and rosemary, but with Fizzers. (Yes, the sticky pink sweets.) We’re putting that on the ‘maybe’ pile.

To save you from attempting any recipe that involves marshmallows in your potato bake or crumbling Fritos onto your salad, we bring you 45 genius food hacks that are actually useful in real life.

Freezer tricks

1. Freeze grapes as a healthier alternative to dessert. This is quite tasty and especially handy if your grapes are in danger of going off.

2. Freeze excess tomato paste or pesto in an ice tray for future use. You could also freeze leftover herbs in water. (Fill tray with herbs and halfway with water, freeze, then top up and freeze again. The herbs will float to the top first-time around, so this two-phased approach covers them completely.)

3. Freeze leftover egg whites in freezer bags or ice trays. You can keep them for up to three months.

4. Freeze chicken bones from your roast and boil up with the vegetables next time you make soup. It tastes much richer than synthetic stock cubes.

5. Make instant ice cream by liquidising three frozen bananas with a tablespoon and a half of peanut butter. (Chop the bananas before you freeze them.) Try it with almond butter if you’re after a banting version.

Sour, spoiled or leftover ingredients

6. Use sour milk to make ricotta or paneer. Add a dash of lemon juice if the milk is not yet properly curdled. Then pour the milk into a cheesecloth, knot and allow to drain overnight over a bowl in the fridge. Use as is for ricotta, or compress under a heavy pot filled with water to make paneer.

8. Use overripe strawberries in a Pimm’s cocktail. It’s actually even better with overripe strawberries, as they’re much sweeter and will infuse more flavour into your summer tipple.

9. Use overripe avocado in avocado cake. We can attest that this recipe (dreamed up by our editor Abigail for TASTE Magazine) is impressively moist.

10. Use up a hard heel of parmesan by adding it to a soup or a risotto while it’s cooking. (Remove the rind before serving.)

11. Old bread is great for making breadcrumbs, which you can freeze for later use in stuffing, burger patties, bobotie or as a next-level topping for your macaroni cheese. Also, you could slice up old loaves for crostini, bread and butter pudding, and panzanella salad. Also try placing a few slices beneath a whole chicken when roasting.

12. Use up flat beer by making a beer-can chicken. Thanks to our colleague Clement for test-driving this one.

13. Use leftover egg yolks in carbonara, for an extra-rich version.

14. Use leftover egg whites in a pisco sour cocktail. (Assuming that you are too lazy to make meringues.)

15. Add leftover pasta water to your sauce. The starch in the water will help the sauce to coat the pasta.

Microwave magic tricks

16. Make Pinterest-worthy baked eggs in the microwave. Chop up a handful of cherry tomatoes and toss some baby leaf spinach into a small bowl, then crack two eggs over the top. Nuke for approximately 1 minute 30 seconds. The moisture in the tomatoes and spinach will help to cook the eggs evenly and there’s no need to prick the yolks. (Trust me, I once survived a week eating only food prepared in the office microwave.)

17. Cook rice in the microwave in a glass bowl or jug. Use two cups of water per cup of rice, add a pinch of salt, and cook for about 15 minutes. Put a plate or lid on towards the end of the cooking time to allow it to steam and fluff up. You don’t need to stir, and your rice will never boil over or burn again.

18. Cook bacon in the microwave. Place the bacon between two sheets of paper towel. Cook for two minutes, or three if you like it crispy. You’ll need good quality bacon: the supermarket variety has a high moisture content and can cause the paper towel to stick.

19. Make cake in the microwave or make an even easier version in a mug.

Two- and three-ingredient dishes that really work

20. For three-ingredient peanut butter cookies, combine one cup of peanut butter with one cup of brown sugar and one egg. Bake at 180 degrees for 15 minutes.

21. Melt a bar of chocolate and stir in half a can of condensed milk. Use this concoction to top ice cream, ice cakes or simply sip it neat.

22. Make two-ingredient chocolate sauce by melting chocolate and stirring in cream. (You may have to gracefully decline proposals of marriage from guests.)

Easy preparation hacks

23. Ripen rock-hard avocados quicker by putting them in a brown paper bag with a ripe banana.

24. Peel ginger with a spoon. You’ll lose far less of the precious zingy root, and the skin comes off easily, unless you’ve got a particularly gnarly specimen.

25. Top and tail beans easily by cutting them while they’re still lined up neatly in the packet.

26. Open a tough jar by popping the air seal with a knife. You’ll hear a pop and then the lid will come off easy-peasy.

27. Peel a hard-boiled egg without fuss by making a hole in the top and sliding a teaspoon around the sides.

28. Open a bag of spaghetti like Jamie Oliver by hitting the bottom end against the counter and sliding down with your hand. The top end will pop open and you will look super smooth.

29. Place a sheet of newspaper under your chopping board before peeling potatoes. Fold up all the peels once you’re done and your counter will still be spotless. (You’ll need an actual newspaper for this. The digital versions are less satisfactory for this particular task.)

Weird and wonderful tricks

30. Keep broccoli beautifully green by adding the tip of a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda to boiling water when cooking. Bathing vegetables in iced water after cooking will also help to keep colour vibrant.

31. Make bread without yeast by using Eno antacids. Editor Abigail Donnelly came across this clever trick in Durban. Try her version of the recipe in this steamed Indian bread

32. Use oats to bulk up instant soup. Disclaimer: We haven’t tried this, but a trusted source living in Argentina assures us it’s delicious, and a great way to convert a thin soup into a meal. He also recommends a savoury version, made with herbs, spices, stock cubes and grated cheese.

33. Peel a lot of apples really fast using a drill to rotate them. This looks genuinely dangerous.

34. Make cake with melted ice cream and self-raising flour, like in this recipe. (We’re sceptical but Matt Preston also tells us it works.)

35. Remove the cork from a bottle of wine using a shoe.
We’ve not tried this one. Frankly, the risk – a whole bottle of wine – seems too high.

With thanks to Abigail Donnelly, Anelde Greeff, Clement Pedro, Jeanne Calitz, Kelly Pluke, Linda Scarborough, Melissa Blumenthal, Pierre Heistein and Sue White.