Graters are for more than just cheese. They are the one quick tool that most of us have in our kitchens that don’t get used to their full potential. So, make your life a little easier: Here are 16 ways you’re not using your grater:
Potatoes:
- Grating potatoes makes it much easier to add them to stews and soups.
- Grating them is the best way to add them to pancakes and bread.
- Homemade hash browns are also super easy to make when you use your grater to slice them up.
Carrots:
- Grate up carrots and add them to sauces, like tomato.
- They also make a nice garnish on greens salads.
Radishes:
- Like carrots, grated radishes add a nice texture to green salads.
Beets:
- When beets have been grated, add them to your chocolate cake batter. This will make your cake more moist and heavy. It will also give the chocolate color a richer color. (Did we mention that it makes cake more healthy? Eat it up–it’s a vegetable now!)
Zucchini and Squash:
- If you’ve ever made zucchini bread or cake, then you know that you add grated zucchini to the batter. (You can also add grated carrots to these two delicious treats).
- Grating zucchini and squash together makes a good filler in tomato based sauces, like spaghetti, and can even be used in your meat loaf mixture.
- You can also grate these two vegetables onto a baking sheet, and let them dry out in a cool dark place. Once they are completely dry, store them in an air-tight container. This way, you just have to add water to them for them to reconstitute. Add dry, grated zucchini and/or squash to meat loaf or hot vegetable stews during the winter months.
Cabbage:
- Coleslaw anyone? The fastest way to make it is to grate your cabbage.
Ginger:
- Have you ever tried to cut ginger? It’s stringy and difficult to slice into small pieces. So just grate it! By doing so, you’ll be able to add it to cakes and other recipes that call for ginger.
Garlic:
- Like ginger, mincing garlic can be a pain. So grate or zest it. The small pieces that a grater creates will cook evenly and add the perfect garlic flavor to your dish.
Whole Nutmeg:
- Add a quick fresh hint of nutmeg to a dish by grating it.
Tomatoes:
- Yes, you can chop tomatoes just fine. Grating is just quicker. You won’t want to grate tomatoes every time you use them. But if you are adding them to a sauce or making a quick salsa, grating works perfect! (If you are making salsa, make sure your tomatoes are cold when you grate them).
Citrus Rind:
- Add the zest of an orange, lemon or lime to add a fresh citrus flavor to any dish. (If you are going to zest, I recommend using a microplane zester. Even thought 4-sided graters come with a side that you can use to zest, it is difficult to get all of the zest out of it.
Toast or Soft Crackers:
- Run toast or soft crackers (like the Ritz brand) over a grater for an easy way to make breadcrumbs or add a topping to a casserole dish.
Frozen Bananas:
- Who doesn’t love banana bread? You can mash your unfrozen bananas or grate the frozen ones. I seem to always have frozen ones because I can’t get to them quick enough before they go really bad. Once the banana has browned, peel it and freeze it. When you are ready to make bread, take it out of the freezer and grate it into the batter.
- You can also grate frozen bananas over ice cream and add hot fudge for a new way to eat a banana split.
Hard-Boiled Eggs:
- I don’t know about your family, but ours loves hard-boiled eggs added to green salads. If you have to prepare a salad bar for a large group of people, then grating the hard-boiled eggs will save you a ton of time.
Cold Butter:
- Cold butter, not frozen, is easy to grate over baked potatoes or warm bread. It will melt as soon as it touches the warm dish. Delicious!
Chocolate:
- Garnish desserts with grated chocolate.
- Use grated chocolate to temper couverture chocolate.
