Upcycle Your Ketchup Bottle With These Simple And Smart Tricks

Reaching the bottom of a ketchup bottle is always so bittersweet. On one hand, you're out of ketchup. On the other, now that you've got an empty squeeze bottle in your possession, you've just become rich in possibilities! If you're not down with upcycling yet, it's a great way to reduce waste — and it also gives you the opportunity to flex your creative muscles. The idea is to take something you would ordinarily toss in the garbage and give it a new purpose.

When it comes to your old ketchup bottle, there are plenty of things you can convert it into while still keeping it in the kitchen. For one, it's an incredible way to apportion your favorite cooking oil. You can also refill it with your go-to homemade sauce for safe storage and easy access. What's more, it makes the ultimate pancake batter dispenser for the perfect shape and size every time — sort of like the special tool IHOP uses to pour pancakes. So, let's explore all the possibilities your empty ketchup bottle has to offer.

By transferring your cooking oil from its original container into an empty ketchup bottle, you remedy a problem that you hardly even notice you have (until it happens every time you cook, without fail.) When you pour oil straight out of the receptacle it came in, there's a pretty good chance that you pour out more than you need, or at the very least, there's a little bit of spillage when you turn the bottle right side up again. Thanks to the silicone plug with an X-shaped slit that has become typical in upside-down plastic squeeze bottles like those used for ketchup, the oil stays perfectly within the confines of the bottle until you apply pressure, which opens the slit and allows the oil to pour out. This gives you more control over the amount of oil you use, as well as where it goes.

Before repurposing your ketchup bottle, though, make sure you wash it well and let it fully dry. Then, you can fill it with vegetable oil and keep it on hand to coat your pan before frying. Alternatively, it may be one of the best olive oil dispensers out there, giving you an easy way to drizzle it on bread or salad.

There are some foods you'll just never eat again after you learn what's in them. This — along with the desire to tailor every flavor to our preferences — has led many folks to start making their own sauces and salad dressings. The only downside to going the DIY route is that these sauces don't come in convenient containers for easy distribution. That's where your old, empty ketchup bottle comes in.

Instead of putting homemade condiments in bowls covered with a sketchy layer of tin foil and hoping for the best, storing them in an airtight condiment bottle ensures that they'll stay fresher for longer. That's because when the silicone slit that releases the ketchup isn't exposed to pressure, it does a solid job at keeping air out. It also makes dipping and dressing far simpler, and once your sauce is in a squeeze bottle, you can even use it to write notes on your burger buns (this is just one of 14 condiment hacks you may want to try.) Depending on the consistency, you can use a funnel or a spatula to get the goods into the clean, dry ketchup bottle.

If you want to become known as the best pancake maker in the house, you'll have to ditch the old ladle and opt for something that gives you more control. Sure, you could go out and spend money on another niche kitchen appliance, but an empty ketchup bottle is already the ideal tool for this. Simply whip up your basic homemade pancake batter recipe and pour it into your clean ketchup bottle using either a funnel or a mixing bowl with a built-in pour spout.

Although this method takes a little more work up front, once the batter is in the bottle, you'll have a much easier time making round, well-proportioned pancakes. Because the squeeze bottle allows you to make things more uniform, it also makes whipping up a recipe for bite-size cereal pancakes a breeze. If you're feeling frisky, you might even use this newfound dexterity to create fun designs or shapes with your pancake batter.