This TikTok Hack Makes Stripping Herbs Brilliantly Easy

Herbs are delightful in many things. They add incredible flavor to a variety of dishes, from flaky biscuits with herb butter to desserts like cinnamon-basil ice cream (via Taste of Home), and can even play a starring role in cocktails like mojitos. Eating herbs is also great for your health. According to the Washington Post, herbs have potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, and studies have shown them to possibly even help fight against diseases like cancer, Alzheimer's, and heart disease. Despite all these positive qualities, most of us dread seeing them listed as an ingredient when we're looking for a recipe. Not because fresh herbs are uninviting, but because they can take forever to properly remove from their stems. 

Luckily for us, TikTok user anet_shevchenko may have just solved this herb stripping problem! In their viral video, the TikTok user can be seen taking a few pieces of parsley, putting the stems directly into the hole of a box grater, and then forcefully pulling the stems through the inside. As if by magic, the leaves are quickly separated from the stems, remaining on the outside of the grater.

To do this TikTok hack at home, you first need to make sure your grater has big enough holes for a few of the herbs stems to fit in. Once this has been confirmed, simply put the stems through the hole on the grater from the outside. Then from the inside, pull the stems of the herbs until you see the leaves breaking off. Now you're ready to use as much parsley as any recipe calls for, like maybe that one garlic butter chicken dish you've been eyeing? 

If you don't own a grater for this TikTok kitchen prep hack, all is not lost. Taste of Home states that you can also use a fork to get the job done fairly quickly. You just need to gather the herbs together and hold them firmly by the stems. Then, use the tines of a fork to brush your herbs from the stems up toward the leaves. This should separate the leaves easily and take way less time then picking them off one by one with your hands. Whichever way you decide to strip your herbs, you'll definitely be saving on prep time, leaving you with more time for the most enjoyable part of cooking — eating a deliciously flavored dish.