The Potato Peeling Hack You'll Wish You Knew Sooner

Cooking can be a messy process — cathartic for sure, but also full of obstacles. You might be someone who's forced to fight back tears as you chop onions or maybe you're not a fan of the significant amount of time it takes to get the texture of dough just right. Or perhaps, you're always end up groaning as you peel potatoes, wishing your fingers would stay steady. When you're getting through something irksome like that, you can't help but patiently wait for the cumbersome process to be over with so you can get down to preparing your dish exactly the way you envisioned it.

Well, guess what? We're here to take at least one of those pain points away for you. Peeling potatoes doesn't have to be frustratingly hard or troublesome. There's a clever trick that can make this step a lot easier when you're in the kitchen and working on prepping potatoes for that tasty batch of fries. Here is exactly what you need to do.

What do you need to do to get through all those potatoes quickly? Well, according to Today, it's a rather simple hack. Use a knife to make thin lines around the potatoes, then boil them until they're nice and soft. Once they're at the right consistency, don't rush into peeling them. Here's the game-changer: allow your boiled potatoes to sit in an ice bath for awhile. After they've cooled off, get down to peeling them with your hands. No additional tools needed.

A Reddit user who's tried this method wrote that this basically "shocks" the potato skins and makes it easier to work with them. Another commentator vouched for the method as well. They explained, "I choose red potatoes so that I can leave the skin on for potato salad, it's great that way and so much easier." Hey, if it works, it works.