7 Genius Cooking Hacks Everyone Needs in Their Life

By the editors of Delish

 

The first time we tasted sheet-pan scrambled eggs we knew Sunday morning had changed forever. Seriously. It’s one of those life-changing tricks that makes hosting brunch so much more enjoyable. At Delish, we’re always looking for ways to make our readers’ lives easier in the kitchen, so we rounded up all of our favorite hacks and tricks in our new cookbook, Delish: Eat Like Everyday’s The Weekend so they could be in one place. Here are the seven we can’t live without.

1. Toaster Taco Shells

How to make the crunchiest (and sturdiest) hard taco shell? Put a tortilla in your toaster. The hack works with corn or flour tortillas (but if you use corn make sure to cover them with a damp paper towel and microwave 15 seconds). All you do is fold the tortilla in half, put it in your toaster, and set it for your desired crispness.

2. Sheet-Pan Scrambled Eggs

It’s literally impossible to screw these up: Beat your eggs per usual in a large bowl, pour them onto a greased baking sheet, and bake at 350º until the eggs are set, about 12 minutes. You can sprinkle with veggies, meat (prosciutto or cooked Italian sausage), or cheese before you bake them, or keep them basic. They come out light and fluffy every. single. time.

3. Skillet One-Pot Pasta

Next time you’re making pasta, reach for a frying pan instead of a pot. You’ll dirty only one dish and the noodles cook in about 10 minutes. Simply put your pasta in the pan, then pour enough cold water on top to cover the noodles by half an inch and cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally.

4. Pretzeling Refrigerated Dough

We’re obsessed with soft pretzels, but making them from scratch with all the rising and pretzeling is basically your entire day. The Delish kitchen workaround? Pretzeling canned biscuit dough. (Trust us, it works.) Dough gets its dark and shiny pretzeled look from a baking soda solution, so we bring a saucepan of 2 cups water and 2 tablespoons baking soda to a boil, then dunk in the dough for 30 seconds. (It’ll look a little slimy when it comes out, that’s totally normal.) Brush with an egg wash and sprinkle with coarse salt before baking.

5. Banana Bread Waffles

We don’t think people do enough with banana bread batter, so we decided to change that by pouring it into a waffle maker. Thank god we did because now it’s our dream breakfast. Prep your go-to banana bread recipe (we swear by the one in our cookbook), then add ¼ cup to your waffle iron and cook until golden.

6. Baking Tortellini

For nights when you’re feeling extra lazy, we have a genius tortellini hack that doesn’t require boiling water: Baking it in sauce. Put one or two packages refrigerated tortellini in a baking dish, then pour over jarred or homemade sauce, top with mozzarella (or don’t) and bake for 20 minutes. The tortellini will be tender—and super flavorful from soaking up marinara.

7. Cake Mix Pancakes

These aren’t for just any weekend morning, but when there’s something to celebrate, cake-y pancakes are everything. Simply swap in half vanilla (or even Funfetti) cake mix for your pancake mix and you’ll have a slightly sweeter (and insanely addictive) stack.

Meet the Delish editors and get the new cookbook, Delish: Eat Like Everyday’s the Weekend, signed at Williams Sonoma’s Columbus Circle in New York on Tuesday, October 23. Sign up here!