12 Flour Hacks You'll Wish You Knew Sooner

"Flour power" isn't a common colloquialism with that spelling, but while flour doesn't have the same scent as a rose or daffodil, when it comes to food, flour doubles down with its ability to elevate numerous meals. Most people associate flour with baking. It is the key ingredient for making most dough, and diverse types of flour can be used for creating different varieties of bread and other baked goods. From flat pie crusts to self-rising biscuits, flour's power rests largely in the oven-warmed doughs produced with it.

However, flour is more versatile than it seems. Its deceptively simple powdery texture is a magnet for almost any type of moisture, and its plant-based origins underscore its compacted nutrients and minerals. A survey of flour hacks from the internet, plus a few gleaned from personal experience, shows how flour can be used in and out of the kitchen, deserving a place as a mainstay in the pantry, cleaning closet, and gardening shed.

"Good gravy!" might be your exclamatory cry when your first-time DIY meat sauce turns out to be runny, cascading down your masterpiece roast like water. But before running out to the local grocery to buy a jar of the pre-made stuff, take a breather and reach for your handy bag of all-purpose flour to help salvage any thin gravy.

Creating a slurry is a simple way to thicken runny gravy. Basically, add some flour to a small portion of the gravy outside the pot and mix. Using a bit of the gravy will help prevent flour clumps from forming. When the slurry is complete, pour it slowly back into the main gravy pot, which will thicken the whole thing. If it's still not thickened enough, just repeat the process.

Flour is a pretty good thickening agent for any meat sauce, not just gravy. If you're making a stew, flour will help the sauce remain thick and rich. With the help of flour, your dinner guests may also shout out "Good gravy!" — and they'll mean it.

Sifting flour is a tried and true guarantor of kitchen messes. Sifting is crucial if you're aiming to make dough light and airy, but it can also turn into a recipe for countertop confetti as the flour powder flies everywhere but the targeted bowl. One simple tip to avoid going overboard when flour dusting is to use a sieve or colander, but even then, flour can still rain down in a powdery torrent, blanketing the counter in a plume of dust. A sieve is a great starting point, but we can amp it up with an everyday accessory to control the flow.

Here's where you can use a simple jar hack for sifting flour without making a mess. As described by Lizzie Acker of "The Great British Bake Off" fame on Instagram, a simple jar with a wide mouth is good for controlling your flour dispersal. Place the desired amount of flour into the jar, and then place your sieve over the jar's mouth. Flip the jar and sieve over while holding them together, and the container will limit the flow and direction of your flour downpour. With a steady hand, you'll prevent the flour from falling everywhere. While some chefs might miss the traditional flour smudge on the brow as a sure sign of kitchen toil, you'll more than make up for that with saved flour, extra time, and less of a mess to clean up. 

When a clump of flour combines with water, the usual result is a sticky concoction of dough. For many cooks, this is just the first step for preparing warm baked goods that will rise in the oven.

But under the right conditions, flour and water can lead to another delight: chatang (literally meaning "tea soup"), a popular flour-based snack in China. The name might be a bit misleading, as no tea leaves are actually used, and the dish is more like a porridge or gruel than a soup. However, chatang has a proud history. According to China Daily, the recipe dates back to the Ming Dynasty and is made from a combination of hazelnut flour and sorghum rice flour, while customizable flavor-boosting toppings include sesame seeds, walnuts, pine nuts, raisins, and brown or white sugar. This street-food staple of Beijing is prepared by pouring hot water over the flour mixture before adding the toppings. Food vendors who sell chatang can be identified by the large copper kettle they use to pour hot water with a performer's flourish onto the tasty flour concoction.

One of the hassles of using flour is that it tends to clump up over time. When flour does start clumping, it might seem like no biggie at first, but this compressed flour can affect the measurement of your ingredients by altering the volume of flour in your measuring cup. That's why fluffing flour before baking is so important, especially when your recipes call for exact measurements.

Here's where the chopsticks come in. Keeping a wooden chopstick in your flour will save you time by reminding you to break up your flour in its container so that there are no clumps. The wood in the chopstick is non-reactive, which means it won't alter the taste or quality of your flour. Plus, the chopstick's long shape is the perfect stirrer, and you won't have to reach for a spoon or another tool to break up those clumps. Your chopstick can also be used to level off your measuring cup, so that the volume of fluffed flour is exactly the right amount for your recipe.

A watched pot never boils, but a tipped-over pot can be a health and safety hazard. When spills do occur, our first impulse is to get the mop and bucket, but sometimes that's the wrong approach. A mop can actually spread a spill, and if the spill contained oil, mopping it up with water won't get the job done.

One easy trick for quickly cleaning up spilled oil, or any spill, is to head to the pantry for your bag of flour. Flour will absorb any liquid, including oil, which makes it handy for containing the spill's borders and making sure it doesn't spread. While wet flour can clump up and look like the mess is just getting bigger, the mixture is easier to clean up than liquid alone — just add enough flour to the mess so you can sweep it up with a broom. One cautionary note: For hot liquid, it might be best to wait for it to cool a bit before sweeping it up, to avoid accidental burns. Sprinkling a generous layer of flour over hot oils and liquids will help make sure that the spill can safely chill.

If there's one thing that perplexes many cooks, it's when uninvited guests drop in. When your spouse unexpectedly brings home the boss, the silver lining might be that a raise or promotion is in the future. But when the visitors happen to be ants marching in single file to sack the pantry for a midnight snack or spread out across the counter for scraps, it's time to reclaim the kitchen.

Our immediate reaction to get rid of ants is to bring out the can of Raid or to call the local exterminator. But spraying poison where food is prepped, served, and eaten isn't safe or appetizing, and shopping for pesticides and dialing the bug guy can be a time-consuming expense. Instead, consider flour as the perfect line of defense. Ants are reluctant to cross flour barriers — flour breaks up their scent trails, and ingesting flour may fatally overwhelm their stomachs when the flour expands. Since ants shy away from flour, we can use our powder lines to direct them elsewhere. Strategically placing flour around cracks and holes in the kitchen can deter ants from roaming in, and even flouring their paths outside your home can help dissuade them from entering in the first place. And flour perimeters aren't just for home use; lines of flour around picnic blankets can also help to keep those critters away. Far from just conventional oven use, flour can flourish inside and outside of the kitchen.