This Simple Tool Is The Key To Hulling A Bunch Of Strawberries Quickly

Whether you're using fresh strawberries in sweet desserts or turning them into a summery fruit pizza with tomatoes, the goal is to get a soft, tender, sweet, and juicy mouthful of strawberry in each bite. Nothing will ruin the dessert quite like finding bits of those tough green leaves crowning a strawberry, or that tasteless white core inside when enjoying a bite. To get rid of these unpleasant parts, you'll need to hull your strawberries.

Hulling is nothing but removing the top leafy part of the fruit, along with the white core inside, leaving you with only the juicy, good bits. Thankfully, you don't have to have a fancy tool to hull your strawberries. Simply a straw will do. Just insert the straw through the bottom tip of the fruit and all the way to the top, till it comes out from the other end with the stem and the middle part of the fruit in tow. It's that easy.

Rather than painstakingly slicing off the leaves with a knife, simply pushing a straw through makes quick work of hulling strawberries, especially when you're working with a big batch. In the end, you'll be left with the best bits of the strawberry.

There are many ways to hull a strawberry depending on the tools you have lying around. A straw is simple and convenient, as you can find one in most home kitchens. A basic plastic straw might work in a pinch, but it can also be too bendy and fragile to push threw a strawberry. In such an event, it's better to use a sturdier, reusable straw made from stainless steel here, as it will be quicker and more effective while also giving you more control and precision.

If you don't have a straw on hand, you can also hull a strawberry by slicing off the leafy part using a pairing knife. However, the drawback of using a pairing knife is that you waste a lot of the good bits of the fruit because it chops off a large chunk of that ripe flesh on the crown, too. A straw is also a safer alternative to the sharpness of a pairing knife. That said, if you find yourself hulling strawberries often, investing in a dedicated huller can be a good idea. You only need to push the huller into the crown, twist it, give it a pull, and you're left with freshly hulled strawberries.

Whichever method you choose, don't throw those strawberry top scraps away. You can use them to make a strawberry-infused vinegar for your salads and marinades instead. As for the berries, make sure to eat them quickly. Strawberries don't last very long once they are hulled and can turn into a brown, mushy mess in under a week.