This Multi-Purpose Kitchen Utensil Makes Slicing Strawberries A Breeze

We can appreciate a niche cooking tool that serves one dedicated purpose, but if you're short on space, you might not think of them as essential kitchen tools. However, names can be misleading. Meat mashers, for example, are actually incredible for quickly and efficiently slicing strawberries, as well as other soft fruits and vegetables. 

Also known as a meat chopper or hamburger smasher, meat mashers are designed to break up ground meat into a more uniform size, ensuring faster and more even cooking. To use your meat masher as a strawberry slicer, start by removing the leafy tops from your strawberries. Arrange the berries in neat rows on a cutting board with the pointed ends facing up and the cut tops resting flat against the board. Working from left to right, press the meat masher down onto each berry, moving from left to right, and you'll have a board full of evenly quartered strawberries in seconds — no fancy knife skills required.

It's worth noting that this hack is best for quickly cutting strawberries when you need them for a recipe, such as angel food cake. The strawberries will be chopped and perfectly sized for baking, but because of how the masher is designed, they won't be cut as cleanly as they would if you'd carefully cut them all by hand with an extra-sharp knife.

However, for cutting any soft fruit quickly, the meat masher is the answer. The safety blades make it tricky to cut into firmer skin, so it's not ideal for harder fruits and veggies, but it's great for bananas or other berries. It's also a solid hack if you want to break up butter for baking, or for chopping softer cooked foods, including potatoes and yams, pumpkins and squash, or apples and pears, as well as stewed tomatoes for a homemade pasta sauce. It can even be a handy sidekick if you're making your own baby food. 

But before you start mashing into all your soft foods, there are a few things to consider. While many meat mashers are made of nylon and can be used with nonstick pans, be wary of using them on stainless steel, as it can scratch the finish. Regardless of material, you should also always ensure you clean your meat masher quickly and thoroughly after use, especially if handling raw meat.