You probably already know that aluminum foil comes in handy for a few things in the kitchen, like covering casseroles during baking or lining baking sheets and pans. But, I’ll bet you didn’t know about some of these other great uses for aluminum foil in the kitchen. You can even reuse relatively clean pieces of aluminum foil for some of these, so you’ll be wasting less and saving money!
- Cook crisper bacon. Fold a heavy duty sheet of aluminum foil into an accordion shape and place it on a baking sheet. Lay strips of bacon across the foil and bake in the oven at 400 degrees F for a few minutes. This allows the grease to drip off the bacon and air to circulate, which results in crisper bacon.
- Line a slow cooker. I tried this trick last Thanksgiving, and it worked like a charm for everything from veggies to mashed potatoes! Just line your slow cooker with aluminum foil and cleanup will be a breeze!
- Keep your oven clean. Aluminum foil can not only keep your slow cookers clean, but it can also keep your oven clean. Line the bottom of your oven with foil, then just replace it when your famous casserole overflows.
- Make a disposable platter. Have you ever discovered that you didn’t have a big enough platter for a dish or cake at a party? Line a couple sheets of thick cardboard with aluminum foil and use that instead. As an added bonus, you don’t even have to wash it; just throw it out when you’re done.
- Scrub a cast iron pan or grill. Sometimes a cast iron pan just needs a good scrubbing to get rid of burnt on gunk. Wad up a leftover piece of aluminum foil and use that to scrub away.
- Remove rust. Aluminum foil also works to remove rust too! Use a wadded up piece of aluminum foil to scrub away surface rust on metal.
- Make custom shaped baking pans. If you need a heart-shaped pan but don’t have one, never fear! Fold thick heavy duty aluminum foil into your desired shape and place it in a larger baking pan for a custom cake.
- Make custom cookie cutters. Heavy duty aluminum foil can also be folded and molded into custom cookie cutter shapes.
- Make a funnel. If you don’t have a funnel handy, you can fashion one out of aluminum foil. Just fold it so you have a couple of layers and roll it into a cone shape. Unlike paper funnels, a foil funnel can also be rinsed off and reused.
- Clean tarnished silver. One of the biggest drawbacks of sterling silver is that it tarnishes. To remove tarnish from silver easily, line the bottom of a glass or plastic container with aluminum foil and add some very hot water, baking soda, and salt. Toss in your tarnished silver, wait a few minutes, and watch the tarnish transfer from the silver to the foil. Buff with a soft cloth and your silver will be nice and clean again.
- Sharpen kitchen shears. Cut through some aluminum foil to give your kitchen shears a new edge. You can also use sandpaper for this, but foil is usually a right at hand in the kitchen.
- Restick vinyl tiles. Don’t you hate when old vinyl tile starts coming up? Fix it by placing a piece of aluminum foil over the tile and ironing it on medium-high until the adhesive softens. Place a stack of heavy books for a few hours to secure it.
