Real Food Tips: 7 Uses for Kitchen Shears

This post was inspired by a visit to my parents’ place. When I was there recently making something for the kids to eat, I asked my dad where the kitchen shears were. He said they didn’t have any. I said, “Whaaat??” We seriously have three pairs and use them all the time!

So, in today’s post, I’m sharing all the reasons why I love my kitchen shears so much (and how they help me make real food)! I seriously don’t know if I could function in the kitchen without them. Would you agree?

7 Uses for Kitchen Shears

1. Fresh Herbs (including chives)
   Most of us know how incredibly difficult it is to cut freshly washed herbs with a knife. The trick is to bunch them up, but, especially when they’re still wet, I end up with cut marks and no actual cuts on the bottom layer. Enter kitchen shears! The job seriously couldn’t be easier with these. Hold them by the stem and slice away.
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2. Jalapeños and Other Spicy Peppers
   The beauty of using scissors to cut hot peppers is that you don’t get the spicy stuff all over your fingers (and inevitably in your eyes…ouch!).
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3. Lettuce and Other Greens (such as kale)
   Greens are a little easier to wrangle on the cutting board, but let’s say I’m just making a small salad for myself for lunch. Maybe I don’t want to get a whole big cutting board dirty. So, using the same technique as with fresh herbs, I just dangle the lettuce over my bowl and – voila – quickly cut it into ribbons.
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4. Cooked Noodles
   I’m sure Italians will cringe to hear me say this, but sometimes full-length spaghetti noodles just make a mess in my house. So once they’re cooked and drained, I often stick my scissors down into the colander and make a few cuts so the meal is more manageable for my little ones.
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5. Green Bean Ends
   This use may be a more obvious one, but I had to include it just in case. If you’re dirtying a cutting board (see #3 above) to trim off your unwanted green bean ends, you can stop now! I like to hold at least a half dozen in my hand at a time and use my scissors to cut off the ends. This is also a great kitchen chore for little ones, although I’d recommend they just cut one at a time.
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6. Pitas
   I usually cut pitas in half and sometimes even into little triangles (if we want to dip them in something like hummus), and there is seriously no better way to do it than with scissors. In fact, I think that’s what I was trying to do at my parents’ home that inspired all of this in the first place!
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7. Anything Hot
   Every once in a while I’m cooking something in a hot pan and decide, “Oh, I should have cut up those onions more,” or “I wish I would have sliced those mushrooms a little smaller so the kids don’t try to pick them out.” Well, you guessed it. If you have kitchen shears on hand, you can just stick them right down in the pan, and it can be taken care of in seconds!

So, did I leave anything out? :)
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