This Clever Lemon Hack Juices the Fruit with a Skewer

Take a look in my fridge and (almost) 100% of the time, you'll find a stash of lemons and limes in the produce drawer. Whether it's for a savory pasta, hummus, or a tangy dessert, citrus is easily one of my favorite flavors to add brightness to a dish. Thanks to a TikTok video, there's a hack to easily juice a lemon by using a bamboo skewer. You know, those long toothpicks you use to grill kabobs? The hack has been around for a while, but the video by @johannawestbrook shows inserting and removing a skewer into the end of a lemon and (to her shock), easily squeezed juice from the fruit. This immediately led to several more users finding success in the hack, so I jumped at the chance to try it as well. Here's how it turned out.

I didn't have any wooden or reusable skewers handy, so I had to get creative. I ended up attempting the lemon hack with my trusty corkscrew and a chopstick. As long as you have something pointy and a little sharp, you'll be able to do this without a skewer. After giving my lemon a good roll to get those juices flowing, I gently pierced the blossom end (the end without the stem) with the tip of my corkscrew just enough to make room for my chopstick. I pushed the chopstick all the way in, but not enough to go through the other side. I flipped it over a jar and voilà, a seed-free stream of juice began flowing from the lemon! How much juice you get will depend on how ripe your lemon is, but I got about 2 Tbsp.

If you're a lemon lover like me, you probably always trust your lemon press ($12, Williams Sonoma) to keep the seeds out of your favorite citrus dishes. And while I love using that handy tool, sometimes my lemons are so juicy I end up losing a lot of precious juice on my board after cutting them in half. By using this easy hack, I didn't lose a single drop and it took hardly any time to accomplish. This is definitely a worthy hack that allows just a squeeze for your iced tea or water. Or you can utilize the whole thing (zest too!) for your homemade lemon curd, icebox pie, and creamy lemon chicken.