9 Unusual Uses for Paper Towels

If you encounter a mess of any kind — whether it’s a spilled cup of coffee or crumbs on the counter — chances are you’ll be reaching for a paper towel to deal with it. We tend to think of these wipes as our go-to tool to handle mess, but there are plenty of other smart ways to use them that go way beyond spills. Here are nine ways to get more out of every roll.

Freshen Your Shoes

Shoes can take on a funky odor due to bacteria that thrive in the damp, dark environment they provide. Give them a quick refresh by putting a few drops of your favorite essential oil on a paper towel, crumpling it up, and placing it in your footwear. They’ll smell much better the next day.

Keep Cutting Boards in Place

It’s frustrating — not to mention dangerous — when your cutting board slides all over your counter during food prep. Chefs swear by a hack to keep it in place that requires nothing more than a paper towel. 

Simply rip a piece off the roll, run it under water, wring it out, and place it on your counter with your cutting board on top. The dampness creates friction that keeps the cutting board in one spot, allowing you to chop food safely. And when you’re finished, you can use the paper towel to wipe down your counter.  

Germinate Seeds

Speed up the gardening process by germinating fruit, vegetable, and herb seeds in paper towels. Line a food storage container with three or four damp sheets and place the seeds on them. Loosely cover the container with the lid so that air can circulate and place the container in a warm spot. Check daily and remoisten the paper towels as necessary. Once the seeds have sprouted, transfer them to soil.

Keep Produce and Cheese Fresh

There’s nothing worse than shelling out a ton of money for fresh fruit and veggies only to have them go bad in your fridge. But paper towels come in handy here: Slipping one into your produce containers will soak up excess moisture that would otherwise cause the food to rot. You can even go a step further and line your fridge shelves and drawers with paper towels — this cuts down on the need to clean the shelves themselves and soaks up food-destroying moisture. According to The Kitchn, these paper towels will last three to four weeks before you need to re-line shelves and drawers.  

You can also use a paper towel to extend the life of your hard cheeses: Dunk a paper towel sheet in white vinegar, wring it out, and wrap it around your cheese. If the towel dries, wet it in vinegar again. According to All Recipes, white vinegar has antifungal properties because it’s high in acetic acid. This trick will help your hard cheeses last up to three times longer than they would normally, and your cheese won’t taste like vinegar, either.

Get Wax Out of Carpets

Wax on a carpet or fabric is no big deal when you have a paper towel nearby. Lay two paper towels over the wax and hold a hot iron to the paper towels for a couple of minutes — the wax will melt and transfer to the paper towels.

Keep Cabinet Tops Grease-Free

The tops of your kitchen cabinets are out of sight, out of mind … until you need to clean them and discover they’re coated with a sticky layer of dust and grease that’s incredibly difficult to remove. Cleaning it is a task you won’t want to repeat, so once it’s done, grab a roll of paper towels and completely cover the top of the cabinets with them. Now all you have to do is pull them down when they get grimy and replace them with fresh ones — no elbow grease necessary. 

Stop Thawing Bread From Becoming Soggy

No one ever wants to waste bread — particularly if it’s homemade sourdough you spent days on and froze to enjoy later. Thaw it the right way by placing a paper towel in the bag. It will absorb the excess moisture as the bread thaws out. 

If you’re in a rush, wrap slices in damp paper towels and microwave them for 30 seconds. You’ll need to eat them right away, though; microwaved slices will quickly get tough as the moisture in the bread evaporates.  

Soak Up Oil

Oil and grease are two things you never want to put down your drain or in your dishwasher — it’s bad for your pipes, sewer systems, and the environment. Use a Martha Stewart-approved trick to get rid of oil instead: Take a handful of paper towels and place them in a pan filled with oil. Move the towels around to get all the oil, throw them away, and clean the pan as usual.

You can also use paper towels to get rid of oil that’s accumulated on soups or stock: Just lay a sheet gently on the surface, pull it off, and repeat with fresh paper towels as necessary until the oil is gone.

Clean Can Openers and Stained Plastic Food Storage

If you haven’t given any thought to cleaning your manual can opener, you probably should: Its blades are just as capable of picking up food and gunk as every other tool you use regularly. To clean it, feed a paper towel through the blades and crank the can opener; the paper towel will clean the blades as it makes its way through.

Paper towels can also be the key to cleaning stubborn stains from food like pasta sauce in plastic storage containers. Put a sheet in the container, add a few drops of soap and some water, put on the lid, and shake. The stain might not be completely gone when you’re done, particularly if the container has been sitting for a while, but it’s likely to be better than when you started.

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