A microwave oven would have been termed as a luxury kitchen item at one point of time. However, as living standards improved across the past decade or so, it is a popular kitchen appliance seen in most homes. People use it for convenience, to bake cakes and cookies, or for easy preparation of Indian snacks like Samosa, Kachori, and more. Almost any Indian dish can be prepared in the oven as much as it can be otherwise. However, the microwave oven can also be used for some simple kitchen hacks that we may not be aware of. Here is a list of a few hacks that you can check out.

Reheating

You must have noticed that at times when you heat leftover food it becomes dry or hard. This is especially true for rotis, bread, pizzas, and dry curries. To avoid this, you could try placing a glass of water in the oven, along with the food being reheated. The water from the glass helps circulate some much-needed moisture in the oven to help moisten the food being reheated. This would prevent it from becoming dry or hard and can be savoured as fresh.

Peel garlic cloves

Peeling garlic cloves is a rather cumbersome kitchen task; and yet, many dishes whether Indian or otherwise does need garlic. While few painstakingly peel it out using knives, there is an easier way to do it. Using the microwave oven as a hack to peel garlic is a smart and easy way that you could try out. Just put the garlic cloves in the microwave for a maximum of 15 seconds and the cloves will moisten out the skin. The moistened skin can be easily peeled out. You could do it for a few garlic pods and store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Roast nuts

Nuts like peanuts and almonds can be easily roasted in a microwave without any oil. All you need to do is place them evenly on the glass plate and microwave for 2 minutes. Leave it for a while aside once done, and you can touch and feel that they are crispy for use directly for storing in an airtight container to be used snacks. You could also roast cashews, makhana etc. in a similar and healthy way.

Lemon juice

Juice can be squeezed better from a lemon, especially if it is hard by using a microwave. Cut the lemon and place the halves in a bowl and microwave for 10 to 20 seconds. This will loosen out the lemon halves and make it soft, and you can easily squeeze out the juice from them.

Preserving greens

Especially in the current situation, it is important to wash all greens before they are refrigerated. However, you might have noticed that once you wash the greens, they mostly become soggy fast, even when you refrigerate. A good hack to avoid this is to microwave them for a few minutes and dry them out. You need to dry them out well on a clean towel, after washing them before microwaving them. This works well for leaves like curry leaves, amaranth, methi leaves, basil, mint, coriander, etc.

Crunchiness to chips and puffed rice

Sometimes we open chips packets or murmura (puffed rice) and leave them aside and they lose their crunchiness. You could microwave them for before eating them again, to bring back the crunchiness. Chips could be microwaved for around 10-20 seconds and puffed rice for around 1 to 2 minutes. You could check on the puffed rice after a minute to see if you need to put it on again.

Instant peeling

If we need to instantly peel almonds and have forgotten to soak it, then we could place them in a bowl of water and microwave it for around 2 to 3 minutes. Check once in between after two minutes and then allow it to cool and you can peel them easily.