17 Handy Aluminum Foil Hacks

Use aluminum foil to your advantage with these fun aluminum foil hacks!

Aluminum foil is pretty handy to have in your kitchen, yes. They’re great for little things around the kitchen, and also, a ton of hacks you can use to make life easy and stress-free.

Check out these 17 aluminum foil hacks that you might like!

VIDEO: 17 Handy Aluminum Foil Hacks

1. Keep Your Vegetables Fresh for Longer

Aluminum works pretty well in a pich. You can easily wrap your veggies in them, scrunch it up, and toss it into your refrigerator. It will keep the moisture and air away from the veggies, keeping them crisp and fresh longer.

You can wrap vegetables like celery, broccoli, lettuce, zucchini, and more in foil and pop them into the fridge. It should keep them crisp for a couple of weeks.

2. Keep Bananas from Ripening Too Soon

You have probably seen this hack on buzzfeed and have wondered about it. Well, now it’s finally time for you to give it a try.

Grab a couple of bananas, still held together by the stem. Simple cut off a bit of aluminum foil and scrunch it up around the crown.

Here’s the logic behind it: many fruits, like bananas, release ethylene gas which controls ripening and browning of the fruit starting at the stem. By wrapping the crown, you’re not only slowing down the ripening process for the banana, but also for fruits around it!

Video Tutorial: 17 Aluminum Foil Hacks You’ll Love

3. Use Aluminum Foil to Sharpen Scissors

Have you ever tried to cut something and find your scissor blades just desperately dull? A pair of blunt scissors are the bane of everyone’s existence. While that might be over-dramatic, the fact remains that you need to sharpen your scissor blades.

Take a bit of foil and fold it lengthwise a few times so you have a thick folded strip to work with. By adding multiple layers of aluminum foil for the scissors to cut through, the blades will sharpen every time.

In truth, what the foil does is remove any grime, dirt, and other particles from the blades. So it improves the performance, if not actually sharpening it altogether.

Love a hack? Check out these glue gun hacks!

4. Avoid Cleaning Your Frying Pans

If you’ve ever met a chef or know one, you know how particular they are about washing their pans just the way they like it. Well, I’m not a chef, and the only reason I avoid cleaning my frying pan is because I’m lazy.

Here’s a really fun hack for you to try when you’re really not in the mood to clean and wash your frying pans after you cook yourself a breakfast of, say, eggs. Just wrap the base and sides of the pan in foil before you start cooking.

When you’re done, just remove the foil and dump it! Check out more super easy kitchen cleaning hacks here.

5. Never Clean Your Oven Again

The same principle applies to your oven. There are very few things I dislike more than cleaning my oven every week.

There’s always a ton of food particles and food grims that build up inside, especially when I’m slow-roasting something in there. But the looming prospect of cleanup shouldn’t keep you away from a fabulous meal, right?

Just line the undersides of your over—or the lower rack right above the tongs—with aluminum foil. It will catch all spills and drips and make your cooking time mess-free.

6. Scrub Your Pots

Have you ever used steel wool to scrub your pots? It really helps to get in there with a bit of that steel wool. You hardly need to scrub and scourge, just let the metal do the work.

If you’re in a pinch, you can also substitute that steel wool for a bit of aluminum foil. The friction that it creates will help remove heavy grease that stubbornly sticks to the bottom of your pots.

The bonus is that it’s a rather inexpensive method, if you don’t want to go buy an actual steel wool just then.

Check out more easy cleaning hacks that will save you time!

7. Polish Your Silver

You can use aluminum foil to polish your silver and utensils. It actually involves a ‘recipe.’

First, just put a pot of water on your stove and let it come to a boil. While that’s happening, go ahead and gather your supplies.

Take a look at the different ingredients you need to gather:

• Aluminum foil

• Glass dish or aluminum baking dish

• 1 cup boiling water

• 1 tablespoon baking soda

• 1 tablespoon sea salt

• 1/2 cup white vinegar

• Rag for polishing

• Tongs to remove silverware from boiling water

8. Use Aluminum Foil to Reflect Light for Photography

Photographers are always on the lookout for new and creative ways to jazz up their photos. They’re particularly fond of playing with natural light.

This hack is for all you budding photographers out there looking to get a little creative with your lighting and effects and need a quick household item to help you. The answer? Aluminum foil!

You can make your very own reflector by taping aluminum foil onto a large sheet of cardboard. The foil will cast a nice silvery light and even help you create shadows.

9. Cut Down Your Ironing Time

I just hate slogging through the heat when I’m trying to iron my clothes. It’s definitely not a fun task, and it takes a ridiculously long time.

So the next time you’re ironing your clothes, try this hack. Simply slip a sheet of foil under the top fabric layer of the boar. The foil will reflect heat straight to the underside of the fabric.

This means you’re effectively ironing the front and back at the same time!

10. Clean Your Iron

You’ve ironed all your clothes, and after using aluminum foil to reduce the time you normally take to iron your clothes, you’re feeling pretty proud.

Now you’re going to have to put your iron away, but not before cleaning it. Grab that aluminum foil from under the board and use it to clean your iron!

11. Create a Sun Box for Plants

You’ve already seen how aluminum foil reflects heat and light so wonderfully. You’re going to make a sunbox now for your plants because it’s just super effective!

First, take a cardboard box and cut out one side of it. Now, grab some aluminum foil and line the inside with it. That’s pretty much it.

Place your plant in there and see how wonderfully they grow. Bonus? You’ll find that your plants are growing straight seeing as how they do not need to bend or lean towards the sun.

12. Keep Matches Dry When Camping

Do you love camping and are an avid camper? Then I bet you know what a pain it can be when your matches get damp or soggy on your trek to your camping spot.

You don’t want to have to stand in the cold and attempt to make fire like cavemen did, do you? Let’s just make it easy and wrap up all the match sticks in a bit of aluminum foil.

13. Make an Artist’s Palette

Here’s a really neat hack for all you artists out there. Tired of having to clean your palette all the time?

Grab your palette—even a paper plate will work just as well—and layer it with foil. Then just continue to use the palette as you normally would, mixing colors over the foil.

When you’re done, just pull the foil off and dispose it—as easy as that!

14. Keep Your Paintbrushes Wet

This foil hack also works when you’re painting, say, walls and the likes, as well. Instead of a palette, you can use foil to cover your paint roller tray.

If you don’t have a tray, you can just line a shoebox with some foil and use that as an impromptu tray. The same rule applies here, too.

Once you’re done using the tray, just remove the foil with the paint over it, carefully scrunch it up, and dispose of it.

15. Use Aluminum Foil as a Funnel

Need a quick fix solution to your funneling problem? Here’s how you create an aluminum foil funnel.

First, make a funnel model out of paper. You can use this as a blueprint of sorts. Then take a strip of foil and carefully tape one end of the foil to the funnel model.

Wrap the foil around and stick it in place.

16. Make a Quick Disposable Platter

If you’re having just your friends over, or if you’re just entertaining yourself at home and don’t want the hassle of cleaning up elaborate utensils like a serving board, then