This little-known trick will save you from hours of peeling potatoes

Potatoes are arguable one of most people’s favourite types of vegetable. Whether you enjoy them roasted, scalloped, boiled, mashed, baked, fried into chips, or any of the myriad other ways they can be eaten, you probably cook with them fairly regularly.

Preparing a big dinner, especially if you’re in a rush, can be difficult enough – but having to peel a pile of potatoes just adds to the stress if there’s no one around to give you a hand.

YouTube user Foody Tube’s nifty potato hack video claims you can skip the peeling process before boiling the potatoes and, instead, peel the skin straight off the potatoes once they’re fully cooked.

And here’s how to do it! Score the potato down the middle, creating a ring around the potato (make sure you don’t cut any deeper than the skin). Transfer the potatoes to a giant pot of cold water, boil the potatoes until they are fork tender, then drain them. Once they’re cool enough to touch, peel off the skin — it’s that easy!

If you’d like to warm your potatoes up again, simply place them back into the pan full of hot water. This tip not only prevents the need to use a peeler but it also speeds up the cooking time a lot! 

Boiling potatoes before you peel them has other benefits, too. The potatoes will absorb less water, which means you won’t be left with a gooey mess when mashed.

Read more: Lightning-fast ways to peel tricky fruit, veggies and more

Another great trick is peeling eggs shells without the mess! While a boiled egg is a simple and delicious way to start the day, peeling them can be a pain in the behind when they’re fresh out of a boiling pot and still throwing off steam. Instead of having to sit by and patiently wait until they’ve cooled down, or worse yet, spend 10 minutes picking at the shell as it cracks into a thousand pieces, there is a far simpler way to get the job done.

A video published on Youtube by MicahMedia shows how to perfectly peel a boiled egg every time, without scolding your fingers. The video shows a man putting the freshly boiled egg into a glass, topping it up with cold water and then violently shaking it up and down for a few seconds.

When he’s done the shell slips off in one piece leaving the perfectly peeled egg in the cup.

Have you tried any of these tricks? Did you have success?