Take A Pizza Cutter To Your Herbs For Perfect Ribbons

There are single-use kitchen gadgets whose name reflects their sole function: The measuring cup measures ingredients, the garlic press presses garlic, the salad spinner spins any type of salad dry, and the pizza cutter efficiently cuts pizza into ready-to-grab slices. However, a bit of ingenuity can take a single-use kitchen tool far and the utility of a pizza cutter is not to be reserved for cutting up slices of pizza.

In French, the term chiffonade literally translates to "made of rags," but the resulting effect is anything but shabby. When you cut your herbs into a chiffonade, the resulting aesthetic is elegant herbs that you can sprinkle on top of an omelet, salad, plate of pasta, or any dish, really. The added bonus of this refined cut is that it brings out the flavor of the herbs. So, it is not only pleasing to the eye but to the palate as well.

And while a chiffonade is not particularly difficult to achieve, if you're looking to save time in the kitchen, consider turning to the pizza cutter for perfect ribbons.

Experienced cooks will know that when fresh herbs like parsley, mint, dill, and basil are in season, it would be a shame not to add them to as many meals as possible to showcase the natural flavors of summer. They will also know, chopping these herbs can be a pain. While there are several hacks for quickly chopping up herbs, like taking a pair of shears to a jar stuffed with greenery, these time-saving techniques may not result in uniform pieces and can be less aesthetically pleasing than what you're looking for when you set out to create an elegant chiffonade.

Enter the pizza cutter. It really couldn't be much easier: all you need to do is stack your herbs on a cutting board and then glide your pizza cutter over them to get long, thin, and beautiful ribbons of herbs — no chopping required.