You Need To Get Some Squeeze Bottles In Your Kitchen

Control over your ingredients gives you control over the final dish, and squeeze bottles can help you become the master of your culinary domain. With them, you can put the exact amount of a liquid ingredient precisely where you want it, and they’re super cheap.

They’re an obvious match for picnic favourites like ketchup, mustard, and BBQ sauce, but almost any kitchen liquid feels a little friendlier when harnessed in a simple squeeze bottle. Here are just a few of the things made better by a squeeze bottle:

• All oils and vinegars: Not only do squeeze bottles prevent oil (and vinegar) spills by giving you better control over the flow rate, you don’t have to mess with any sort of screw top lid situation.
• Your lunch time salad dressing: Rather than use a resealable tub – which runs the risk of popping open and causing lunchbox chaos – pack a 100ml squeeze bottle with your favourite homemade vinaigrette for easy desk dressing.
• Dish soap: I really like fancy dish soap but, due to my aggressive grip, I always dispense way too much of it at a time. Squeeze bottles slow me down, saving me soap (and money).
• Cocktail syrups: Fill various squeezies (that’s what I’m calling them now) with all your favourite cocktail syrups, label them with blue painter’s tape, and never over-sweeten a beverage again.
• Royal icing: Decorating cookies is so much easier and much less frustrating when you can make straight, neat lines of icing. Squeeze bottles help make that dream a reality.
• Pancake batter: Why buy a fancy pancake pen when you can make beautiful works of breakfast art with a humble squeeze bottle? (N.b., you may need to snip the top to make the hole slightly bigger.)
• Sauces: Whether your basting or plating, squeeze bottles let you put the right amount of sauce in the right place. In fact, you can make your plates look downright restaurant worthy by dotting and swirling various coloured sauces on the plate.

Squeeze bottles are also very easy to clean; just pop ’em in the dishwasher as needed. To prevent sticky drips from messing up your grip, just wrap the bottle in a paper towel, secure with a rubber band, and change it once it gets damp with syrup, sauce, or vinegar.