Dear Lifehacker, I love cling wrap and used it almost every day, but it’s near impossible to get a clean sheet out without it folding onto itself and becoming unusable. Do you have any tips when it comes to glad wrapping food and not letting it stick to itself? Thanks, Annoyed Lunch Maker
Picture: Silly Little Man
Dear ALM,
Cling wrap folding in on itself is indeed a persistent kitchen annoyance. Here are a few tactics to consider:
- Use kitchen scissors to cut it after rolling it out, rather than the built-in serrated edge. Since this means you don’t have to grab one edge, the odds of it folding in drop.
- As we pointed out recently, popping your cling wrap in the freezer can make it easier to handle and less likely to stick to itself.
- Cling wrap isn’t always the best solution. If you’re merely wrapping a sandwich, for instance, a medium-sized freezer bag can be just as effective and won’t suffer from sticking to itself. Using a permanent container is much less wasteful.
If readers have other suggestions to help, we’d love to hear them in the comments.
Cheers
Lifehacker
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Comments
7 responses to “Ask LH: How Can I Stop Cling Wrap Sticking To Itself?”
also i found better quality cling wrap was slightly thicker and less likely to fold over when i looked at it sideways.
I have heard keeping the wrap vertical while moving it to the required location to wrap stops it folding back on itself.
I have struggled with cling wrap my whole life……..Lets hope this swings the neverending war in my favor.
To be honest I don’t see the issue. I use it nearly every day and never seem to have any problems. Then again, my first job was involved wrapping a variety of portioned fruit and veg in the stuff and it took a while to master.
Echoing others, I think the higher quality stuff has more effective non-stick properties. Similar to good quality sticky tape.
– Use cling wrap that comes with a sliding cutter
– Move the roll of cling wrap to the thing you want to cover/wrap. If you can’t move the roll for whatever reason, hold the corners of the piece of wrap in your fingers, while letting the edges rest against your forearms as you move to the thing you want to wrap
– Lay down a piece of cling wrap, lay the sandwich, cut the wrap. wrap the sandwich. Or if something doesn’t need to be fully wrapped, just place it in front of the roll, pull out a piece and cut.
uh, isn’t the whole point of it to cling to itself? so you can wrap something and it stays wrapped.
Stick the leading edge of the wrap to the bench top.
Roll out desired length
Place serrated edge facing up
Push down the wrap section by section to cut it on the serrated edge.
Anybody that tries to unroll cling wrap in the air is a fool.