You Won't Need To Measure Fresh Ground Pepper With A Spoon Thanks To This Brilliant Hack

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When there's flour everywhere, the carrots are midway through roasting, and the chicken is ready to go in the oven, you don't want to grab for the measuring spoons for the right amount of fresh-cracked black pepper. You have to measure it into a dish, then keep using your measuring spoon to see if you have enough. And there's inevitably some left over that you're not quite sure what to do with. It's another step in the process that would be nice to skip and another utensil or two you'd rather not have to wash. But a little groundwork can lead the way to easier cooking, at least when it comes to measuring freshly ground pepper.

Just count how many turns it takes to get to a specific measurement, such as a quarter teaspoon. Measure it once, then do the (pretty simple) math for each recipe. For example, on my pepper grinder at home, an admittedly bougie (but beautiful) Le Creuset ceramic grinder, 10 turns is a quarter teaspoon. So I know to double the turns to 20 for a half teaspoon or count to 40 for an entire teaspoonful. This trick is great because switching to freshly ground pepper changes your food, but it's such a pain to measure. Once you have your count down, it doesn't really take any more time than tapping ground pepper from the tin or shaker.

This hack takes less time and effort if your pepper grinder produces a lot of pepper with each grind. If yours doesn't, it may be worth investing in a new one. There are plenty of extremely utilitarian, low-cost pepper grinders, and you can check the reviews to find out what people think of them. Your local grocery store may even sell pepper in disposable plastic grinders that work pretty well, and you can usually refill those too. 

If you're replacing your old one, anyway, it may be a good idea to buy one with a removable bottom, like the Kichouse manual pepper mill, so you can leave the cap in place to catch the grounds while you count. And if you want to skip the effort and tedium of a hand grinder, this hack works just as well on an electric grinder. You just count the seconds of the grind rather than number of turns. The Circle Joy electric grinder is an Amazon Choice. It's also good to find a grinder that can easily change coarseness so you can go from superfine to coarse, depending on the recipe. And it's always nice to have one that's easy to refill, though there's a simple hack to ensure the peppercorns don't jump off the counter.