How An Ice Cube Can Remove Excess Oil From Soups And Sauces

Whether it’s from the cooking oil you’ve added or the release of fat from meaty ingredients, bubbles of oil floating on top of your homemade soups or sauces are often unavoidable.

However, running an ice-filled ladle over the top of the liquid will cause the fat to solidify and cling to the back of the utensil, making it easy to scoop out and discard.

The key lies in how fats and oils behave when exposed to cold temperatures. Each type of fat and oil has a distinct temperature at which it shifts from a liquid to a solid state.

When you fill a metal ladle with ice, it chills down to a temperature that’s low enough to cause most common cooking fats and oils to solidify almost instantly.