Half an onion. Half a lemon. The end of a tomato, the cut stump of a cucumber. Most of us wrap them in cling film, shove them in the fridge door and find them three days later, dried out and smelling up the butter.
Cling film never really seals round a curved, wet surface. It wrinkles, lets air in at the edges and, in the onion’s case, lets the smell out. A box works better, but a whole tub for half a lemon is a waste of fridge space.
A cap for the cut side
Food Huggers are a neat fix. They’re soft silicone caps that you push over the cut face of fruit and veg. The outer rim stretches round the food and grips it, so the cut side is sealed and the rest of the skin does its usual job of protecting what’s inside.
The set comes as five in different sizes, so there’s one for a lime and one for a big onion or a tin of tomato purée. The silicone is properly thick, not the thin floppy stuff some copies use, and the whole set goes in the dishwasher.
In practice I’d use them on:
- Onions and shallots, where the smell is the main problem
- Lemons and limes, which dry out fast once cut
- Tomatoes, cucumber and courgette ends
- Apples, to slow browning (it slows it rather than stops it)
- Open tins, if you want to cap a half-used one rather than decant it
Where they fall down
The seal is only as good as the fit. If the food is much smaller than the hugger, it’ll slip about and air gets in. Wonky cuts don’t help either, so a straight, flat slice through the onion gives you a much better seal than a ragged one. And they’re not magic: half a pepper still won’t last a fortnight.
They also take a bit of getting used to. The first few times you’ll pick the wrong size. After a week you just know which one fits a lemon.
For the amount of half-used veg that gets binned in most kitchens, they earn their drawer space. Here’s the 5-piece Food Huggers set on Amazon.
