Ways To Use Lemons For Food or Cleaning
You can make more out of lemons than lemonade. In fact, lemon juice is a really useful liquid that can be used to clean your home, treat cold symptoms, and even be part of your beauty regimen. Check out these amazing Ways To Use Lemons For Food or Cleaning
Ways To Use Lemons For Food or Cleaning
Lemons, Lemons, Lemons……
You can make more out of lemons than lemonade. In fact, lemon juice is a really useful liquid that can be used to clean your home, and can even be part of your beauty regimen.
Have you ever purchased lemons and had to throw a few out? You had had all the intentions in the world to use them but didn’t. Or after squeezing the lemon juice from the lemon you toss the leftover rind. Let’s explore other uses for leftover or extra lemons that may be floating around in your fridge.
I’d wager a bet that no other fruit works quite as hard as the little lemon. Let’s start using lemons to their full potential. Let’s make every lemon we use a success, an overachiever … a winner.
Our family has come up with a few ways to use up our leftover or extra lemons. We use to keep leftover lemons in a container in the refrigerator. But more often than not, I found that they would go bad before I even had a chance to use them.
Freeze Them
After slicing lemons that I knew my family would not be able to use up we started to freeze them. Fresh lemon slices are so refreshing and lovely in a glass of water. A frozen lemon slice is like a lemon ice cube! You actually get the same effect of having a fresh lemon slice in your water. Over the summer, I actually sliced them up and froze all my lemon sliced just to keep my water a little cooler and tastier.
Freshen Up
Get rid of bad breath. Squish a little lemon juice in a small bit of water and swish it around in your mouth for a few seconds. I know some may not like the taste of straight lemon juice. If you can, DO IT!!! Then swallow the juice for extra freshening. Lemon juice will also aid in digestion, and will give you a nice jolt of vitamin C!
Lighten blemishes. If you have some blemishes or you notice your face darkening in pigment in some spots, put some lemon juice on it every day until it lightens.
Whiten discolored elbows, heels, and knees. Just rub half a juiced lemon over the spotty areas and watch them disappear. One reminder: Lemon juice increases sensitivity to sunlight, so don’t go gallivanting about in the daylight after using it on exposed skin.
Clean
Take extra lemon rinds and a little coarse salt (Kosher) to clean wooden cutting boards. If not taken care of properly, they can turn into a smelly (and in some cases, moldy) mess. Sprinkle the salt liberally all over the board, then slice your lemon and use it to rub the salt into the board. The salt acts as an abrasive to lift stains and the lemon juice leaves everything smelling great.
Throw it in the garbage disposal. We also found out our garbage disposable LOVES lemon rinds (Nom, Nom, Nom). After dishes are rinsed, put half a lemon in the garbage disposal. Run hot water for a few seconds, and then run the disposal for a few seconds to lightly chop the lemon. Leave the chopped lemon in there overnight and finish the job in the morning.
Clean your microwave quickly. Squeeze the juice out of half a lemon and put it in a 1 cup of water in a microwave-safe bowl. Run the microwave for 5 minutes. The lemon juice steam majorly cuts down on wiping-off time. After letting it cool down for a few minutes, take a damp cloth and wipe down your microwave. SPARKLING clean!
I don’t own, but happen to know about a book called Lemon Magic: 200 Beauty and Household Uses for Lemon Juice. Clearly, my list has fallen short of 200. However, you can check out this book to give you more great ideas.
What are some other ways to use lemons? If you have a special tip please let us all know.
Other Household Tips & Tricks
How To Clean Kitchen Cabinets And Degrease All Naturally
Yes, You Can Freeze your Eggs For Later Use, See how!
My favorite way to use lemons is to squirt them over an avocado with a sprinkle of salt and pepper!
My garbage disposal loves to eat lemons too!
When we lived in California and had a lemon tree in the back yard, we used the lemons in place of tennis balls for the dogs. They loved the tennis ball tree, until they bit too hard into the “balls” and they got a mouth full of juice. :-))
I love to use lemons (cut in half, or quarters) when I make stock. Roasting the meat scraps with your vegetable ends and scrapings and lemon gives it a really hearty flavour. After roasting, move to a large pot and fill with water, boil, strain and voila!
You could also zest your lemons before putting them in the disposal and freeze the zest to use in recipes later.
AHHHH… Great Idea Tracy!!!! Thank you for sharing
Good to know👍
You can also use left-over lemons to make lemon cookies. You can grate the lemon and squeeze the juice for some delicious cookies, cake, or icing.
That is another GREAT tip! Thanks, Alissa for sharing!