The Convenient Reason Gordon Ramsay Cuts Bell Peppers Upside Down

Whether you're readying ingredients for that night's dinner or much later use, food prep can be a real pain. The washing, the drying, the peeling, the dicing: It's all just so time consuming, and the primary reason so many recipes take so much longer than they've promised. That's why we'll take even the tiniest shortcuts in the hopes that they'll all add up to a few more meaningful minutes saved. And Gordon Ramsay's bell pepper cutting method does just that.

Ramsay's bell pepper cutting scheme literally flips the fruit on its head. It's only natural to want to handle an item right-side up. Few are cutting fresh apples horizontally, peeling bananas from the bottom, or slicing strawberries from the tip. But everyone's favorite foul-mouthed food personality takes the bottoms-up approach to more efficiently prep the pepper. Demonstrating in an instructional video shared on YouTube, Ramsay first slices off the stalk to make the upturned pepper more stable on the wider base. He then slices down and, critically, around the fruit's center. When you slice all the way through instead, as many people do, you loosen the seeds, which are liable to fly all over the place. Ramsay's method keeps them all together, saving you the headache of cleaning up your cutting board — and, potentially, your kitchen.

The simple motion of turning a bell pepper on its top for slicing does, indeed, produce a tidier bit of waste that Gordon Ramsay describes in the video as a "little perfect Christmas tree of seeds." He also claims that this way is twice as fast as the more common procedure, and, once you get the hang of it, it might be. For your best chance at success, make sure you've cut the stalk as low as possible to prevent the pepper from wobbling and use a very sharp knife, as a duller tool will drag. You should be able to toss that holiday-style seed pack right in the trash or compost bin all in one piece.

This all helps you clean as you cook, which obviously saves time once those meals you've worked so hard to prepare are over and done with. Some peeling hacks can also cut down on prep time and help keep your kitchen in order. Peeling vegetables like carrots and cucumbers directly over the flimsy plastic produce bags they likely came in can also hasten disposal. Boiling tomatoes helps their skin slip right off. And Gordon Ramsay has tons more cooking tips you can use to solve all kinds of culinary conundrums.