40 Handy Coffee Filter Hacks To Make The Daily Grind Run That Bit Smoother
Your morning would not be complete without a coffee – this much you know is true. But what if we told you there’s way more to be done with your java-centric accessories? Yes, that little paper filter you use to brew your daily cup of joe has so many additional uses besides making that magical beverage. Here are 40 other ways to put them to good use.
If you’ve ever wiped your glasses with a regular tissue or napkin, you know how streaky they can leave your lenses. Next time, reach for a coffee filter instead. They tend to be made from completely virgin paper, which means they won’t leave behind lint or strands that fog up your frames.
Let’s say you’re on the road and realize your car needs some oil. How will you refill the engine? If you have coffee filters in your glovebox, you can make it happen a whole lot easier. Simply clip the bottoms off of your cone-shaped filters to transform them into funnels to keep the refills clean and tidy.
Legend has it that you can’t clean your cast iron skillet with soap. Now that’s a topic that’s constantly up for debate, but here’s a gentle cleaning method to use in the interim. First, use coarse salt to scrub the interior of the pan. Then rinse, dry and line it with coffee filters to soak up any excess moisture to keep your skillet from rusting.
Let’s say you’re in the mood for cupcakes, but you’re missing the pivotal supply: liners for your cupcake tins. If you happen to drink coffee, though, you could be ready to go without the little paper cups. Instead, line your trays with filters – trim them a bit if you don’t want excess paper surrounding your finished cakes.
You don’t often use your fine china, but you want to make sure it stays in mint condition until you do. So grab some coffee filters before you restack and store your plates next time. Placing the papers between each dish will avoid scrapes and nicks. You can do the same with all of your plates, both special and everyday ones, when it comes time to move house.
Prepping your garden for spring? A handful of coffee filters can get your seeds sprouting. Just dampen the paper, then place the seeds inside. After that, you can pop your filters into a plastic bag to speed up the germination process. Once you see green, remove the teeny plants and put them into the ground to really grow.
Cross-stitchers will know the importance of a solid backing for an embroidery project – without it, the finished product can pucker. If you’re ready to sew and realize you don’t have a dedicated backing material on hand, head to the pantry. Coffee filters have just the right thickness for sturdy support without preventing the needle from passing through it.
You need utensils to cook, and you can’t just leave them on the counter between stirs. That’s, of course, why spoon rests were invented. If you don’t have one, though, you can always use a coffee filter. It’s an absorbent place to leave your spatula or wooden spoon till you need it again.
Speaking of your coffee filter’s absorbency, let’s talk about how it can fight stains on your carpets. Next time you spill something on your rug, reach for a coffee filter and place it on the wet spot. It’ll soak up the liquid quickly and perhaps prevent a permanent splotch on your floors.
Dip, freeze, repeat: doing this with your coffee filters can leave you with an arsenal of healing supplies. If you plunge the paper rounds into water and freeze them, they become the perfect cold compress to quell a fever. Use tea if you want to use the filters to de-puff bags around your eyes.
There’s nothing worse than cracking open a bottle of wine and realizing that chunks of the cork have fallen into your red or white. Luckily, you can fix your blunder with the help of a coffee filter. Simply pour your grown-up grape juice through the paper and into your glass to keep out any floating cork pieces.
You’ve got to polish your shoes, but it feels wrong to waste an otherwise clean cloth on the job that will require you to wash the fabric immediately. So grab a coffee filter instead. Dab on some polish, then rub it onto your footwear in a circular pattern to restore them to a shine.
If you’ve ever worked on a DIY project that required lots of screws or nails or other small bits and pieces, you know how tough it is to keep track of them – they’re never to hand when you actually need them. A coffee filter can change all of that, though. Pop all of your odds and ends into the paper basket, and they won’t roll anywhere.
Use a cotton pad or tissue to remove your nail polish, and you might find the material starts to shred as you swipe. If so, you’ll want to try a more durable paper product next time. A coffee filter can stand up against your polish remover, and it’s extra absorbent, to boot.
After you drizzle a plate with olive oil, you probably notice a dribble or two running down the side of the bottle. You could let it go, forget and find yourself with greasy hands next time that you touch the container. Or you could wrap a coffee filter around the glass and secure it with a rubber band. It’ll lap up any oil that slides down the neck of your bottle.
You can’t help it: sometimes, a sharp turn or a short stop will cause the drink in your cup holder to spill. And when that happens, the liquid that falls out will eventually dry and get sticky. That is, of course, unless you have a coffee filter in your cup holder to absorb the liquid without you having to lift a finger.
Any old cloth won’t do when it comes to your electronics. Instead, you’ll need a lint-free material to restore your screens to a streakless shine. But coffee filters do more than clean your computers and cells. They also attract and hold onto dust, making them great for this task, as well.
Fries. Bacon. Chicken. We all love fried foods for dinner, but we don’t want all of that grease on our plates. You can use coffee filters to fix this issue, too. Place the paper rounds onto your serving dish before plucking your fried foods from the vat. Put them onto the filter-lined dish, and let it soak up any excess oil
Fill a coffee filter with herbs and spices, and then tie that little parcel with a string. After that, loop the threads around your pot’s handles, and lower the bag into your simmering soup or stew. The pouch will slowly release flavor into your brew, and you can pluck it out whenever the recipe has finished cooking.
It’s easy to shuck corn, but it’s tougher to pull away each individual silky thread on your cobs. Coffee filters can come to the rescue once again. If you dampen the paper, then use it to wipe down your corn, you will very quickly remove those pesky silks.
A cone-shaped coffee filter can be a snack holder too. The triangular container makes the perfect holder for pitas, quesadillas and other wraps. You can use your coffee filters of any shape to hold personal portions of popcorn, pretzels, candy and other munchies – movie night will never be the same.
You want your plant pots to have drainage holes: if you over-water them, the H2O will have somewhere to go. But you should place a coffee filter over the cutouts at the bottom of your planters to prevent too much soil from flowing out with the excess water.
Spoon some baking soda into the center of a coffee filter, then tie your bundles with a leftover twistie from your bread bags. With that, you’ve DIY-ed an air freshener that you can tuck into closets or inside of shoes. It will wick away unsavory scents at a much cheaper price than the premade ones you buy in stores.
You’ve spent all day baking. Now you should package your confections with care to save you from disappointment when it all sticks together. So line your storage tin with coffee filters. Then place a filter between each cookie to stop them from glomming onto one another.
Grab some coffee filters when it's time to repack the Christmas ornaments. You can cradle each bauble in a filter to keep it safe and scratch free while in storage. And, when it’s time to unpack them, stack the filters and save them. Reuse the same papers each year for Earth-friendly protection.
It’s so frustrating to reach into your dishwasher, pull out a clean glass and find it speckled with watermarks. Your coffee filter has your back here, of course. Use the lint-free paper to wipe down glasses as they emerge from the appliance. You can wipe away any lingering moisture so that your glasses shine sans spots.
Those fancy blotting papers that you buy have a secret: they are made of basically the same material as coffee filters. You can get way more bang for your buck by skipping the former and buying the latter. And if you want to make your filter face wipes more portable, chop them up into squares and carry them in an old mint tin.
No dryer sheets left? If you have coffee filters on hand, you could still be in business. You’ll also need vinegar and a few drops of essential oil to transform the paper into a bona fide dryer sheet. They’ll impart your clothes with a nice scent and fight static, just as you’d expect from such an addition to your dry cycle.
You have nine nails that are long and healthy – and another that’s halfway broken. You could trim it off and start over, or you could cover up the crack with a piece of coffee filter. This method works best if you use an at-home acrylic dip kit to polish your nails. The paper filter will disappear beneath the powdered hues, leaving you with a uniform manicure. No one will have any idea that you broke a nail.
You don’t want to clean your kitchen scale’s basket after every use. But you don’t want to put your ingredients into another vessel to weigh them – that could affect the accuracy of your cooking. So line the basin with coffee filters, which won’t move the scale’s needle but will keep the basket clean and tidy too.
When you eat a frozen popsicle on a hot day, you’re in a race against the clock – you have to finish before the thing starts to melt and drip all over your hands. You’ll be able to take your time if you have a coffee filter on hand. Slide it over the popsicle stick so it's under the sweet stuff but above your hand. The paper will catch all of the drips while you enjoy your treat.
Fledgling photographers should always keep a coffee filter in their camera bags. If the flash washes out the pictures you’re taking, reach for a paper round. Hold it over your bulb to diffuse the light and soften the look of your finished photo.
There’s not much worse than reaching into your fridge’s crisper drawer only to find that your veggies have gone soft. Prevent that from happening by wrapping your produce in coffee filters. They’ll wick away the moisture that causes your greens to go limp before you can use them.
Sometimes, you need to drain grains or legumes or pasta that’s smaller than the holes in your colander. So line the vessel with coffee filters. They’ll let the water pass through the holes of the strainer and into the sink. But they’ll keep your food in place – you won’t lose a single lentil.
Your cone-shaped coffee filter makes for the perfect face mask with a few edits to make it wearable. You’ll wear it with its skinniest side over your chin and the top beneath your eyes. Punch holes on the sides of the filter, through which you’ll run some string. Tie these threads behind your head to affix the mask in place.
Potty training is hard enough – you don’t want to add mini-toilet clean-up to your list of to-dos. So line the basin with a coffee filter, and let your little one get to work. When they finish, you can remove the paper and flush it down your grown-up toilet.
Anyone who has microwaved a pasta-sauce-laden dish knows what happens when you heat up the plate uncovered. As the sauce heats up, it’ll pop and snap – and get all over the small appliance. So before you microwave your next meal, cover it in coffee filters. Pasta sauce or not, you’ll stop food bits from spraying everywhere.
Just as we dislike limp veggies, we also hate to open our lunch boxes and find soggy sandwiches. A coffee filter can help you in the latter situation just as it can in the former. Wrap your bread-based builds in a paper round before popping it into a plastic bag. Voilà – you have a more durable sandwich.
If you deep-fry food at home, you know you can reuse your oil… so long as it doesn’t get too crumby while you cook. Now, if you notice your frying fat has bits of food in it, don’t see it as a lost cause. Simply pour it through a coffee-filter-lined sieve to get rid of these impurities before you store your oil until next time.
Your coffee filter can help you make tea, too. Grab a spoon and scoop some loose-leaf tea into the center of a paper round. Then, use string to knot up the filter before plunging the pouch into a cup of extra-hot water, as you would a store-bought teabag. Soon enough, you’ll have a mug full of delicious tea in front of you, all thanks to a coffee filter.
