Photo: Dari Poomipat (Shutterstock)
Fried foods are comfort foods. But holding onto that just-fried crunch is a precarious dance of wicking off oil and allowing the food to cool on a rack without steaming itself soggy before dinnertime. The conventional method is to use half a roll of paper towels to absorb excess oil, but what if your roll just ran out? If you have one of the following trashy items lying around, you don’t need paper towels to ensure a crisp exterior on fried foods.
But first: A good oil-soaking material is anything slightly porous, strong enough that it doesn’t stick to the food or break under its weight, and something that you don’t mind getting covered in oil. That’s why paper towels are the go-to frying partner. If you are without, any un-finished paper products (non-waxed or glossy) that are disposable or used to be something else are great candidates for the job. Not only will there be no delaying your plan for deep fried sustenance, but you’ll be reusing something and reducing paper towel waste.
Household items that are great fried food drainers
I’m one of those weirdos who doesn’t really use paper towels anymore (barring holiday parties, because several bottles of wine can make a mess of us all), but I still fry food. Here’s what I use instead.
Paper egg cartons are one of my favorite materials to use for soaking up excess oil for a few reasons. Eggs are my favorite food, and I go through about a dozen a week, so for the occasional apple fritter, I can always reach into my recycling bin and pull out a carton or two. Since it’s made of an unfinished porous paper, the airy carton is the perfect soaking material. Finally, the divots! Unlike most other paper products, egg cartons are shaped with little pockets, so these cartons can do a little double duty depending on what you’re frying. They can soak up the dripping oil with multiple points of contact and also serve as a makeshift drying rack if you lay the food across the ridges. To make the most of your egg carton oil-rack, open it up, or separate the top from the bottom to utilize both sides. (Just to be clear, the plastic or foam ones won’t work; recycle those.)
Paper grocery bags are oft destined to live multiple lives as everything from potato planting aids to textbook covers (why was that a thing? Doodling?). They’re great for fried food, too, because you can get a lot of usable surface area out of one bag. I like to cut the bag along the seams into five planks and use the inside surface to drain my freshly fried morsels. Newspapers are similarly effective (see: the traditional fish and chips) even though they are less commonly used that way today than in the past.
Cardboard is another clutch member of your de-greasing team. The modern reliance on online ordering means you are undoubtedly well-stocked in cardboard boxes. Other cardboard carriers, like pizza boxes and some other to-go food boxes, are also made of paper. As with a paper bag, I’ll cut the box up along the seams and use the inside-facing surface to drain the oil off of fried food. This is my last resort choice from the above options, as cardboard isn’t as absorbent as the others, and I am suspicious of where boxes have been. Obviously don’t use any boxes that look visibly beat up, use the inside surface, and try not to think too hard about it. Pizza boxes are ideal because they were already used for food you trusted, and most cities don’t let you recycle cardboard that has oil on it anyway (though some will let you compost them). Give it a second life by having it soak up more oil, since they’re already out of the running for recycling anyway.
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Tea towels are the ultimate reusable fried food-drying material. I have acquired a large collection of tea towels and dish towels over the years (my mom gives me them compulsively ), so designating two or three to the service of oil capturing is reasonable. (However, if you happen to live in an apartment and the only washer is down the street, this isn’t the most practical option.) It’s simple enough: use the tea towels to soak up extra oil, then wash them with a good amount of soap and white vinegar in the hottest water you can get, alongside only equally soiled fabrics. Note that tea towels are different from dish towels—they are usually made of a tight weave, thin cotton and do not have a piling, while dish towels have looped thread pilings and loose fuzz. That’s nice and absorbent for your hands and dishes, but can get stuck to food. No one wants fuzz on their fries.
