5 Favorite Apple Hacks | Best Way to Store Apples & How to Keep Apples from Turning Brown

Become an apple savant with these five easy apple hacks. Whether it’s peeling, slicing, or storing, we’ve got you covered. After all, an apple may be nature’s perfect portable snack, but many recipes — including our Blue Ribbon Deep-Dish Apple Pie and Old-Fashioned Apple Crisp — require that you peel, core, and slice up to a dozen apples. Speed up the process with these apple hacks, including the best way to peel apples, the best way to store apples, and how to keep apples from turning brown.

5 FAVORITE APPLE HACKS

1. THE BEST APPLE TOOLS

We’re not especially brand-sensitive, but we do rely on these four tools to make easy work of processing whole apples for cooking: (clockwise from top left) a basic corer; an adjustable corer-slicer, which allows you to cut 1/4-inch and 1/2-inch slices; a sharp peeler; and an old-fashioned peeler/corer/slicer.

2. THE BEST WAY TO PEEL APPLES

The best way to peel apples is to first peel around the top and bottom in a circle, leaving the sides intact. Then peel the sides from top to bottom, turning the fruit as you go. Using this method, we can peel the 10 apples we need for apple crisp in about 10 minutes.

3. THE BEST WAY TO SLICE APPLES: PIE VS. CRISP EDITION

Apple pie and apple crisp both call for peeled, sliced apples, but for the best texture in the finished dish, we prefer thicker slices for pie and thinner ones for crisp.

To get these shapes, we used a corer/slicer for pie and a peeler/corer/slicer for the crisp.

4. THE BEST WAY TO STORE APPLES

An apple grower once told us that the best way to store apples is in a paper bag in the root cellar. That’s great advice … if you happen to have a root cellar. For the rest of us, the best way to store apples is in a paper bag in the produce bin of the refrigerator. And if you don’t have a paper bag? Just poke some holes in a plastic one. Both techniques work surprisingly well.

5. HOW TO KEEP APPLES FROM TURNING BROWN

To prevent oxidation on your apple slices (the process by which apple slices turn brown), soak them in lemon water (2 tablespoons lemon juice per six cups of water) until ready to use. An even better tip for how to keep apples from turning brown? Use apples that don’t brown easily in the first place, such as Empire, Fuji, Gala, Golden Delicious, and Piñata. Do you have favorite apple hacks, tips, or tricks of your own for the best way to store apples and how to keep apples from turning brown? Let us know!

SEE MORE: 10 Best Apples for Apple PieBest Apple Orchards in New EnglandWhat Should I Do With All These Apples? | Ask the Expert