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Home Tips and techniques

Best way to zest lemon

For most avid cooks, lemons are a staple and an ingredient we certainly can’t do without in the Test Kitchen.
lemon delicious pudding

These tips will have you happily zesting and juicing lemons to your heart’s content!

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Choosing your lemons

Pick lemons that have a smooth and bright exterior and are heavy for their size.

Store on the kitchen bench if you intend to use them in a few days or refrigerate in a paper bag for up to a month in the crisper.

Before zesting, wash the lemon in very hot water to remove any dirt or coating on the fruit.

Rind v juice: which to tackle first?

If the recipe calls for both rind and juice, always remove the rind first. It’s much easier to finely grate/zest a whole lemon than half a lemon.

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Best tools for zesting

Our preferred tool is a fine, sharp grater, like a microplane, to remove the outer yellow rind in fine flakes, perfect for baking.

A lemon zesting tool will remove thin strips of rind, more suited to savoury dishes. The white pith underneath the rind is quite bitter so best to avoid grating too deeply.

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