Keep Your Butter Wrappers For A Mess-Free Microwave Experience

You may have read this title and asked yourself, "Why would I want to keep my butter wrappers at all?" Fair question and the answer is a simple "for sustainability." If you're already taking steps like reducing your takeout container usage and fighting food waste at home, why wouldn't you want to start repurposing items you may have previously viewed as trash?

There are actually quite a few uses for leftover butter wrappers, but let's focus on just one today: reducing the chaos in your microwave. We've all been there before. We've all tossed in an uncovered bowl of tomato soup despite knowing better, or popped in a plate of meat without realizing the sauce it's slathered in is about to blast all six sides of the appliance. We've all left behind a few splatters and done a haphazard cleaning job when we're just too hungry to wait (at least, I sure hope we have and I'm not just revealing what a lone slob I am). Fortunately, you can reuse butter wrappers as a handy dish cover to stop food you're reheating from making a mess in your microwave.

Before you get started, there's one important thing to note. If your butter wrapper contains foil, don't microwave it. Putting metal in the microwave is, as most of us know, a terrible idea. Only do this if you buy butter in a wax wrapper. Now, there aren't any complicated tricks to using your butter wrapper as a microwave-safe lid. Just spread it flat or tent it and lay it over the top of whatever bowl, plate, or dish you're microwaving. This trick works best when you're trying to soften or melt butter for a recipe. Take the butter block out of its paper, drop it in a dish, then cover the dish with the wrapper. You can then use the wrapper to grease pans or baking sheets, before washing it clean for reuse. Just make sure it's totally cleaned of all butter residue and let it dry completely before storing it away. 

Once dry, you can treat it like any other wax paper. Personally, I like using mine to store sticky foods in the fridge, like caramel-coated apple slices and small portions of homemade marshmallow fluff. It's super easy to grab a wrapper and pop it over bowls of soup or breakfast sandwiches, too, and it's more sustainable than turning to paper towels. It may seem like a small step toward sustainability in your kitchen, but even the smallest efforts eventually make a big impact.