The Alien-Looking Tool that Makes Me Really Happy in the Kitchen

Written by

Shifrah Combiths
Shifrah Combiths
With five children, Shifrah is learning a thing or two about how to keep a fairly organized and pretty clean house with a grateful heart in a way that leaves plenty of time for the people who matter most. Shifrah grew up in San Francisco, but has come to appreciate smaller town…read more
published Nov 15, 2017
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(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

Last spring when my mother was in town, she offered to help me make an epic month-long supply of freezer meals. While preparing for the task, I came across a recommendation for a kitchen tool that I’d never seen or heard of before. Now they make me happy every time I have an occasion to use them. They’re so delightfully handy, I’ve even given them as gifts.

These are bag holders, and while their color and shape always make me think of extra-terrestrial arms, they’re designed to keep food storage bags effortlessly propped open for filling. As a bonus, they fold down almost flat for easy storage and have a round, slip-proof base. They’re my new best kitchen pals.

Why I Love These Plastic Bag Holders

Having open bags waiting for you to fill them makes assembling freezer meals a breeze. No more wrestling open slippery bags to dump in a teaspoon of this, a dash of that, and the chopped onions that fly everywhere as you’re trying to stuff them in the bag by the handful. When I meal prep, I set up my opened-wide bags in a short assembly line of four and, honestly, the thought of bringing out my green little friends gives me that extra nudge to just do it.

I most appreciate the bag holders when I’m apportioning raw meat into bags. No more clutching a slippery, slimy hunk of meat while trying to open a bag or struggling to keep the juices from dripping on the outside of the bag. Now it’s plop, plop, plop with only my hands to wash afterwards.

Freezer meal prep isn’t the only time they get to come out and play. Ever try to pour chicken stock into a Ziploc bag? Or wrangle leftovers into one? These bag holders make me feel so with it in the kitchen. And they save me from having to clean up many a splattered mess.

They can also be used as extra on-the-counter drying racks for rags or plastic gloves, as the friend who received some as a gift showed me in a text. Another friend suggested using them to fill pastry bags with frosting. I’ll definitely be trying that.

While I at least claim to be wary of gadgets that perform just one task, these bag holders do their job so well that they’ll always have a home in my kitchen.