This Is the Right Way to Use Plastic Wrap
Here's a scenario I think almost anyone can relate to: you pull off a square of plastic wrap to secure your leftovers for another day. But wait! In your haste, your hand slipped against the twisting package and your palm brushed the sharp metal teeth! Ouch! Unfortunately, as sharp as those teeth were, they don't seem to have torn the plastic cleanly. You drape the unevenly torn plastic over the dish and stretch it from one side to the next. It doesn't stay. You try again—surely a larger piece of plastic is the solution. It is not. You throw an irrational fit that ends in broken relationships and devastated dreams. Your casserole is still not covered.
Put the aluminum down! Unlined pans get you better vegetables in less time and the same amount of mess.
If you're tired of this post-dinner dance, do what the pros do and master the hotel wrap, a technique in which you completely encase a dish in plastic by tightly wrapping the plastic wrap all the way around the dish. This forces the plastic to adhere to itself—as it's meant to do—instead of to ceramic or metal or glass, which only works some of the time. If you're really serious about it, you can buy food-service grade cling film or a reusable plastic wrap dispenser, but whatever brand you keep around at home should work too. Here's how to do it:
1. Set the Box of Plastic Wrap on the Counter
Place the box on the counter so that it's parallel to the dish you're wrapping.
2. Hold the Box Down While You Pull Out the Plastic Wrap
Pull out a length of plastic that's about twice as long as the dish you want to cover. Stretch the plastic across the counter or let it hang down off of the counter in front of you, but do not detach the plastic from the box.
Here's the Right Way to Use Plastic Wrap 1
Photo by Chelsea Kyle, Food Styling by Pearl Jones3. Place Dish on Top of Plastic
Place the dish on top of the plastic, close to the box.
4. Cover the Dish
Pull the loose end of the plastic tautly over the dish and secure it wherever it lands. If the loose end is longer than the dish, lift up the side of the dish closest to the box and tuck the wrap underneath. If the wrap is too short, keep pulling out more plastic until it completely covers the top of the dish, with a few inches of overhang. To secure the wrapping, rip the wrap with the teeth of the storage box, and pull the ripped end tautly around the edge of the dish, making sure to layer plastic on top of plastic.
Here's the Right Way to Use Plastic Wrap 2
Photo by Chelsea Kyle, Food Styling by Pearl Jones5. Repeat if Necessary
If the dish is wider than the plastic wrap, you can perform this wrapping method twice, cheating a little to the left or right in order to cover both edges. You could also wrap the dish one way, then turn the dish a quarter turn and repeat to wrap the exposed sides. The general rule of thumb is that you want to cover the dish in three separate layers of plastic to keep smells locked in place (whether that means smells emanating from the dish you've just covered or other refrigerator smells from getting into the dish).
To remove the plastic, don't try and peel it away. You'll be there for hours. Instead, just take a paring knife and make a shallow slice into the plastic, then use your hands to pull it away. You won't be able to reuse this plastic, so this is not a #wasteless tip, but if you're left without a proper storage container, or you're on your way to a potluck and don't want your dish sloshing around in the backseat, it's an indispensable trick.
