If you ever cook with ginger, you know how much of a difference it can make to use fresh ginger root instead of that dried powder stuff. The tricky part about using fresh ginger, though, is peeling it. It’s so bumpy and irregular that if you try to use a knife to cut away the skin and knobs, you’ll end up left with a small rectangle of gingery goodness and a lot of waste on the cutting board.

That is, of course, unless you use a spoon. A spoon? Yup! It may sound silly, but trust us — an ordinary, dull spoon is the perfect tool for peeling fresh ginger.

Just hold the ginger firmly in your hand and scrape the edge of the spoon along the surface. The skin will peel away quickly and easily, with very little effort.

Even the lumpy bumps of a ginger root are easy to peel with a spoon, and you’ll be left with a beautiful piece of peeled ginger and almost zero waste.