Ina Garten's Brilliant Cauliflower-Cutting Tip Will Save You From A Mess

Crunchy cauliflower can be turned into everything from barbecue "wings" to pizza crust. But chopping up the versatile vegetable can be a challenge for some. "Barefoot Contessa" host and author Ina Garten tackled that task in a short but helpful video posted to her Instagram account in late September.

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"Someone wrote to us and asked, 'How do you cut cauliflower so it doesn't get all over your kitchen?'" Garten says in the video. The query puzzled the author — why would cutting cauliflower make such a mess?

But then she says she realized that if cooks are cutting the head of cauliflower straight through the white top, a mess could indeed ensue. But that's not how Garten does it, she said, going on to demonstrate. She flips the cauliflower over so it's resting on its white top, and using a sharp knife, cuts out the green core. Then she takes a large piece of the white flesh, cuts through its stem, and breaks the vegetable into individual florets.

Seems simple? Garten's video has been watched nearly 500,000 times since it was posted on September 26, and some commenters are very thankful for the tip.

"I honestly can't understand how I never understood this before," wrote Instagram user @madgalactic. "I'm a good cook, a great prep cook and I always cut broccoli this way. Yet .... this never occurred to me."

And another Instagram user, @christina.cummins, wrote: "Why did it take till 2018 for someone to show me this?" But whether or not the cauliflower tip was already in your cooking arsenal, you can learn 10 things you didn't know about Ina Garten.