


Gather the strips together and cut them crosswise into very fine dice.
#HOW TO ZEST A LEMON SKIN#
Place the strip of lemon skin flat on a cutting surface and cut it lengthwise into very thin strips, julienning the peel. If needed, you can use a knife to scrape off any pith on the strip of lemon. The peeler should easily grab just the zest, but you’ll need to be a little more precise with the knife. Take your vegetable peeler or paring knife and cut a strip of yellow skin off of the lemon. There are two common tools you can use to get the skin off of your lemon without one of these specialty tools: a paring knife or a vegetable peeler.Ī cheese grater might seem like a good option, but often the grates are either too deep or too shallow to efficiently get the zest off of the citrus. Simply hold the zester steady and slide the lemon down over the shape textured side.
#HOW TO ZEST A LEMON HOW TO#
How to zest a lemon Option 1: Use a microplane or zesterĪ microplane or a zester is designed to make very shallow cuts in the skin of a lemon, peeling off the oil-filled skin without removing any pith. The pith is somewhat bitter and does not contain much lemon flavor, so you don’t want to mix any of that in with your zest. The white part underneath the colorful skin is called the pith. If you pierce the skin of a lemon, you’ll probably see a small spray of what looks like lemon juice coming from the peel. The zest is the yellow skin of a lemon, or the outer layer of any citrus fruit It is loaded with citrus oil, where a lot of the aroma and flavor of the lemon is concentrated. The easiest way to zest a lemon is using a dedicated microplane or zester, but it is absolutely possible to get that lemon zest even without any special tools! What is lemon zest? Lemon zest is an essential ingredient in both sweet and savory cooking.
