Clever uses for ice cube trays

Don’t get watered down

Hate it when your drinks get watered down from ice cubes? Think juices, iced coffee, tea, and even wine (when you need to chill it in a hurry).

Instead of tossing your leftover coffee from the pot, pour it into ice cube trays to freeze it. When you’re ready to make iced coffee later in the day, add the coffee cubes to your drink — that way, nothing will come between you and your caffeine! Do the same with just about any beverage you enjoy chilled but don’t want to water down with ice cubes.

Beautiful baubles

Some stores give you boxes when you buy a pair of earrings, but seriously — how many of those boxes can you fit on a shelf? Make it easy on yourself when it’s time to accessorize and use plastic ice cube trays to organize your earrings. They’re perfectly sized to hold everything from hoops to studs to chandeliers — and you won’t have to worry about your favorite pairs tangling together.

Baubles galore: Must-have jewelry pieces >>

Presto — pesto!

You need dinner quick! If only you had pesto on hand, you wouldn’t have to eat frozen pizza (again), and you could enjoy a hearty, healthy plate of pasta. The next time you make pesto, make an extra batch, add it to an ice cube tray and freeze. When you need dinner in a hurry place a pesto cube over your hot pasta for a tasty meal, pronto!

Also consider an ice cube tray to freeze other leftovers like tomato paste (when was the last time a recipe called for the entire can?) or herbs — just remove the stems, chop or tear the herbs and add a little water to the squares. When you need some added flavor, drop an herb cube into your dish (or defrost it first) or homemade soup stock. One cube is equal to about two tablespoons. Photo courtesy of Damon Hearne.

Nine-to-five necessities

When the office vending machine is calling your name, you want change, and fast! Drawers too messy to find anything? Here’s a solution: bring a plastic ice cube tray to work and stash it in your desk drawer to hold everything from keys to jump drives to coins for vending machine candy bars. It’ll all be within reach — no more rummaging around for those elusive paper clips and rubber bands!

Read up on 10 ways to keep your sanity in the office >>

Once you get the hang of using ice cube trays for things other than, well, ice cubes, you’ll probably find even more handy uses for this under-utilized kitchen standby!