Best way to zest lemon
These tips will have you happily zesting and juicing lemons to your heart’s content!
Choosing your lemons
Pick lemons that have a smooth and bright exterior and are heavy for their size.
Store on the kitchen bench if you intend to use them in a few days or refrigerate in a paper bag for up to a month in the crisper.
Before zesting, wash the lemon in very hot water to remove any dirt or coating on the fruit.
Rind v juice: which to tackle first?
If the recipe calls for both rind and juice, always remove the rind first. It’s much easier to finely grate/zest a whole lemon than half a lemon.
Best tools for zesting
Our preferred tool is a fine, sharp grater, like a microplane, to remove the outer yellow rind in fine flakes, perfect for baking.
A lemon zesting tool will remove thin strips of rind, more suited to savoury dishes. The white pith underneath the rind is quite bitter so best to avoid grating too deeply.
Lemon delicious
An aerial view of a cooking pan with lemon parmesan pan chicken, one of our popular chicken breast recipes
lemon cake
Chilli, lemon and garlic spaghetti
