This kitchen helper you never knew you needed is just $4 for Amazon’s Prime Day in October

My friends find it funny to walk into my kitchen and make snarky comments about the rubber mallet sitting on my counter.

“Nice hammer you have there,” they chuckle.

I get it; a hammer is not the usual cooking tool you would expect. But I’m going to tell you why it belongs in my kitchen, and why I think you should throw it out this particular rubber mallet which just had a 65% off Amazon Prime Day deal and now costs just $4. (While you’re at it, these other great kitchen gadgets also have Prime Day sales.)

Picture this: stubborn jar lids that pop open easily. Ice melted into icebergs that shattered into usable chunks. Breaking ginger. Garlic peels fly. Meat in zip lock bags, gently massaged to uniform thinness and ready to be breaded for your air fryer. It turns out that many cooking tasks benefit from a few gentle taps – or claps – of a blunt force instrument.

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In fact, this past weekend I used the rubber mallet to tap the vertical sides of six Costco-sized jars of Rao’s Marinara sauce (the best!) to create a dish you can prepare for a big birthday party. host this Saturday.

It all started one particularly grueling and soul-sapping evening when I was solo in my kitchen and lost the battle against a tight lid. I had tried every safe method I could think of, including this tool for opening jars I’ve never had any luck with gripping the lid with a towel, holding the jar under a stream of hot water, banging on the sides and bottom to loosen the seal, even unwisely inserting a butter knife point between the lid and pot lip.

(My colleague, editor-in-chief David Watsky, uses the spines of quality kitchen shears to open jars — I love them my scissorsbut know that in doing so I would find a way to hurt myself.)

Then I texted a dear friend with many physical adjustments in his life, who lives alone: ​​“How are you You open jars?” I completely trusted his recommendation and five minutes later my purchase was confirmed. Now when friends laugh at my kitchen hammer, I laugh right back. They have no idea what they are missing.

I don’t worry about bashing myself with this rubber mallet, and I’ve never come close to hitting my own thumb. With a light tap of the hammer along the edges of a lid, it opens more easily and releases the vacuum. (You’ll still need to have dry hands for grip or else use a towel.) This hammer method is dead simple, takes seconds, and works every time—no protective goggles required. I have to admit, swinging a hammer around the kitchen is a lot of fun.

The head of the hammer can easily be covered in a clean bag or cloth if you are using it with meat, but I usually cover the food at the point of contact, rather than the hammer.

Occasionally I even use the rubber mallet for non-culinary utilitarian tasks, like hammering in those pesky dowel ends when assembling furniture. But the next time a friend chides me with a “why do you have a hammer in your kitchen?”, I grab the jar with the tightest lid I can find for a demo — and then send them the link above.

For even smarter Amazon Prime Day purchases, there’s my Braun do-it-all portable hand blender Now 20% discountthis Made In cookware I swear by is up to 25% discount and here are even more curated Prime Day sales for under $100.