This Is the Easiest Way to Peel Ginger

If you’ve ever picked up a large, knobbly piece of fresh ginger at the store and wondered how to peel gingerroot easily, you’re not alone. Some of these knobs look like a cross between a hand, a chicken comb and a sea creature! There are a few different ways to peel ginger, but the easiest method uses a tool that can easily get around all those weird bumps and lumps. Quietly hiding among your flatware, a regular metal spoon makes quick work of ginger’s tender skin, removing it so you can make your favorite fresh ginger recipes whenever the mood strikes.

The Best Way to Peel Ginger

The best way to peel ginger is with an everyday sturdy metal spoon—not a large cooking spoon, but one you might use to eat cereal. First, break or cut off only as much ginger as you need (store the rest unpeeled). Hold the ginger in one hand and the spoon in the other, and drag the edge or tip of the spoon over the ginger to remove the skin. It really is as easy as that!

We love this method because you don’t need any special equipment and there’s no risk of getting cut as you glide the spoon over the ginger’s irregular surface (ginger is anything but stick-straight). The spoon acts more like a scraper than a knife, removing only the thinnest outer layer, which minimizes waste so you don’t end up trimming usable ginger or digging into the flesh and creating a stringy, juicy mess.

Other Ways to Peel Ginger

If you’re skeptical about the spoon method, you can learn how to peel gingerroot easily with a vegetable peeler or a paring knife (a must-have kitchen knife everyone should own). To remove the skin with a paring knife, trim off the bottom and top of the ginger. Stand it upright on a cutting board, and make thin vertical slices straight down. You can follow the curves of any large offshoots, but for minor bumps it’s easier just to cut them off.

To peel ginger with a vegetable peeler, lay the knob flat on a cutting board. Hold one end of the ginger and swipe away from you to remove the skin. Vegetable peelers are sharp, so never peel toward your fingertips. When the first side is peeled, flip the ginger over and repeat the process. I prefer Y-shaped vegetable peelers for this type of task. They are comfortable to hold and can easily maneuver around various shapes.

Do you have to peel ginger?

Ginger skin is edible, so you don’t have to remove the peel. That said, there are certain recipes and situations where peeled ginger is better. Young ginger has thin, tender skin that doesn’t look or taste much different from the yellow interior. As it gets older and loses moisture, the skin becomes darker, thicker and less pleasant to eat. If your ginger has been sitting in the crisper bin for a while, it’s probably best to peel it.

In blended recipes like carrot ginger soup or ginger dressing, peeling ginger is unnecessary. The skin will get blitzed when pureed and become unnoticeable. For uncooked recipes like cucumber-ginger salad, I often prefer to remove the peel so the finished dish looks and tastes fresher.

Should you peel ginger before freezing it?

I don’t recommend peeling ginger before freezing it. When you store ginger unpeeled, whether you’re stashing it in the refrigerator or the freezer, the skin protects the ginger’s interior so it stays juicier and maintains a brighter taste. Simply add unpeeled ginger to a freezer-proof storage bag, squeeze out the excess air and seal it well.

You don’t need to thaw ginger before using it, so it’s easy to grab at a moment’s notice. In fact, thawed ginger can become soft and watery, so it’s actually better to use it while frozen. I like to grate frozen ginger on a microplane, as the tender skin will easily shred but tougher skin won’t pass through the microplane’s blades. Since it’s unpeeled, I can grab a piece, grate however much I need and return the rest to the freezer bag.